Dear all,
A good annual plan provides staff with clear direction for the upcoming year. It builds on
the long-term strategy and on the organization's core values. It takes the external
trends and forces into account that affect the organization's ability to fulfill its
mission. It is written in a language that is understandable. It sparks excitement about
the road ahead, while creating a shared understanding of what success looks like and how
to measure it.
Measured against these criteria, the Wikimedia Foundation's annual plan for 2023–24 is
an enormous improvement over previous documents of this kind and I'd like to take the
opportunity to thank everyone involved in creating this plan for their hard work.
The plan does a great job at providing context and is also honest in its assessment of
what went wrong in the past, as well as about the general situation we're currently
in. It acknowledges that "there are activities where others in the movement may be
better placed to have meaningful impact". It is honest about the collective
"strategy fatigue and loss of momentum" we've been facing for a while now.
With regard to the high-level picture, the plan describes clearly how the ongoing change
in search habits on the web and the advent of generative AI have the potential to affect
our projects significantly going forward. When you dig deeper you'll find all kinds of
little nuggets that address technical and non-technical issues we've been dealing with
over the past couple of years.
I found the plan easier to read than comparable documents we've seen on Meta and
elsewhere. As a non-native English speaker, I particularly welcome this change!
On this list and on our wikis we've traditionally been quick in pointing out flaws and
what's not working well. I hope this email is a step toward a world where we're
equally as fast when it comes to providing positive feedback whenever appropriate.
All the best,
Frank