Hubs/Minimum Criteria for Pilots

This document was a draft of the first criteria for implementing regional and thematic hub pilots. It included necessary conditions to move from the research to the piloting phase, and a template for required information. It is now outdated.

Hub pilots are movement level projects. Their plans need to be transparent, visible, and accountable to the movement. This also helps to create collaboration and coordination between different hub projects and avoid unnecessary duplication or conflicts. Without meeting the outlined criteria a hub project must not move from research and planning to actual piloting and implementation.

This is a draft document to be made available for movement wide review.

Proposal for a process to approve hub pilots

This is a proposed decentralized review process for aspiring hub pilots. In the absence of a Movement Charter defining hubs or any process officially established to approve hub pilots, it is important that the first hub proposals start their piloting phase with strong movement support. Hub pilots are useful to experiment and learn as a movement about this new type of organization. However, we need to collectively avoid the risk of hub piloting implementation rushed without consensus, a possible source of future problems. Concluding the research phase and moving to pilot set up needs:

• Meeting the criteria of 1) conducted needs assessment, 2) publicly available plan, and 3) governance model, as assessed by the Movement Strategy and Governance team.
• Proof of public discussion and general approval from the related communities.
• Validation by the Movement Charter Drafting Committee.
• Validation by the Affiliations Committee.
• For regional hub proposals, validation by the related Grants Regional Committee.

Minimum criteria to become a pilot hub

This section outlines the criteria proposal for each phase of a hub piloting project. To advance to the next phase all the criteria from the current phase need to be fulfilled.

For movement level accountability there needs to be:

1. Publicly available documentation and information regarding the progress of the hub pilot available on meta.
2. Responsiveness to queries on the hub pilot talk page on the project talk page on Meta. Creation of a topic about the hub pilot proposal on the Movement Strategy Forum is strongly recommended for multilingual communication.

PHASE

CRITERIA – the proposal must include

Inception

• A stated goal – Clear explanation of the goal of the hub pilot. Including why this goal needs a new structure or cannot be achieved with the current Wikimedia structures.
• Involved entities – List of entities involved in the set up and oversight of the project. A hub pilot project must not be overseen by only one entity, as we already have an affiliate model and Wikimedia Foundation for such projects.
• Public documentation – Before moving to further activities, a project page needs to be created on Meta and copied to the Movement Strategy Forum for easy automatic translation.

Research / Planning

• Needs assessment – Rooted in research to understand the needs of communities related to the region or the theme. All the communities in the region or in the thematic topic area must be reached out to participate in the needs assessment process.
• Clear plan – Description of how the pilot will begin and continue to address the needs identified in the needs assessment. What actions the pilot will focus on in the first years (including which ones, how prioritized, why prioritized)?
• Shared governance model – Description of how the pilot will be overseen, including clear description of roles and responsibilities, and process for managing community feedback and input.
• Endorsement – Clear community endorsement. Including clear endorsement of the pilot from the communities to be supported by the hub pilot.

Pilot Set Up

• Success criteria – Agreement on the goals the pilot needs to achieve to be considered successful, tied to the Needs assessment.
• Monitoring and Evaluation framework – Clear plan on how the progress of a hub pilot will be monitored and evaluated. Including clear definition of objectives and key results for the pilot.
• Overlap Mitigation Plan – Clear mapping of its mandate against existing structures and a plan for mitigating potential overlaps.
• Community engagement framework – Plan for how the supported communities can inform the work of the pilot, engage in its activities, and participate in the decision-making.
• Inclusive leadership – The leadership of the pilot needs to be inclusive of diverse profiles (representation of gender, age, languages, regions…)
• Connection to the Movement Strategy implementation process – Designated representatives for participation in the Hubs and Movement Charter discussions and commitment to follow the outcomes and decisions from these processes.
• “Off-ramp” plan – Process for stopping the pilot if it doesn't satisfy the success criteria.

Planning Template

This is a suggested template for documenting your plan. Make sure your plan covers these questions.

Plan

Why? What? How?

WHY? - GOAL

Goal – What will the hub pilot achieve?

• What existing problems will the hub pilot solve?
• Who will benefit from the hub pilot and how?
• Why is a new hub pilot needed? Why are the current structures not sufficient?

WHAT? - SCOPE

Scope and scale – What services will the hub pilot provide?

• Clear description of the functions of the hub pilot.
• Clear description of the services provided by the hub pilot.

HOW? - SET UP

Set up – How will the hub pilot be set up to effectively achieve its goal

• Description of steps and activities for setting up the hub pilot.
• How will the hub pilot connect to other movement entities (existing Affiliates, project communities, Wikimedia Foundation, other hubs, etc.)?

Governance – What will be the governance structure of the hub pilot?

• List of entities involved.
• Short description of the governance structure (can be an organogram).

Resourcing – What are the human and/or financial resources needed for the hub pilot?

• Funding
  • Provide an estimated budget for the first four quarters, and then a basic financial forecast for the first three years. The point is to identify the main costs and funding sources expected, not to create an exhaustive budget.
  • What is your plan for acquiring the funding?
• Human resources
  • Who will be running the hub pilot?
  • Are these roles filled by volunteers, existing staff or new staff positions?

Off-ramp – How will the project be closed down, if unsuccessful?

• Description of steps and activities for closing down the hub pilot.

People

Who?

WHO? - PEOPLE

Governance – Who will oversee the set up of the hub pilot?

• List of people involved.
• Short description of the role of each person involved.
• Short “movement CV” for each person involved.

Execution (core team) – Who will be coordinating the set up of the hub pilot?

• List of people involved
• Short description of the role of each person involved
• Short CV for each person involved

Community Engagement

ACCOUNTABILITY

Public notice – Where can the hub pilot concept be discussed publicly? (link)

Evidence of support – Who is supporting the idea of the hub pilot?

• Proof of needs assessment in the relevant communities.
• Proof of community discussions regarding the idea.
• Direct endorsement on the hub pilot or grant page.

Evaluation – How will the progress of the hub pilot be tracked and evaluated? How often?

• What are the criteria of success for the hub pilot? How will this be evaluated? How often?

Public reporting – How will the activities related to the hub pilot be reported?