Identify a new problem (See Less Detailed Version) Detailed version (Below):

1. When you hear about a problem, brainstorm to see if it’s a one-off or if there’s a broader issue. (This is mostly done off-site right now, but we’re trying to figure out what tools we could add to our site to help).
2. See if it’s already uploaded, if so: see it needs to be updated. If not, upload a new problem to the site.

Create/upload a Problem (Less Detailed Version) Detailed version (Below):

1. Write a problem title and quick description.
1. Initial title can be tied to news articles.
2. Broad but descriptive.
2. Ask for help/assemble a team.
3. Conduct research & flesh out a description.
1. Generate a bulleted list of potential items to research.
2. Review and improve the list: pare out unnecessary words to make each bullet concise, wordsmith to remove confusion.
3. Identify which items describe the problem, which tie more to the overarching context, and which fall into any of the other categories below.
Populate Impact and Likelihood.
1. Impacts:
1. Severity:
1. Absolute Worst: everyone involved would either die, result in permanent and irreversible loss of freedom, and/or permanent and irreversible inability to support oneself or one's family.
2. Freaking Horrendous: some would die/some would be injured, serious impacts to financial well being.
3. Still a tragedy: some or all injured, manageable impacts to rights, and/or ability to pursue happiness.
4. Hard to say: less quantifiable impacts, usually accumulates over time. For instance, gradual changes in societal norms that could lead to dire consequences.
5. It Just Sucks: Impacts to quality of life.
6. It's barely an issue: "Ow! I stubbed my toe!"
2. Area:
1. Absolutely Everyone: This would impact 80%-100% of humanity.
2. Whole Continents: 20-80% of the world could be impacted.
3. Sub-Continent: Impacts to approx 5-19%. Would include impacts to the entirety of one of the largest countries. (At or over 100 million people/ over 800,000 square miles/200,000 square kilometers).
4. Nation-level: Impacts to the average country/ larger regions within larger countries (over 10 million people/ over 800,000 square miles/200,000 square kilometers).
5. State/Territory level: Equivalent to average state or territory, or one of the largest cities/regions (over 3 million people/ 40,000 square miles/100,000 square kilometers).
6. Regional: Med-large cities, metropolitan areas, large portions of states.
7. Local: towns/smaller cities, city blocks.
8. Neighborhood: blocks within towns.
9. Individual: a couple people.
10. Minor: I dunno...someone's little toe?
2. Likelihood:
1. How Likely:
1. Definitely going to/did happen (95-100%).
2. Probably (85-95%).
3. Maybe (75-85%).
4. Could happen (50-75%).
5. Possibility (25-50%).
6. Not likely (15-25%).
7. Probably not (5-15%).
8. Definitely not (0-5%).
2. When:
1. It’s already happened.
2. Immediate Future (<1 week).
3. Soon (<3 months).
4. Before you know it (<1 year).
5. Foreseeable Future (<10 years).
6. In Our Lifetimes (<30 years).
7. Our Kid's Problem (<75 years).
8. It'll be someone's problem (>75 years).
4. Context.
1. Additional details on the environment that the issue occurs in, the driving forces behind it, and other factors that might be relevant.
1. Environment to include location/region (entire country, entire world, localized). (Both physical, or societal.)
2. How is the environment different from others?
3. How has it evolved over time? Trends?
4. Societal factors?
5. Tie to metrics, data and studies.
1. Is the study (or metric) on that’s recurring, or a one-off?
2. Would they need additional funds needed for future studies?
3. Are there other potential studies or metrics that would help to measure this?
6. Identify topics for future research/areas where help is needed to research.
1. To include something as simple as ideas that you didn’t have time to delve into on Google, or something as complicated as an experiment that a lab should run, and/or if you couldn’t think of what metrics to tie to.
7. Hashtags.
1. Labels to help advertise and make it easier to find on the site.
8. Submit it.
1. Note: You will be assigned a task for any sections not completed, so you may get a notification after you submit. You can complete (or ignore) these at your leisure. (Details for tasks are in the maintaining issues or solutions section(s)).

