CooPon

1. Primarily has been getting people together to work for Katalys (including me of course). This requires focus and attention from all parties involved. But given that everyone is trying to make a living, have personal objectives and life to balance - the time needed to make this functional is stretched to months if not years.
2. Finding a good CA for advice and registration. The CA, we found, asked what our motive was and then provided advice appropriately for registration.
3. Reliable and trust worthy technical resource. Finding technical resource with FOSS groups is not at all difficult. The difficulty is trust & commitment from the people you rely on. This directly affects the relationship with the 'client' who depends on you fo

1. Project management - Irrespective of how corporate it sounds, it is absolutely necessary. Proper project management tools are necessary for meeting deadlines on time.
2. People management - Keeping a check on them as well, personal and professional, as the work they are going is crucial to delivering the project on time. This is not in terms of hierarchy or any of that, just that not everyone in the team has the ability to stay on track making - Quite often, because of all our background in Free Software and openness, we indulge in discussions that never stop. Individual leading the project must make sure that discussions are fruitful, otherwise it takes twice the amount to get something done if not more. If somebody is experienced and able, that topic shouldn't be revisited. Trust and let them do their bit.
3. Sales - The end user paying for the project is not technical (most of the times). Sales hat to talk their talk instead of providing them our ideology on how things should work. They need something delivered within a given budget and time, it is up to us for utilising it.
4. What's already available out there? - We shouldn't be reinventing the wheel here. Research, analysis, and knowledge of existing
5. FOSS is critical. Knowing a FOSS meets all requirements reduces costs and time invested. If the objective is to get FOSS out there and low bandwidth, it should be done with less time reinventing the wheel. Use what's already available. Analysis on the difficulty of modifying an existing FOSS is necessary. Not all FOSS has standardised good code. If a wrong decision at this point, that's a big blow.
6. Unordered List ItemDocumentation - Every meeting, discussion, requirement, code going into the project should be documented. The availability of anyone is always questionable. Transitioning knowledge to others should happen seamlessly.
7. Quotation and budgeting - If it costs 'x', quote '2x' or more depending on the client. Murphy's law - “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. I've had my share of misjudgement on costs, and that affects everyone involved in the project directly.

Every member of the cooperative has something to share and something to learn from other memebers. Thus Learning, Unlearning, becomes part of the cooperative, which is also one essential guiding principles of cooperatives. Learning involves :

1. Self Managing Responsibilities (Personal, Professional, Social)
2. Time Managing & Prioritizing Responsibilities, Tasks
3. Professional Skills & Tools Learning

Learning skills and tools are not two seperate things. They are indivisible. Every second spent on acquiring new skill and command over the tools involves labour. But it is the commitment that transforms into knowledge, experience and most of the times as a means for economic support.

Since most of our skills are centered around electronics spanning from analog instrumentation to digital services, covering a broadband spectrum of tools which we have so far catalogued and categorized series of free software and hardware tools - catalytic medium that help us launch individually and collectively to create product and service in the market.

With every learning, confidence, courage and critical thinking improves. Sharing & Empathy improves.