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Stratégie/Wikimedia mouvement/2017/Processus/Evaluation des processus antérieurs

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This page is a translated version of the page Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Process/Audit of past strategy processes and the translation is 36% complete.


Alors que nous nous préparons à discuter des prorités stratégiques du mouvement Wikimédia pour les prochaines années, nous croyons qu'il est important de commencer par mieux comprendre ce qui a été bien et, plus important encore, ce qui n'a pas été satisfaisant dans nos précédents processus stratégiques. Savoir ce qu'il faut faire et ne pas faire pour réussir une consultation communautaire, placer des priorités, etc... nous permettra d'entammer ce processus avec les meilleures dispositions pour qu'il soit un succès.

La consultante en stratégie de la fondation Wikimedia, Suzie Nussel, a préparé le résumé ci-dessous, portant sur les processus de stratégie passés en incluant leurs forces et leurs faiblesses. Ce résumé a été créé en lisant la documentation de l'époque et avec des entretiens avec l'équipe-c ("c-team") de la fondation Wikimedia (Katherine Maher, Maggie Dennis, Lisa Grunwell, et Wes Moran), Guillaume Paumier (membre de l'équipe), et Philippe Beaudette (stratégie de 2010).

Nous espérons recueillir des memebres de notre communauté et de nos partenaires ce qu'ils ont appréciés ou ce qui leur a déplu lors de ces précédents processus. Qu'est-ce que vous pensez qu'il soit important de faire ou de ne pas faire durant notre processus de planification statégique du mouvement Wikimedia? Dites-le nous succintement sur la page de discussion ou, si vous avez besoin d'un plus important développement, créez votre propre page et ajoutez un lien vers celle-ci sur notre navigation sidebar.

Processus stratégique 2010-2015 (mouvement entier)

Vue d’ensemble

Le processus stratégique de 2010 a été globalement reconnu pour son approche unique, selon un article de Fortune, "réinventez votre business, le style de Wikipédia" (mars 22, 2011). Wikimédia a changé le paradigme de l’élaboration stratégique selon par des superviseurs de niveau C, en permettant cette fois à la stratégie d’être élaborée de manière collaborative par une communauté de plus de 2000 membres et volontaires. Ceci fut le fruit du travail du Directeur exécutif d’alors Sue Gardner, assistée par Philippe Beaudette (ancien Chargé des relations avec le lectorat).

Tandis que l’étape d’engagement de la communauté - inviter les membres des communautés à formuler et rédiger des propositions - avait pour but de collecter des informations, il en est ressorti une énorme quantité de propositions qui plus tard sont devenues les lignes directrices du processus stratégique. Cela a été très appréciée par Sue Gardner et donné naissance à excellent résultat en termes d’orientations stratégiques.

A la fin, toutefois le spectre des propositions a été démesurément large, les indicateurs de réussite n’ont pas été pris en compte ou suivis, et l’absence d’une implémentation rigoureuse de ce plan a rendu cette stratégie inefficace. Ceci a conduit à une perte de confiance vis-à-vis de notre capacité de leadership.

Étapes du processus

Selon Philippe Beaudette, premier facilitateur de la planification stratégique, les étapes suivantes ont été suivies :

  • Premièrement l’implication de la communauté - inviter les contributeurs à formuler des propositions afin de voir ceux qui semblent intéressés à prendre part au processus stratégique.
    • Une compagnie externe, Bridgespan, a été engagée afin d’aider à définir les livrables, d’assister, durant le processus stratégique et, d’aider à l’analyse statistique des données. Des difficultés sont survenues avec ce style de collaboration (trois directeurs différents se sont succédés)
  • Plus de 1000 propositions ont été recueillies, examinées et regroupées en des domaines fonctionnels.
    • Les propositions allaient de grandes idées stratégiques à des suggestions concrètes de tactiques et de livrables.
  • Chaque groupe principal a été converti en un groupe de travail
    • Les groupes de travail se concentraient sur l'assainissement de la communauté, l'expansion internationale, la stratégie technologique
  • Chaque groupe de travail (composé de bénévoles et de certains membres du personnel) a été chargé d'examiner un groupe de propositions, d'organiser des discussions sur wiki et de formuler des recommandations.
    • Les groupes de travail étaient ouverts à toute la communauté pour que ses membres participent, et pas uniquement les auteurs initiaux.
    • Un autre millier de personnes ont participé au processus
    • 2 facilitateurs professionnels ont apporté leur aide aux groupes de travail
    • Les groupes de travail étaient responsables de leur propre travail
  • Les recommandations ont été définies par l'équipe
  • Le conseil d'administration / le personnel a examiné les recommandations et formulé un plan stratégique final.

Résultats

Final strategic plan was very well received by the community and Wikimedia Foundation got recognition as being cutting-edge in its strategic planning. However, the plan was too large in scope to be properly implemented, which caused unrealistic expectations and a feeling of failure five years later.

