Background
The Association for Computational Linguistics’ daily operations have been led by a single Business Manager for over two decades. As she neared retirement, estimated in two to three years, the ACL required documentation of her businesses processes related to the day-to-day operations of the ACL so a new Business Manager will be able to continue operations with minimal disruption.
My Role
I was hired as a contractor to perform ethnographic research to understand ACL business policies and processes to ensure a successful transfer to new management upon the future retirement of the association’s Business Manager.
Method
The goal is to document the ACL Busines Manager’s daily workflows and office environment. I used ethnographic study techniques including interviews, observations, video and audio recordings. Audio and video recordings of the sessions are saved in MP4 format. Detailed notes with timestamps for the start and end of each recorded session are saved as a Microsoft Word file. A formal transcription was produced using the dictation tool in Microsoft Word. Because of the coronavirus travel restrictions, the observations took place as a series of Zoom calls over the course of a week beginning September 11, 2020 through September 18, 2020, with an additional call on November 2, after which an updated, final report was completed.
Research Questions
The following are the main research questions studied:
- What are the day to day duties while managing business for the ACL?
- How might the ACL ensure continuity of operations when the current Business Manager retires?
Outcome
The final report was delivered to the ACL Treasurer to support the development of office management policies.