To follow up on the board's resolution, here is some more information
about the strategy development process we are starting. This is not
necessarily the complete picture, that hasn't been fully laid out yet
and you will hear more about it in coming weeks and months. We will
share progress as we go, and discussion is welcome. I expect the other
members of the Board of Trustees, along with Sue, will be happy to join
in. We spoke briefly about the project at our meeting with the chapter
representatives in Berlin a few weeks ago. They may be able to help
answer basic questions, and I also anticipate that the chapters will be
a good way to relay ideas from the wider community.
This is a rather unusual endeavor, as it is intended to be the world's
first completely open and collaborative strategy development project. We
aim to draw upon the experiences and knowledge of a wide range of
contributors: Wikimedia volunteers, experts in various fields, the
board, the foundation's staff, and other appropriate advisors that may
be suggested to us. I'm excited about the possibilities in this project.
Anybody who wants to help the Wikimedia projects is invited to
participate. I expect that the primary activity will involve working
groups developing pieces of the strategy on-wiki. That's both because
it's the key tool for open collaboration we're all familiar with, and
because it would be prohibitive in time or expense to coordinate
strategic planning through a set of meetings, as might happen in a
normal organization. All relevant planning outputs will be publicly
available for review, as well as reuse, so hopefully we can produce some
thinking that other groups will also find useful.
We expect the strategic planning project to officially launch in July,
although this is a preliminary kickoff of sorts as well. In the
meantime, Sue is planning to hire a project manager, a research analyst,
and a facilitator to support it. Those jobs will be posted on the
Wikimedia Foundation site sometime during the next week. Between now and
the launch, Sue will be hiring the project team. These positions will
bring skills we already need, and while we want all the staff to have
input, this will be the group designated to work particularly on this
project.
Sue and I will also be working through the structure and framework of
the project: essentially, which strategic questions require the most
focus. You will hear more about this, and I will be asking for your
views, as we begin to make progress.
--Michael Snow