Key people involved for further reference:

  • Philippe Beaudette
  • Eugene Kim

Forces et limites

Sujet Forces Limites
Participation - appel aux propositions Highly collaborative - process was the spirit of “open-source” engagement Le processus généra 1 000 propositions, ce qui submergea le personnel, en faible effectif (50 personnes à ce moment-là). Aucun mécanisme ne fut mis en place pour gérer ce volume.
Participation - Task forces

Process allowed sub-committees to co-create and get to the solutions on their own, thereby creating full ownership and accountability.

Loaded with big names in the communities, gave this status and energized people to participate

Some task forces did not complete the work. This was an issue for the Technical Task Force, which ended up being mainly written by Eugene Kim (and according to Philippe, was the worse one because of the lack of collaboration)
Acceptance Très bien reçu par la communauté, puisqu'ils étaient les moteurs principaux - se sont sentis écoutés et respectés Staff accepted the strategy, but they had limited control to effect all the changes.
Capacité d'action Clear, concise plans and tactics that could have been executed if the scope was reasonable for the resources available. The translation between the strategy to annual planning never happened effectively. The overall scope was too large to accomplish. Baseline measures were not known (or able to be known), so the goals could not be tracked for success.
Dynamics

ED gave strong trust in the process and community to develop the plan

Community eager to engage and solve the challenges, worked hard to deliver the recommendations

Community, staff, and Board fully involved in a shared vision and aligned

Convergence of ideas and strategies to a manageable, prioritized set did not happen. This set up the dynamic for a no-win scenario as expectations couldn’t be reached in the 5-years.

Key lessons from 2010 process / recommendations for next process

This is a list of recommendations, which also includes those from Philippe (given August 2016 via interview).

  • Community engagement worked really well.
    • Philippe recommends running the next process as this one was - full community engagement and open-source collaboration, soliciting proposals. This generates the most effective process and community buy-in. The staff will have to remain confident, and trust in the community and process to complete the strategy. The work of the many will always be dramatically better than the work of the few.
  • Create better management tool/process for receiving and processing proposals
  • Ensure Task Forces have the right mix of resources so the work is completed in each one. This might include at least one staff member facilitating or participating, and tracking the completion of the work.
    • Give each Task Force as much background data as is available, in an organized manner (links to past studies, current metrics, work in progress, etc.).
    • Don’t try to overly manage the Task Forces in terms of driving the agenda. These need to be community-driven.
    • Staff members could be responsible for helping to schedule the meetings and doing project management.
    • Clearly define roles (time keeper, facilitator, reporter, participants) and work, both on-wiki and on the best platform for the community and language (e.g., Facebook, Telegram, Google Docs, video-conferencing, etc.).
    • Give clear expectations of work to be completed, templates to use, etc. so that output is easy to manage across all groups.
  • 2010 plan was written with big goals that they knew were not achievable. Strategies should be refined and prioritized so that expectations are clear and goals are attainable within the time frame specified.
  • Goals should be measurable from the start so that progress can be and is measured over time.
  • Need mechanisms in place for follow-through. The whole process in 2010 was exhausting, so once the strategic plan was finalized, the next layer of implementation planning was not done. This needs to be well-defined and allow for easy tracking against major milestones throughout each year.
    • Breaking down sub-tasks
    • Setting realistic milestones
    • Creating measures to track progress
    • Creating quarterly reviews to check progress, and make adjustments as needed
    • Creating annual reports on progress against strategy
    • Keeping trust and transparency at the forefront… collaborate and communicate with community if major adjustments or changes in direction are deemed necessary (get buy-in beforehand, not after changes made)

2012 Narrowing Focus

Vue d’ensemble

On October 1, 2012, Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Foundation, published a Narrowing Focus recommendation on meta. Because the scope of the 2010 strategy was so extensive, the Foundation was having difficulty sizing its role and executing on its priorities to drive the mission forward. The Narrowing Focus mandate concentrated on execution and delivery, mainly engineering and grant-making. This recommendation was given to the Board, which approved this action. Community was not involved in the decision-making process in a formal way.

Synopsis of the Narrowing Focus document

Les points-clé du document inclus ci-dessous :

  • “We are a website (set of sites), so engineering (including product development) is core.”
  • “We are also becoming a grant-making organization.”
    • High-priority projects:
      • Funds dissemination committee and grant-making — improving the funds dissemination processes to be more transparent, democratic, and accountable
  • Recommendations (included in the mandate):
    • We plan to convert the catalyst projects into grants
    • We plan to wind down the fellowships program.
    • We will reduce time and effort spent on staging and supporting complex international events.
    • We will focus our support for movement-wide organizational development on grant-making and crisis response.

