Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:31:57 -0700 From: Frank Schulenburg frank.schulenburg@gmail.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Tomorrow: Office hour inside out (program evaluation) Message-ID: CAKooBQbK6rCui1BThp41MBvjTdzDQVvsJRLGsFYwXUUoGApSxQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi folks,
Tomorrow at 17:00 UTC, I will be holding an office hour about program evaluation on #wikimedia-office. The target audience for this office hour will be chapter representatives and volunteers who are currently running (or planning to run) programs and programmatic activities. You'll find some background information about why program evaluation might be worth talking about in my most recent blog post on the Foundation's blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/01/lets-start-talking-about-program-evalu...
As we all know, most office hours follow a certain rule: there's one poor staffer who is getting grilled by the people on the IRC channel – people ask a variety of questions and the staff person tries to answer every question in a limited amount of time. It's a lot of fun (I guess, at least for the people who're asking the questions) and it has been a good way of direct communication between WMF employees and the community.
Now, this office hour will be different. Not that I don't enjoy being grilled for one hour :-) I've done IRC office hours several times before and I always enjoyed answering questions. The reason for this office hour to be different is that I want to _listen to you in the first place_. I would like to learn more about
- _your_ thoughts about why evaluation might be important
- _your_ experiences with making evaluation a part of program design
- _your_ hopes and fears when it comes to increasingly evaluating
programs and programmatic activities in the future
- _your_ ideas and feedback on evaluation practices
Ideally, we would have some people in the room tomorrow who have done some kind evaluation in the past or who are planning to embark on evaluation work in the near future. With that said – if you have no idea about what program evaluation is and you'd like to learn more about it, you're invited as well! Or maybe you're just curious to see if this "office hour inside out" is going to play out well ;-)
I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow at 17:00 UTC,
Frank
I'd encourage people who are interested in this subject to read up on program management and related subjects. This sort of management has been studied extensively in academia and in business, and in some ways I feel that WMF has catch-up work to do and lacks expertise, although I'm hopeful that WMF is trying to improve in this area.
I'd also suggest that people read the report about projects that encountered significant problems at WMF, particularly the IEP, and a more recent example is the mixed reception to AFT5. I hope that program managers at WMF learn both good practices and what to avoid. I also hope that WMF ties program metrics to evaluations for the responsible supervisors when considering whether to continue or renew employment contracts, as well as when considering promotions.
Cheers,
Pine
I hope the Grants Retrospective comes up as one possible model for evaluation. Its output had some useful features and side effects.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 12:48 AM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:31:57 -0700 From: Frank Schulenburg frank.schulenburg@gmail.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Tomorrow: Office hour inside out (program evaluation) Message-ID: CAKooBQbK6rCui1BThp41MBvjTdzDQVvsJRLGsFYwXUUoGApSxQ@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi folks,
Tomorrow at 17:00 UTC, I will be holding an office hour about program evaluation on #wikimedia-office. The target audience for this office hour will be chapter representatives and volunteers who are currently running (or planning to run) programs and programmatic activities. You'll find some background information about why program evaluation might be worth talking about in my most recent blog post on the Foundation's blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/01/lets-start-talking-about-program-evalu...
As we all know, most office hours follow a certain rule: there's one poor staffer who is getting grilled by the people on the IRC channel – people ask a variety of questions and the staff person tries to answer every question in a limited amount of time. It's a lot of fun (I guess, at least for the people who're asking the questions) and it has been a good way of direct communication between WMF employees and the community.
Now, this office hour will be different. Not that I don't enjoy being grilled for one hour :-) I've done IRC office hours several times before and I always enjoyed answering questions. The reason for this office hour to be different is that I want to _listen to you in the first place_. I would like to learn more about
- _your_ thoughts about why evaluation might be important
- _your_ experiences with making evaluation a part of program design
- _your_ hopes and fears when it comes to increasingly evaluating
programs and programmatic activities in the future
- _your_ ideas and feedback on evaluation practices
Ideally, we would have some people in the room tomorrow who have done some kind evaluation in the past or who are planning to embark on evaluation work in the near future. With that said – if you have no idea about what program evaluation is and you'd like to learn more about it, you're invited as well! Or maybe you're just curious to see if this "office hour inside out" is going to play out well ;-)
I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow at 17:00 UTC,
Frank
I'd encourage people who are interested in this subject to read up on program management and related subjects. This sort of management has been studied extensively in academia and in business, and in some ways I feel that WMF has catch-up work to do and lacks expertise, although I'm hopeful that WMF is trying to improve in this area.
