Hi,
Just a request for an update about C level hiring. My understanding is that WMF is actively recruiting for a new CTO and hopes to fill that position within the next month or two. Previously announced next priorities were HR and Community, in that order. I am wondering how Communications and Legal fit into the picture, now that those positions need to be filled as well.
I am also wondering about what can be done to keep C levels after we get them. Some of them seem to have much longer tenures than others, and having so many vacancies concurrently is a situation that I think we'd all like to avoid in the future, particularly the next time that WMF has a new or interim ED who may need to rely on their Cs for advice much more than Katherine needs to do so. (I'm not implying that Katherine doesn't listen or doesn't need advice, just that she's experienced enough that she can do well in areas where an ED who is new to WMF or the role might struggle.)
Regards,
Pine
Only the CTO position is empty. All of the rest are filled with very competent interims who may simply be transitioned into permanent. I like it that people who prove themselves to be excellent can move up within the WMF and think that this is often better than hiring from outside.
James
On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 7:22 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Just a request for an update about C level hiring. My understanding is that WMF is actively recruiting for a new CTO and hopes to fill that position within the next month or two. Previously announced next priorities were HR and Community, in that order. I am wondering how Communications and Legal fit into the picture, now that those positions need to be filled as well.
I am also wondering about what can be done to keep C levels after we get them. Some of them seem to have much longer tenures than others, and having so many vacancies concurrently is a situation that I think we'd all like to avoid in the future, particularly the next time that WMF has a new or interim ED who may need to rely on their Cs for advice much more than Katherine needs to do so. (I'm not implying that Katherine doesn't listen or doesn't need advice, just that she's experienced enough that she can do well in areas where an ED who is new to WMF or the role might struggle.)
Regards,
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I agree that there can be a benefit to internal promotions in the sense that less onboarding is required. On the other hand, sometimes a fresh perspective is helpful, and at least one of the interim Cs has been insistent that they want to return to their previous job.
Also, while people are in interim roles, their departments are down a person unless their previous positions are somehow backfilled, perhaps with contractors. I have already heard from one department that they are feeling the squeeze.
Pine
On Aug 13, 2016 19:39, "James Heilman" jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
Only the CTO position is empty. All of the rest are filled with very competent interims who may simply be transitioned into permanent. I like it that people who prove themselves to be excellent can move up within the WMF and think that this is often better than hiring from outside.
James
On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 7:22 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Just a request for an update about C level hiring. My understanding is that WMF is actively recruiting for a new CTO and hopes to fill that position within the next month or two. Previously announced next
priorities
were HR and Community, in that order. I am wondering how Communications
and
Legal fit into the picture, now that those positions need to be filled as well.
I am also wondering about what can be done to keep C levels after we get them. Some of them seem to have much longer tenures than others, and
having
so many vacancies concurrently is a situation that I think we'd all like
to
avoid in the future, particularly the next time that WMF has a new or interim ED who may need to rely on their Cs for advice much more than Katherine needs to do so. (I'm not implying that Katherine doesn't listen or doesn't need advice, just that she's experienced enough that she can
do
well in areas where an ED who is new to WMF or the role might struggle.)
Regards,
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that there can be a benefit to internal promotions in the sense that less onboarding is required. On the other hand, sometimes a fresh perspective is helpful, and at least one of the interim Cs has been insistent that they want to return to their previous job.
Also, while people are in interim roles, their departments are down a person unless their previous positions are somehow backfilled, perhaps with contractors. I have already heard from one department that they are feeling the squeeze.
Pine
I'm not really comfortable with gossip here, whether about a Wikimedia project or the WMF.
Discussing an organization's strengths and weaknesses, transparently, should be the norm for how business is done. Keeping quiet about problems is sometimes necessary, but transparency should be the norm.
Pine
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that there can be a benefit to internal promotions in the sense that less onboarding is required. On the other hand, sometimes a fresh perspective is helpful, and at least one of the interim Cs has been insistent that they want to return to their previous job.