2015 Call to Action / discovery work on strategy

Vue d’ensemble

In May 2014, Lila Tretikov was hired as the new Executive Director of the Foundation. She was brought in primarily to help the Foundation build out its product and engineering functions to meet its strategic goals. Lila proposed that rather than a large, long-term strategy, the Foundation should move toward an agile, iterative process for driving its product development. Below is a timeline of major milestones.

  • July 2014: Lila introduces the concept of strategy as a practice..that helps you choose the right thing to do, focused on how the movement: Engages more users? Activates more editors? Creates more content?
  • Dec 2014: Lila presents the Call to Action approach. “Action will focus on technical execution, content and community, and innovation and new knowledge.”
  • Jan 2015: 2015 Call to Action announced at January All Hands
  • Feb 2015: Communications team publishes the State of the Wikimedia Foundation, which includes 2014 in review and the 2015 Call to action
  • Feb. 23, 2015: Open invitation to community and readers to participate in a 2-week visioning exercise / strategy consultation on 1) future trends beyond mobile for the next billion users and 2) based on these trends, what do Wikimedia projects look like?
  • March 2015: Kim Gilbey (strategy consultant) hired and introduced to the board. The iterative strategy process would be built in three phases: internal research at the Wikimedia Foundation, external dialogue, and implementation.
  • April 2015: Meetings with technology partners to discuss strategy, emerging opportunities and considerations
  • April 2015: Engineering team is reorganized into 6 teams to better meet the needs of its unique audiences in an agile product development process (Editing, Reading, Search & Discovery, Infrastructure, Community Tech, and Fundraising Tech).
  • May 2015 (Board minutes): Lila presents first take of strategy. Board concerned about the role of the Foundation in helping to solve community harassment. Also discussed best ways to work with partners and content reusers.
  • June 2015 (Metrics presentation): Lila presents Emerging Strategy.
  • July 2015 (Metrics): Findings from March visioning/strategy consultation reported.
  • July 2015: Work on Knowledge Engine grant in progress.
  • September 2015 (Board minutes): “Lila reviewed a number of strategic activities underway, including improving community workflows, increasing on-site speed, supporting high-quality content, expanding the Wikimedia Foundation's engagement with the community. The ongoing strategy process will provide an opportunity to set short term and long term goals, as well as opportunities to re-evaluate and update goals when appropriate. The Board and community will have an opportunity for more input. Board members emphasized the importance of providing adequate time for community input.”
  • Nov. 2015: Lila presents Strategic Focus areas (Reach, Communities, Knowledge)

June 2015 Strategic discovery work - Engagement by Stakeholder

From June 2015 metrics slide deck:
Wikimedia Foundation Strategy Preview, Wikimedia Foundation Metrics Meeting June 2015 - slide 46
Wikimedia Foundation Strategy Preview, Wikimedia Foundation Metrics Meeting June 2015 - slide 46

Note: Most of the non-survey work was not published.

Strategy survey (focus on mobile) - 2015

Design

The consultation consisted of a 10-day global consultation across Wikimedia projects and languages, lasting from February 23 – March 6, 2015. We introduced the consultation by acknowledging that the world is going mobile and the next billion Internet users are coming online. We translated the questions into 15 languages to reflect the international nature of the Wikimedia movement.

The consultation used two open-ended prompts to elicit broad, qualitative feedback and insights:

  1. What major trends would you identify in addition to mobile and the next billion users?
  2. Based on the future trends that you think are important, what would thriving and healthy Wikimedia projects look like?

This is the second time the Wikimedia Foundation has undertaken a collaborative strategy-setting process. However, this consultation was designed as part of a more nimble process than the previous strategic planning process conducted in 2010, in order to allow the Foundation to respond to a quickly changing world.

Participation

Près de 1 300 éditeurs et lecteurs donnèrent leur avis sur ces questions, dans 29 langues différentes. Nos résultats indiquent que 69% d'entre eux étaient des utilisateurs anonymes venant de 86 pays, 24% étaient des utilisateus enregistrés et avec un historique de participation aux projets Wikimedia, et 7% étaient des nouveaux utilisateurs (qui s'étaient tous créés un compte pendant la consultation). Ces deux derniers groupes provenaient de 30 wikis différents. Tous les commentaires reçus furent divisés en 2 468 commentaires portant sur 28 thèmes généraux.

2016-18 Foundation strategic process

Vue d’ensemble

In an attempt to define the Foundation's strategic vision to drive annual planning and rebuild trust in the community, the Board asked the ED (Lila Tretikov) in November 2015 to present a strategic plan by March 2016 (2016 Strategy work).

A consultant, Suzie Nussel, was brought in to help facilitate a fast-turn process, working directly with the C-team and Kevin Smith, team practices’ project lead. Discovery work included Lila’s pre-determined focus areas (Reach, Communities, Knowledge), the past year’s SWOT analysis, and the 2015 community consultation on future trends (mobile). This was used to develop a fast-turn consultative process with staff, and then with community, looking specifically at the key challenges and potential solutions. Work with the Community Engagement team resulted in 2 different consultations (on strategic approaches and then on the strategic plan).

