Accountability is created by the tension that exists between groups that watch each other. Having a set of committees reporting to a single board is simply a pyramid.
A director (CEO, whatever you wish to call the position) and their team is one locus of control. A board is another. The board's task is to offer guidance, select individuals to perform specific tasks, remove non-performers from office and so on. But the actual running of the organisation is left to the director and team.
Reconstituting Anthere's list of committees into a set of line functions overseen by a director would look as follows:
* Finance and internal audit - task is to ensure bookkeeping, and audit, as well as assist auditors appointed by board; insurance can be pasted in here as well. * Chapters - I'm assuming this has some oversight of the projects? * Communications and Public Relations - press releases, events, promotions, as well as watching media for outside coverage, etc. * Information technology and technical development - server maintenance and development * Special projects - should this simply be part of an enlarged Chapters role? * Legal - specialist required in international law, trademarks, etc. * Fundraising - works closely with communications and PR * HR and admin - if you are going to have an office, you need to ensure it gets cleaned, stocked with coffee / tea, salaries paid on time, contracts drawn up ... that sort of thing * Director / CEO - the boss, and reports directly to the board
These are all simply technical roles - there is no assumption that they would be a single person, or a group, simply tasks that may need to be performed. The board gets standardised feedback and has the right to intervene to fire the director or any of the other role-players. The board does not run the operation, it simply has oversight and ultimate control. The director knows that they report to the board.
Board's normally do not require a massive time commitment and so they can be stocked with celebrities who are able to open doors (and consequently make the fundraising task a lot easier).
Typically, any organisation has the following core requirements: * financial control * marketing * strategic planning * operational support (includes: IT, legal, HR and so on)
You could, depending on the work-load, bundle many of these tasks together: * finance, internal audit, admin, hr * IT, technical development * chapters, special projects * communications, PR, fundraising * legal * director
So then you need six people in your head office. Your board could be as large as you like (remembering that the bigger your board, the harder it is to get everyone to get together at the same time, or agree on anything). The overall strategy - it goes without saying - can be the responsibility of the board. Implementation belongs to the director.
Anthere again: "Generally, I believe the projects will not accept *anyone* as head of a project, with absolute power. The projects organise themselves independently of the Foundation, only respecting the general goal of the project and a couple of core rules (licence, wikilove and neutrality essentially)."
I don't suggest anything like absolute power (editorial control, that sort of thing) but it is useful to have a person in charge who keeps track of what is going on. They act as champion for the project. If you really want to create a Chinese wall between the Foundation and its projects then you have to have someone at any particular project that the Foundation can talk to. Someone has to guarantee the core rules will be applied.
It's no good simply cutting a perfectly good project loose when it crosses the line. Someone, tasked with championing the project, should have the job of keeping the project inside those lines ... as gently as possible. Only when they completely loose the ability to control those guidelines should a project be cut.
On 5/31/06, Gavin Chait gchait@gmx.net wrote:
- Chapters - I'm assuming this has some oversight of the projects?
Oversight and coordination of [[m:Wikimedia chapters]], which have no direct connection to projects. See [[m:Chapters committee]], [[m:Wikimedia chapters]].
[[m:Wikimedia committees]] were created to allow the Board to delegate responsibility for certain necessary, day-to-day Wikimedia operations, providing for more effective management while still retaining final authority. They don't yet have any legal status, so this delegation is currently de facto only, but as a practical matter they operate as originally conceived.
How committees organize and conduct themselves is generally left up to them, and varies considerably. Chapters, for instance, comprises five members and two advisers, with the committee officers (chairman and vice chairman) holding mostly "administrative" roles rather than governing ones, in a primus inter pares sense. Other committees may have a more hierarchical approach, with the chairman steering the direction of the committee and taking on more of a leadership role.
What's important is that the system, which is still very new and working itself out, is an improvement over relying on the overtaxed Board to micromanage WMF operations.
Austin
Gavin Chait wrote:
Accountability is created by the tension that exists between groups that watch each other. Having a set of committees reporting to a single board is simply a pyramid.