Also, while people are in interim roles, their departments are down a person unless their previous positions are somehow backfilled, perhaps
with
contractors. I have already heard from one department that they are
feeling
the squeeze.
Pine
I'm not really comfortable with gossip here, whether about a Wikimedia project or the WMF.
-- ~Keegan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email address is in a personal capacity. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Pine, maybe so, but if that's what you're going for, your best move might be to privately urge the people who have talked to you to come forward publicly -- rather than you sharing their words without attribution or context.
The information that came through from your message is, "Pine asserts that Wikimedia staff confide in him." That probably wasn't your intent, but I agree with Keegan's characterization of it as gossip. -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Discussing an organization's strengths and weaknesses, transparently, should be the norm for how business is done. Keeping quiet about problems is sometimes necessary, but transparency should be the norm.
Pine
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that there can be a benefit to internal promotions in the sense that less onboarding is required. On the other hand, sometimes a fresh perspective is helpful, and at least one of the interim Cs has been insistent that they want to return to their previous job.
Also, while people are in interim roles, their departments are down a person unless their previous positions are somehow backfilled, perhaps
with
contractors. I have already heard from one department that they are
feeling
the squeeze.
Pine
I'm not really comfortable with gossip here, whether about a Wikimedia project or the WMF.
-- ~Keegan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email
address
is in a personal capacity. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Pete,
I'm intentionally anonymizing communications that happened in private. But yes, I agree that it would be best if there was public discussion about this subject from people who are more directly involved in it. If that needs to go through chain of command (up to Katherine if necessary) to happen in public, I'm OK with that.
Communication in private happens routinely for legitimate purposes, and I want people to feel okay with doing that, which is one reason why I anonymize comments that I have heard that weren't explicitly cleared for public distribution. On the other hand, I want to lean in the direction of more public communication as well.
That's a long way of saying that your point is well taken.
Thanks,
Pine
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 2:40 PM, Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com wrote:
Pine, maybe so, but if that's what you're going for, your best move might be to privately urge the people who have talked to you to come forward publicly -- rather than you sharing their words without attribution or context.
The information that came through from your message is, "Pine asserts that Wikimedia staff confide in him." That probably wasn't your intent, but I agree with Keegan's characterization of it as gossip. -Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]]
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Discussing an organization's strengths and weaknesses, transparently, should be the norm for how business is done. Keeping quiet about problems is sometimes necessary, but transparency should be the norm.
Pine
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 12:28 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that there can be a benefit to internal promotions in the
sense
that less onboarding is required. On the other hand, sometimes a
fresh
perspective is helpful, and at least one of the interim Cs has been insistent that they want to return to their previous job.
Also, while people are in interim roles, their departments are down a person unless their previous positions are somehow backfilled,
perhaps
with
contractors. I have already heard from one department that they are
feeling
the squeeze.
Pine
I'm not really comfortable with gossip here, whether about a Wikimedia project or the WMF.
-- ~Keegan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
This is my personal email address. Everything sent from this email
address
is in a personal capacity. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Returning to one of the original subjects of this thread, which wasn't intended to be controversial: can we get an update about how the C level hiring schedule looks?
I realize that I asked this questiom on the weekend. There is no rush to get an answer. "We're still thinking about this but will have a schedule next week" is an okay answer too.
Thanks, Pine
Hey,
As you said you've asked the question during the week-end ^^
Things are moving forward but I'll let Katherine answer the question as she'll be able a way better answer than me (I talk about that topic nearly every week with Katherine, it is a high priority topic for all of us).
Please bare in my mind when you ask questions, that staff needs their week-end off and they also have holidays. We tend to forget that as volunteers, but we must not.
Even if we have highly dedicated people, we all want them to get proper rest :)
If your question isn't urgent/critical, it can take a few days to get an answer. But for today, I'll send quick emails saying that it has been read and will get an answer so no to leave you with the feeling it's ignored.