This resulted in a Draft Foundation strategy, which was used by departments to write their annual plan programs, goals, and objectives. The Foundation annual plan was then presented to the FDC and community for review. This consultation feedback was used to refine the plan. The Board approved the annual plan in June 2016.

Note: During this process, ED Lila Tretikov resigned in March 2016, and then Katherine Maher was put in place as interim ED. Katherine was then named permanent ED in June 2016.

Étapes du processus

To meet the Board’s request and integrate with the FDC process, an extremely tight deadline of events was built. There were major, known limitations to this process from the onset, which were deemed “acceptable” in order to build a path toward better community engagement and transparency than had been done in the previous year.

  • Discovery sessions with staff and limited community members on key challenges facing movement in three focus areas (Reach, Communities, Knowledge).
    • Dec 14-18, 2015: In-person, two large group sessions of staff members
    • Dec 21-24, 2015: remote, 6 small groups of 4-6 staff members
    • Dec 20-24, 2015: remote, 3 small groups of community members
    • Dec 28-Jan 1, 2016: online, office-wiki discussion
  • Synthesis of key challenges, potential solutions (completed Jan 4, 2016)
  • Review of synthesis with Staff (Jan 5-8, 2016)
  • Writing of strategic approaches (Jan 11-15, 2016)
  • Community consultation on strategic approaches (Jan 15-Feb 14, 2016)
    • 6 pre-defined directions per three focus areas with option to write in their own strategic approach
    • Over 500 participants
    • Staff and C-team conducted sprints to respond to discussion points
    • Mid-point findings report shared with C-team, managers (Feb 5, 2016)
  • C-team - strategy review of findings and selection of strategic approaches (Feb 12, 2016)
  • Final report on strategic approaches completed and posted (Feb 26, 2016)
  • Draft strategic plan written and posted (March 4, 2016)
  • Community consultation - review of strategic plan (March 4-18, 2016)
    • C-team sprints to review and respond to comments
  • Annual plan
    • Work with teams to complete annual plan writing in FDC format (March 1-31)
    • Review of annual plan
      • Community consultation (March 31-April 30, 2016)
      • Sharing with Affiliates in Berlin (April 20, 2016)
      • FDC review (May 13-15, 2016)
    • Refinement of annual plan by staff, based on feedback (May 16-June 13, 2016)
    • Board approval of annual plan (June 22, 2016)
    • Process set up for ongoing review of completion of annual plan goals/objectives (in Q1 2016/17)

Résultats

While extremely tight, this process led to some insightful community engagement to inform the strategic approaches and to guide the annual planning. During the course of this process, community and media pressure escalated around distrust and lack of transparency. This led to Lila stepping down from her role as ED in March 2016.

The plan created is intended to only drive the activities for 18 months (roughly 2016-18). A deeper strategic planning process is intended once the permanent ED is selected.

The annual plan received good response from the FDC, and this has led to a feeling of more open transparency and accountability. The main outstanding request is more specific budgetary information tied to each program, as well as clear measurement and tracking of goals.

Liens

Staff engagement on key challenges and potential solutions:

Forces et limites

Thème Forces Limites
Participation Processus d'engagement des employés (1/3 des effectifs) et de la communauté (entre 500 et 600 utilisateurs uniques) rapide Fast-turn around led to some frustration in terms of time to adequately discuss, and limitations in technology/ consultation formats that were used to accommodate multiple languages but made the process difficult or cumbersome to follow.
Acceptation Makes sense and is believable. Limited push back from community on items presented. Bien qu'il puisse être suffisant d'avoir un plan à court terme pour la fondation, la communauté attends toujours une stratégie globale et une direction claire. Il y a un besoin d'orientation et de définition des rôles.
Actionabilité

Gives specific short-term direction as it was designed to aid 2 years’ of annual planning. Annual Plan accepted and praised as step in the right direction, even if programs are not tied to specific program budgets yet.

In the process of mapping quarterly goals into the whole Annual Plan map.

Needs stronger threads into each program.

As a short-term solution, it does not grapple with the Big Questions of role that the movement / Foundation plays in the knowledge space for the next 15-20 years.

Standard performance Metrics are still not integrated into the plan.

New metrics in the process of being evaluated.

Dynamics

Staff spent more time in collaborative discussions.

Staff built the Annual Plan from the strategic priorities, ensuring more ownership and buy-in of the work being done.

Opportunity for level-set and new ED to get alignment with staff and community

Conflict between Board’s desire for product strategy and staff’s desire for a more comprehensive strategy.

ED resigned during the process, alleviating much of the staff tension and negative press.