[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Update on community advocacy & liaison work

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Erik Moeller, 13/12/2013 08:40:
> FYI :) [...]

Thanks Erik. I've now seen 
<http://hire.jobvite.com/CompanyJobs/Careers.aspx?c=qSa9VfwQ&cs=9UL9Vfwt&page=Job%20Description&j=oX0kYfwZ> 
[1].

Assuming "live" is just a typo for "life", I mainly have a hard time 
understanding the paragraph "Your second priority". In particular, what 
does "Wikimedia's projects" stand for there, "Wikimedia[ Foundation]'s 
[software] projects" (products) or "Wikimedia('s) projects" in our usual 
sense i.e. project/content wikis? 
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_projects> I suppose the 
former because "development of governance models and practices" for our 
wikis would be highly inappropriate a goal for any WMF/product employee, 
but then I don't understand what a "technical, social and structural 
change" in software projects could be.

On the (potentially) just linguistic side, I must say that "brokering 
consensus" doesn't sound to me very similar to your second stated 
learning/goal "We need to start the process as early as possible", but 
rather to the usual "buy consensus for a decision already taken" model.

Nemo

[1] Pasting here because jobvite job posting vanish in the space void 
after a bit:

Director of Community Engagement (Product)
Engineering & Product Management | San Francisco, CA, United States

     Your first priority: Lead and grow a team of liaisons and 
facilitators in order to build an effective day-to-day partnership with 
Wikimedia's volunteer community in the conception, development and 
launch of new features and projects. You and your team will work closely 
with Wikimedia's engineers, designers and product managers in pursuit of 
that goal.

     Your second priority: Support the development of governance models 
and practices which enable continued positive technical, social and 
structural change in Wikimedia's projects.

     Your foundation: A team with decades of combined volunteering 
experience in the Wikimedia community, an organization committed to 
transformative change, and above all, a world-wide community that does 
the impossible every day.

     Your values: A commitment to the free and open sharing of 
information, to true collaboration, to empathy, to kindness, patience 
and respect.


Qualifications:

     5+ years of experience working with online communities

     Proven leadership experience; prior management or team lead 
experience is strongly preferred

     Experience developing and managing budgets and project plans

     Demonstrated ability to work with people of entirely different age 
groups, cultural backgrounds, and motivations

     Experience working with product managers, engineers and designers; 
experience launching products is a major plus

     Experience developing governance models for nonprofits or 
communities is a major plus

     Familiarity with the open source and free culture movement; active 
participation is a major plus

     Proven track record of brokering consensus in challenging situations

     Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills; 
ability to speak more than one language is a plus

     International live/work experience is a plus

     Love of knowledge and learning; a great sense of humor



>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org>
> Date: Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 11:40 PM
> Subject: Update on community advocacy & liaison work
> To: All Wikimedia Foundation staff & contractors
>
> Hi all,
>
> As many of you know, we recently brought on board a team of community
> members to support the development and rollout of mission-critical WMF
> projects like VisualEditor and Flow. To-date, this work has been
> coordinated by Philippe Beaudette (reporting to James Forrester for
> this purpose), with the community liaisons maintaining a dotted-line
> reporting relationship to him while being hired by
> engineering/product. In addition, the Community Advocacy team has made
> available several of its staff members to work and partner on a
> day-to-day basis with the liaisons.
>
> What we’ve learned so far includes:
>
> - Community engagement continues to be critical for successful
> development and deployment of products with a strong impact on
> community interactions. Not all products have such an impact -- e.g.
> improvements to the mobile reading experience or mobile apps don’t
> affect the experience of content authors directly nearly as much. In
> other cases (e.g. VisualEditor) the impact is huge and the
> coordination and communication requirements can be very significant.
>
> - We need to start the process as early as possible - community
> engagement isn't something that can just be done at the tail end to
> support a rollout. Liaison work includes on-wiki participation in
> discussions; organizing roundtables, IRC sessions, feedback and
> brainstorming pages, etc. The earlier, the better -- this helps
> surface likely points of contention, empowering Product Managers to
> better understand the high priority needs and wants from the
> community, as well as the cost of a change (how difficult will it be
> to make the change, and what negative side effects may it have?).
>
> - Product Managers and Community Liaisons need to work closely
> together and see each other as being on the same team. While a typical
> liaison likely will support multiple projects, just like designers,
> liaisons work best when they develop a deep understanding for the
> needs of one or two teams and are in active partnership with the
> relevant PM. The PM and Community Liaison should be collaborating on a
> day-to-day basis.
>
> - There are other classes of community-related work that need to be
> appropriately resourced, but are less directly relevant to product
> development. This includes: emergency and crisis management and
> response, support for policy-related RFCs, training for OTRS agents,
> organizing of visits of key functionaries and committees, etc.
>
> - Learning the lessons from the existence of a Community Department,
> we don't view "Community" as a function that can be owned, controlled
> or managed in a single department -- each department needs to be
> supported by community expertise in its day-to-day work, partnering
> closely with other team members.
>
> Consistent with that, after careful discussion, we have decided to
> create a new leadership function, Director of Community Engagement
> (Product), reporting to me (as VP Product) and partnering closely with
> Howie and individual Product Managers. The Director of Community
> Engagement (Product) will be responsible for managing community
> liaisons (staff or contractors) who directly support product
> development.
>
> Once this Director is hired and on-boarded, the Community Advocacy
> team currently reporting to Philippe will re-focus its energy on some
> of the aforementioned non-product matters. The community liaison team
> will at that point move to the new Director, and we will staff up as
> needed. We will still intersect on projects such as election support
> or policy implementation.
>
> I’m not currently considering merging this group with the "Engineering
> Community Team" under Sumana Harihareswara’s leadership. That team is
> focused on engaging volunteer developers who contribute to MediaWiki,
> and while there is some overlap, I consider the goals and workflows to
> be pretty distinct. That said, I expect the two teams to work closely
> together in practice, with folks like Andre Klapper (Bug Wrangler)
> acting at the intersection between the two teams.
>
> I want to thank Geoff, Philippe and the Community Advocacy team for
> all their support bootstrapping the liaison team and partnering with
> us on key product roll-outs, on very short notice. It’s been
> absolutely invaluable. I’m also grateful for the continuation of this
> partnership until we fill the new Director-level role, and for help in
> the interview and on-boarding process. Finally, thanks for all the
> hard work of the community liaisons on a day-to-day basis; no matter
> how hot things sometimes can get, we know that we can count on you.
> :-)
>
> I expect to post the job by early January, and it will likely take us
> until at least March/April to fill the position.
>
> Please let me know if you have any questions. :-)
>
> Erik
>
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
>