A director (CEO, whatever you wish to call the position) and their team is one locus of control. A board is another. The board's task is to offer guidance, select individuals to perform specific tasks, remove non-performers from office and so on. But the actual running of the organisation is left to the director and team.
Reconstituting Anthere's list of committees into a set of line functions overseen by a director would look as follows:
- Finance and internal audit - task is to ensure bookkeeping, and audit, as
well as assist auditors appointed by board; insurance can be pasted in here as well.
- Chapters - I'm assuming this has some oversight of the projects?
- Communications and Public Relations - press releases, events, promotions,
as well as watching media for outside coverage, etc.
- Information technology and technical development - server maintenance and
development
- Special projects - should this simply be part of an enlarged Chapters
role?
- Legal - specialist required in international law, trademarks, etc.
- Fundraising - works closely with communications and PR
- HR and admin - if you are going to have an office, you need to ensure it
gets cleaned, stocked with coffee / tea, salaries paid on time, contracts drawn up ... that sort of thing
Just to clarify the discussion. special project committee scope : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_committee chapter committee scope : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee/Scope_and_area_of_delegati...
These are all simply technical roles - there is no assumption that they would be a single person, or a group, simply tasks that may need to be performed. The board gets standardised feedback and has the right to intervene to fire the director or any of the other role-players. The board does not run the operation, it simply has oversight and ultimate control. The director knows that they report to the board.
Ideally yes. Not yet the case.
Board's normally do not require a massive time commitment and so they can be stocked with celebrities who are able to open doors (and consequently make the fundraising task a lot easier).
There is a balance to achieve here. If you stock the board with big shots, you lose the continuity. And if you put too many community people and big shots, you lose in efficiency.
I was under the presumption 9 could be a nice choice for us. With roughly 2 big shots.
You raise the issue of efficiency, in particular to make it possible that all members be able to meet together. Just for the reference, our last board meeting was in january.
Typically, any organisation has the following core requirements:
- financial control
- marketing
- strategic planning
- operational support (includes: IT, legal, HR and so on)
You could, depending on the work-load, bundle many of these tasks together:
- finance, internal audit, admin, hr
- IT, technical development
- chapters, special projects
- communications, PR, fundraising
- legal
- director
So then you need six people in your head office. Your board could be as large as you like (remembering that the bigger your board, the harder it is to get everyone to get together at the same time, or agree on anything). The overall strategy - it goes without saying - can be the responsibility of the board. Implementation belongs to the director.
Anthere again: "Generally, I believe the projects will not accept *anyone* as head of a project, with absolute power. The projects organise themselves independently of the Foundation, only respecting the general goal of the project and a couple of core rules (licence, wikilove and neutrality essentially)."
I don't suggest anything like absolute power (editorial control, that sort of thing) but it is useful to have a person in charge who keeps track of what is going on. They act as champion for the project. If you really want to create a Chinese wall between the Foundation and its projects then you have to have someone at any particular project that the Foundation can talk to. Someone has to guarantee the core rules will be applied.
Hmmmm, we actually had some champions in the past. I think we can qualify Erik as such for wikinews. I do not think the idea of a unique champion is fit, because this champion would have to be very little controversial to be acceptable by either side. I rather believe in a small group of trusted editors. This is already what is happening on the english wikipedia.
It's no good simply cutting a perfectly good project loose when it crosses the line. Someone, tasked with championing the project, should have the job of keeping the project inside those lines ... as gently as possible. Only when they completely loose the ability to control those guidelines should a project be cut.
Nod. This is what was done before closing the french wikiquote.
Austin Hair wrote:
What's important is that the system, which is still very new and working itself out, is an improvement over relying on the overtaxed Board to micromanage WMF operations.
And, it should be strongly pointed out: the committee system is a *community* system, driven by volunteers, staffed by volunteers, and the committees and the chapters make up the heart and soul of Wikimedia.
People who are claiming an increased opaqueness need to take another look, because the true trend is in exactly the opposite direction: radical decentralization into the community.
--Jimbo
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org