Have a great day,
Le 15 août 2016 8:44 AM, "Pine W" wiki.pine@gmail.com a écrit :
Returning to one of the original subjects of this thread, which wasn't intended to be controversial: can we get an update about how the C level hiring schedule looks?
I realize that I asked this questiom on the weekend. There is no rush to get an answer. "We're still thinking about this but will have a schedule next week" is an okay answer too.
Thanks, Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi Christophe,
Thanks. Your email is more than I expected on a weekend. Board members get to have AFK time too. There are people (both Wikimedians and WMFers) who need to deal with emergencies of various kinds (primarily technical or safety) whenever those happen, and community activity needs to be a nearly 24/7 operation for activities like IRC and quality control, but there are enough people involved that hopefully everyone gets to have some AFK time.
Pine
+1 on train & promote.
Vito
2016-08-14 4:38 GMT+02:00 James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com:
Only the CTO position is empty. All of the rest are filled with very competent interims who may simply be transitioned into permanent. I like it that people who prove themselves to be excellent can move up within the WMF and think that this is often better than hiring from outside.
James
On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 7:22 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
Just a request for an update about C level hiring. My understanding is that WMF is actively recruiting for a new CTO and hopes to fill that position within the next month or two. Previously announced next
priorities
were HR and Community, in that order. I am wondering how Communications
and
Legal fit into the picture, now that those positions need to be filled as well.
I am also wondering about what can be done to keep C levels after we get them. Some of them seem to have much longer tenures than others, and
having
so many vacancies concurrently is a situation that I think we'd all like
to
avoid in the future, particularly the next time that WMF has a new or interim ED who may need to rely on their Cs for advice much more than Katherine needs to do so. (I'm not implying that Katherine doesn't listen or doesn't need advice, just that she's experienced enough that she can
do
well in areas where an ED who is new to WMF or the role might struggle.)
Regards,
Pine _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 4:22 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I am also wondering about what can be done to keep C levels after we get them.
The implicit assertion that this is a problem we generally suffer from is, I think, incorrect. We have generally not had difficulty retaining our c-levels for decent (multi-year) tenures. It is decidedly the case that the prime reason for the c-level departures in the past three years was the exceptionally ill-suited and problematic previous executive director that WMF was laboring under. Some departing c-levels are explicitly on the record saying so.
I therefore suggest you are perhaps trying to solve a perceived problem that isn't actually there, and I think it would waste all our time to discuss it.
A.
If it is the case that normal C-level churn was significantly accelerated by the choice of ED (which makes sense to me; I had previously heard this explicitly only with regard to one former C) then this is another reason that I hope that there will be some reflection by the Board about what went wrong, particularly concerning how the Board was so slow to acknowledge the problem and take action on it.
Could the Board say whether the scope of its planned governance review includes a review of what happened on the Board with regard to its supervision of the previous ED? I am aware that C-level exit interviews are now being done. A review of the facts of the Board's actions regarding the previous ED would be instructive, including an external review of the facts surrounding James' departure from the Board which seemed to have been related to staff concerns about the previous ED and how the Board was handling those concerns.
Pine
On Aug 14, 2016 04:52, "Asaf Bartov" abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Sun, Aug 14, 2016 at 4:22 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I am also wondering about what can be done to keep C levels after we get them.
The implicit assertion that this is a problem we generally suffer from is, I think, incorrect. We have generally not had difficulty retaining our c-levels for decent (multi-year) tenures. It is decidedly the case that the prime reason for the c-level departures in the past three years was the exceptionally ill-suited and problematic previous executive director that WMF was laboring under. Some departing c-levels are explicitly on the record saying so.
I therefore suggest you are perhaps trying to solve a perceived problem that isn't actually there, and I think it would waste all our time to discuss it.
A.
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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