On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Cristian Consonni <kikkocristian(a)gmail.com
wrote:
2015-05-28 11:42 GMT+02:00 Liam Wyatt
<liamwyatt(a)gmail.com>om>:
The WMF talks about "eating your own dog
food"[2] in terms of
engineering,
but it would be good if something similar would
take place in the annual
planning too... Chapters are required to submit their annual plans to a
two
*month* period of quite thorough public review
before the FDC gives its
recommendations, and then there's a further period before the actual
decision/appeals.[3]
Agreed. In the first place, the problems with such a heavy process of
review are felt by all participating groups – including the burden of
having to publish a draft budget so long before the start of the relevant
year. Either this is a poor idea and all should find a better way, or the
WMF should do it as well.
And also a little addition (from [1]):
«The FDC would like to encourage the WMF to share more data in
advance, and to do so publicly as much as possible.
Very much agreed.
The Board may need to adjust the
calendar of FDC work, but allowing for a comprehensive review by a
committee from the community (such as the FDC) rather than the
Wikimedia Foundation itself is essential, especially in light of the
minimal feedback from the community on the public pages.
What do you think would be a reasonable sort of review?
Lila has mentioned the idea of moving towards updated plans every 6 months,
with detailed reports every quarter.
I would welcome an FDC-style review of the 'latest published biannual plan
+ report', on any timescale that works for the FDC, assessing the same
things that it does for all annual plans. A review of that sort in April
or May would be timed well to influence the 'Annual Plan' discussion, even
if it was a review of the published plan & report as of January, rather
than the draft plan developed in April. How would current FDC members
feel about this? Can we find a way to do this without obliging the current
FDC members to do more work? [considering that there are others with
similar experience in the movement]
The WMF has high competencies in governance and in running a large
organization, and should be significantly more
proactive in
disseminating its knowledge and supporting chapters and thematic
organizations through training, onboarding plans, and fostering
cross-chapter exchange.
Bearing in mind the size and budget of the new Community Engagement
department, I'd be interested to see more specific suggestions here, or
pointers to examples of this done well.
As it was already said above. I, personally, do think
that we can
discuss about making some adjustments to the process to make it work
for an organisation of the size of the WMF, but I also would like to
see the WMF play along the rule of everybody else in the movement
(again, considering all the special need and characteristics of this).
I think we can make it work. There are other movements with collaborative
budgeting or community review that we can learn from.
What sorts of adjustments do you have in mind?
Sam