Problem/Solution Development, Updates, and Maintenance (and coordination with your team) (See Less Detailed Version) Detailed version (Below):

1. You will need to be logged in in order to edit issues and collaborate with other users.
2. Each problem/ solution has a collaboration page you can use to edit the problem/solution description, manage the team, send messages to the team/individuals, assign/provide updates to tasks, and identify potential resources.
1. You can reach the collab page by either clicking “Collaborate on this issue” from the problem/solution description page, or by clicking your username->selecting “Your issues/solutions”->and clicking “Collab Center” for the problem or solution that you want to collaborate on.
3. Edit the problem/solution description:
1. Works the same as adding a new problem/solution, only this time the boxes come pre-populated.
2. Also have the option of deleting the problem/solution (if you’re the lead for it).
Manage the team (Click “Team Members” button):
1. Either join the team, take on another role, or remove yourself from a role.
2. Team members can have different roles. These help teammates know who can help with certain tasks, and help everyone else to know who does what. Only “required” roles are: ‘lead’ and ‘member’.
3. If you’re the lead you can remove team members (except other leads), and you’re the default for any tasks that are assigned.
4. If you are the lead, you can’t quit the team until you find another lead. (If you need another lead, email me at Matt@WellThenFixIt.com.
5. By default, all users can join as members. If you are lead, you can remove them as desired.
6. All users can request to become lead, you can approve their request or remove them from the role. (Note: Once they are approved as lead, you cannot remove them).
7. If you are not the lead, you can request it.
Send messages/bulletins:
1. Select bulletin board from the Problem/Solution Collab center (or your account view). You can create posts to everyone (including the public), everyone on the team, all of a certain role, or specific users. (It acts like a bulletin board if it’s addressed to “public” and like messages if it’s just addressed to you).
2. You can also edit messages you’ve already sent, delete messages, and reply to messages.
3. Note: Each collab center will only show the messages/bulletins related to that problem/solution. The message button from your account will show you all messages/bulletins addressed to you.
Tasks:
1. Tasks are one of the key ways to tackle these large efforts. They can either be created by you or automatically created by the website. The simple ones can be knocked out quickly, the harder ones can keep updates on the tasks as they’re being worked.
2. Tasks are found by: selecting task list from the Problem/Solution Collab center (shows all the tasks for that Problem/solution); selecting task list from your account page (shows all the tasks you’re assigned to); selecting All Tasks from the home page (Coming soon!).
3. A couple things to walk through for tasks: creating them, accepting or rejecting, updating/modifying, closing tasks, and helping others with tasks.
4. Creating Tasks:
1. Click on Add Task above the list of tasks, this will take you to a new page.
2. Fill in the task title, pick a due date (date the task should be completed by), and confirm that your username is in the from textbox.
3. If you already know who the task is going to be assigned to, you can type it in. Otherwise, click on See Directory and it will open up a new tab. You can assign an action to the entire team, everyone in a particular role (E.G. lead, etc), or specific people. Check all the boxes that need to be checked, click on the “Copy Text” button, close the tab, and paste into either the “Recommend actionee(s)” or “Add to info” textboxes.
4. Try to take a guess at how hard/how long the task will take to complete. (Note: this does not have to match the due date, but shouldn’t exceed the due date. If a task will take 30 minutes of dedicated time, it may still take someone a week to find 30 minutes of dedicated time, we are mostly volunteers after all).
5. Fill in the task description (what the task actually is).
