NgColombia: Our Selection Process 📋
The CFP for NgColombia is closed! 🎉 Now it’s time to select our speakers!
Initially, our selection process was like:
Bear in mind that:
- 👉 There’s nothing wrong with the stick figures above. The fact that all of us feel inclined towards some decisions is completely natural, might not be accurate, but still natural. That’s because of Cognitive Biases.
- 👉 Cognitive Biases are useful in a lot of situations, yet you should discern when is it a good time to stop and think twice (or even ask someone else).
- 👉 The following strategy explains how we tried reduce our biases in our selection process.
Hope you find it insightful and consider it for your local event! 🎉
TL;DR: We conformed a diverse group in charge of selecting the speakers and used a double-blind process to avoid biases, among other strategies.
1. Selection Criteria
Having clear and consistent selection criteria is key for a Call For Papers to be transparent. This way, speakers can tailor their submissions and focus on what’s truly important. These are our criteria:
- Diversity: We want to bring those speakers who can share a different perspective, those who are underrepresented, those who do not have the chance to speak but deserved to be listened to. Big conferences like NgColombia are big game changers in such matters.
- Quality: We want well-prepared and well-defined submissions. Proposals with clear objectives, clear topics and without any typos (😏).
- Uniqueness: Regular talks/workshops are alright, but our audience wants to see something different (wacky, uncommon, contrasting). Creativity is a big ally here.
2. Academic Committee
The academic committee is a group of 6 people with different backgrounds that are in charge of evaluating the speakers’ submissions for NgColombia. For now, these members will remain anonymous but they represent a diverse mix of:
- 👨👩👧👦 Community Organizers
- 💻 Junior, Mid and Senior Developers
- 💼 Entrepreneurs
- 📚 Teachers
- 🎤 Speakers
- 🤳 Freelancers
Having them evaluate the speakers, makes us feel a little bit more confident on a less biased selection process.
3. Submissions
Before the Academic Committee starts reviewing the proposals, the submissions are transformed like this:
- 📋 Format: Unnecessary columns are removed and data is presented in a way that makes it easier to read and evaluate for the committee.
- 👀 Anonymize: Any identifiable information is removed. The committee will not know who the submissions belong to, therefore avoiding impartial results.
- 💾 Segment: The committee will evaluate each criterion for all submissions before passing to the next criterion. Thus avoiding a bias known as the Halo Effect or Anchoring Effect.
4. Process
Once the Academic Committee has received the proposals they will follow this strategy:
1. Individual Evaluation: Each member will evaluate the proposals under the criteria mentioned above and send the results over. At this point they don’t know who are the winners yet.
“Independent judgement and decorrelated errors can be achieved by asking every member to share a very brief summary of their position. This will bring diversity of opinions otherwise obstructed by those who speak first” Thinking Fast and Slow
2. Group Feedback: Once the evaluations are collected and consolidated, the committee members meet for the first time. The results are presented and discussed before any final decision.
3. Publication: Speakers are announced through email before ANY other public announcements. Those who are not selected receive a compensation for their effort.
This is it! Results will be announced no later than May 29th! Let’s get this party started! 🎉
Thanks for reading! 💙