I'd also suggest that people read the report about projects that encountered significant problems at WMF, particularly the IEP, and a more recent example is the mixed reception to AFT5. I hope that program managers at WMF learn both good practices and what to avoid. I also hope that WMF ties program metrics to evaluations for the responsible supervisors when considering whether to continue or renew employment contracts, as well as when considering promotions.
Cheers,
Pine
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ENWP Pine, 21/03/2013 05:48:
I'd also suggest that people read the report about projects that encountered significant problems at WMF, particularly the IEP,
I suppose the past tense here means that https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IEP/Welcome should be tagged {{historical}} rather than {{draft}}?
and a more recent example is the mixed reception to AFT5. I hope that program managers at WMF learn both good practices and what to avoid. I also hope that WMF ties program metrics to evaluations for the responsible supervisors when considering whether to continue or renew employment contracts, as well as when considering promotions.
Nemo
Hello everyone,
I've read the log of this conversation; is there any success ratio set already?
If not, might be good to take the ratio of how many new registrations are becoming regular contributors. (if 1/100 new registrations, then 1%)
The general online marketing success ratio is somewhere around 1-3%, depending on the product, the tools used and other circumstances (e.g. if a random direct marketing campaign return exceeds 0.12% it is already a success)
cheers, Balázs
2013/3/21 ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:31:57 -0700 From: Frank Schulenburg frank.schulenburg@gmail.com To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Tomorrow: Office hour inside out (program evaluation) Message-ID: <
CAKooBQbK6rCui1BThp41MBvjTdzDQVvsJRLGsFYwXUUoGApSxQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Hi folks,
Tomorrow at 17:00 UTC, I will be holding an office hour about program evaluation on #wikimedia-office. The target audience for this office hour will be chapter representatives and volunteers who are currently running (or planning to run) programs and programmatic activities. You'll find some background information about why program evaluation might be worth talking about in my most recent blog post on the Foundation's blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/03/01/lets-start-talking-about-program-evalu...
As we all know, most office hours follow a certain rule: there's one poor staffer who is getting grilled by the people on the IRC channel – people ask a variety of questions and the staff person tries to answer every question in a limited amount of time. It's a lot of fun (I guess, at least for the people who're asking the questions) and it has been a good way of direct communication between WMF employees and the community.
Now, this office hour will be different. Not that I don't enjoy being grilled for one hour :-) I've done IRC office hours several times before and I always enjoyed answering questions. The reason for this office hour to be different is that I want to _listen to you in the first place_. I would like to learn more about
- _your_ thoughts about why evaluation might be important
- _your_ experiences with making evaluation a part of program design
- _your_ hopes and fears when it comes to increasingly evaluating
programs and programmatic activities in the future
- _your_ ideas and feedback on evaluation practices
Ideally, we would have some people in the room tomorrow who have done some kind evaluation in the past or who are planning to embark on evaluation work in the near future. With that said – if you have no idea about what program evaluation is and you'd like to learn more about it, you're invited as well! Or maybe you're just curious to see if this "office hour inside out" is going to play out well ;-)
I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow at 17:00 UTC,
Frank
I'd encourage people who are interested in this subject to read up on program management and related subjects. This sort of management has been studied extensively in academia and in business, and in some ways I feel that WMF has catch-up work to do and lacks expertise, although I'm hopeful that WMF is trying to improve in this area.
I'd also suggest that people read the report about projects that encountered significant problems at WMF, particularly the IEP, and a more recent example is the mixed reception to AFT5. I hope that program managers at WMF learn both good practices and what to avoid. I also hope that WMF ties program metrics to evaluations for the responsible supervisors when considering whether to continue or renew employment contracts, as well as when considering promotions.
Cheers,
Pine
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