6. Fill in if there are any needs and a description of that need would be. For instance, if the task is to create a website, the actionee may need to find money or have programming skills in order to make that happen. If you think the actionee may need help with these skills, you can select yes or no next to the “need help”. Tasks that need help are called out in the task lists.
7. Add labels, status updates and notes. Labels are other ways you could describe the task for anyone looking for it (for example, a scheduling task, a task about a movement like black lives matter, etc). Status updates record the progress as a task is being worked. Notes are just for whoever makes them, and are not publicly visible.
5. Accepting or rejecting tasks:
1. If you assign a task to yourself, or click on “Help Out” for a task, you accept it by default. However, if someone else assigns you a task you need to either accept it or reject it before it’s officially in your queue.
2. If you’re on the tasklist view, there will be a note stating that someone recommended you as actionee, and buttons to click to accept or reject that.
3. Otherwise, you can go to the task description, and scroll down until you see buttons that either say “Add Me” or “Not Today”.
6. Updating/Modifying Tasks:
1. Once you’ve accepted a task, it’s on you (and the others in the “To” list) to work the action. You can modify any of the sections from the “Creating Task” section whenever you want. Since I covered those already, let me just cover what’s different in this section, and what fields you’re going to be checking out more regularly.
2. What’s Different:
1. Is Help Needed: Under the title there is not an option to identify if you need help. If you’re stuck, go ahead and select yes and then “submit update(s)” at the bottom.
2. Agree/disagree to become an actionee and Close Task (discussed above and below, respectively).
3. Regular updates:
1. Due date: If you’re not going to complete the task on time you can either change the due date or just blow past it and complete it late. Depends on the preferences for you, whomever else is working it, and whomever is expecting you to complete it (whoever assigned it to you, for instance).
2. Status Updates: Keep everyone up to date on the latest things you’ve been doing on the task, or if you’re waiting for something else before you can close it out.
3. Notes: If there’s something you want to tell yourself (but not everyone else that can see the task) you can write it in the notes section.
7. Closing tasks:
1. You can click on the close button on for each task on the tasklist, or you can click on the task description (AKA Modify) and click close from there.
2. Recommend that you add one last status update prior to closing (to help yourself and anyone else that has similar tasks in the future).
8. Helping others with tasks:
1. First find a task on the task list that are marked as needing help, or just a tasks where you think you could/want to lend a hand. Depending on just how much help you’re willing to offer up, there are a couple options.
2. You can be added as an actionee: help complete whatever the task is, write status updates, etc.
3. You can message the actionees and ask what help they need: maybe they just need to talk it through with someone or need some advice, that can be done without doing anything.
4. You can go to the task description and recommend status updates, actionees, additional people to add for info, or labels. (As well as notes, but you’re the only person that will see those).
9. Each line on the tasklist shows the task, if the assignee needs help, when the task is due, how long/how difficult the task will be to complete (or at least the best guess for that), who the assignee is, who assigned it, the description of the task, and a number of potential actions.
10. Actions can include: see more details, help out, closing or modifying the task. Also, you can create new tasks by clicking add task above the list.
4. Resources:
1. Add resources for the team to use while they work tasks or update the problem.
2. First, add a category (If in doubt, just create a category titled “General”).
3. Once a category has been created, upload resources. Include a link, title and quick description of what the resource can be.
5. Future options (some day):
1. Link to news stories as they occur.
2. Adjudicate results.

