A major benefit to being part of a community of coops is that it smooths out contracting - surplus of work can be re-distrubuted to excellent humans.
This is great for small coops who have not enough work or too much work.
It’s also great for clients contacting the coops in the collective - they get guaranteed service and don’t need to be concerned with availability.
Sharing work raises a bunch of questions. I see two broad cases: (A) the whole lead is passed to another coop (see bun protocol) (B) a coop sub-contracts people from another coop
From my own experience, I’ve done a lot of work as a solo +1 on other people’s contracts. It’s a great way to work.
Doing the same but being part of a coop has added complications. Here’ are some notes from a retro on sub-contracting with our neighbouring coop, Root Systems.
We had a great time. A couple of choice pains + learnings :
onboarding into the host coop’s (values | preferred systems | processes) is key
discussing clearly and early saves a lot
know who to escelate out of scope problems to in the host coop
The values on the top of my mind are:
Clarity about money dealings is non-negotiable
I prefer rhythms + patterns over repeated negotiation
I want all coops to build their buffers (resiliency)
clearly and early saves a lot