Get feedback & help on the problem:

1. Our best advice is to create tasks, and post messages/bulletins when you need help/advice.
2. You can also ask for help by emailing me at Matt@WellThenFixIt.com.

Identify a new solution:

1. When you read about problem (either on this website or elsewhere), research or think up your own ways to solve it. (This is mostly done off-site right now, but we’re trying to figure out what tools we could add to our site to help).
2. If you can think of something that makes the world better (even if it’s not tied to a problem), you can upload those as well.
3. See if it’s already uploaded, if so: see it needs to be updated. If not: upload a new solution to the site. (If the problem it’s solving isn’t uploaded, you can add that as well).

Create/upload a solution (See Less Detailed Version) Detailed version (Below):

1. Come up with the idea.
1. Brainstorm potential solutions to an issue that already exists.
1. Research solutions that others have come up with to that issue.
2. Jot down any other “outside of the box” ideas you can think up.
3. Pay a homeless guy $20 to see what he can think up (or just buy him a meal to be nice).
2. Identify solutions to issues that haven’t already been identified (and have a placeholder for that problem).
3. Share ideas that aren’t directly tied to an issue, but may still make things better.
2. See if any potential solution ideas are already in the database.
3. Research if anyone is already doing any of these.
1. If so, list the people that are.
1. Create a brief write up of what they’re doing and how.
2. See if anyone has reached out to them already to see if they want to solicit help from our site.
3. If not, reach out to them.
2. If not, write up your thoughts on what approach someone should take.
4. From your list, see if there are any that you would want to help flesh out in more detail (pick one or two, or at least start in priority order).
5. Things that solutions need:
1. What issues does the solution address?
1. Tie to issue impacts/likelihood.
2. Other benefits:
1. Severity:
1. Absolute Best: everyone involved would either get a substantial increase to lifespan, drastic increase to freedom/quality of life, or enough money/benefits that supporting themselves/their family is no longer a concern.
2. Freaking Amazing: some increase to lifespan, quality of life, and/or, financial well being.
3. Still terrific: minor improvements to quality of life, and/or financial well being.
4. Hard to say: less quantifiable impacts, usually accumulates over time. For instance, gradual changes in societal norms that could lead to improvements.
5. That “it’s the weekend” feeling: Small improvements to quality of life.
6. It's better than nothing: "Ooo! I found $10!"
2. Area:
1. Absolutely Everyone: This would impact 80%-100% of humanity.
2. Whole Continents: 20-80% of the world could be impacted.
3. Sub-Continent: Impacts to approx 5-19%. Would include impacts to the entirety of one of the largest countries. (At or over 100 million people/ over 800,000 square miles/2,000,000 square kilometers).
4. Nation-level: Impacts to the average country/ larger regions within larger countries (over 10 million people/ over 80,000 square miles/200,000 square kilometers).
5. State/Territory level: Equivalent to average state or territory, or one of the largest cities/regions (over 3 million people/ 40,000 square miles/100,000 square kilometers).
6. Regional: Med-large cities, metropolitan areas, large portions of states.
7. Local: towns/smaller cities, city blocks.
8. Neighborhood: blocks within towns.
9. Individual: a couple people.
10. Minor: I dunno...someone's little toe?
3. How Likely:
1. Definitely going to happen (or already has) (95-100%).
2. Probably (85-95%).
3. Maybe (75-85%).
4. Could happen (50-75%).
5. Possibility (25-50%).
6. Not likely (15-25%).
7. Probably not (5-15%).
8. Definitely not (0-5%).
4. When:
1. It’s already happened.
2. Immediate Future (<1 week).
3. Soon (<3 months).
4. Before you know it (<1 year).
5. Foreseeable Future (<10 years).
6. In Our Lifetimes (<30 years).
7. Our kids will thank us (<75 years).
8. Someone will benefit (>75 years).
3. Type of actions required:
1. Political/legal.
2. New tool/technology.
3. New research, data and/or metrics.
4. Changes to perceptions/opinions.
5. Fundraising.
6. Additional manpower/expertise.
4. How much change is needed:
1. Major:
1. Political - new federal law.
2. Legal - Supreme Court ruling.
3. New tool - Fortune 500 type of company to complete.
4. New technology - Serious R&D needed, funded at or above Federal levels.
5. Change to perceptions/opinions - Cultural shift needed.
6. Fundraising - Millions of dollars needed.
7. Manpower/expertise - Need a dedicated team the size of a country.
2. Minor:
1. Political - state level law/petition.
2. Legal - State or Federal Court ruling.
3. New tool - Major business/university to complete.
4. New technology - Some R&D needed, funded at or above local levels.
5. Change to perceptions/opinions - Need major awareness campaign/some behavior change.
6. Fundraising - Tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars needed.
7. Manpower/expertise - Need a dedicated team the size of a state.
3. Nudge:
1. Political - Local (community) politicians involved.
2. Legal - New local laws.
3. New tool - Easy start-up/community level.
4. New technology - Serious R&D needed, funded at or above Federal levels.
5. Change to perceptions/opinions - Cultural shift needed.
6. Fundraising - Hundreds OR thousands of dollars needed.
7. Manpower/expertise - Need a dedicated team the size of a community.
5. Cost:
1. Free (<$100).
2. Definitely do-able (<$10,000).
3. Needs everyone to chip in ($<500,000).
4. Everyone needs more than chipping in ($<2 Million).
5. Take over a town’s budget (<$10 Million).
6. Take a decent city’s budget (<$100 Million).
7. Small state’s budget (<$5 Billion).
8. Big state’s budget (<$100 Billion).
9. US Budget (<$5 Trillion).
10. Entire World’s GDP (<$150 Trillion).
11. It’s gonna take...alot (>$150 Trillion).
6. Timeline:
1. Won’t take long (< A Week).
2. I could knock it out over summer (<3 months).
3. Before you know it (<1 year).
4. Won’t be done for a while (<10 years).
5. A looong ways to go (<30 years).
6. Generational effort (<75 years).
7. It’s gonna take a looong time (>75 years).