Talk:Wikimedia Chapters Association/Governance

What is governance?

I appreciate a lot this initiative but probably there is a misunderstanding about what is governance and what is the aim of the governance.

Governance doesn't mean "management" but governance means "control". The best aim of governance is to have an "internal control system" and it's not to have a strategy.

I understand the effort, but at the moment this start is not addressed correctly to have "governance".

Also the peer review has no sense because anyone applies the local law or the local parameters. Basically the chapters have different organizations and the peer review will miss its mission.

To have a good start for governance I suggest to do that:

1. ) to select a framework as tool to measure the level and the quality of the organization to be evaluated
2. ) If the most common frameworks (the most important is COSO) don't satisfy the requirements or if they are really hard to apply, this commission can work to adapt one and to create a specific framework (for instance COBIT is a framework derivative of COSO designed for IT governance)
3. ) as soon the framework is ready and there are the parameters to measure the level of maturity of the several part of a chapter, it can be agreed with WMF
4. ) after the peer review can substitute easily the internal audits using this framework

This sequence helps to have an impartial point of reference to evaluate the maturity, agreed with WMF, complaint with the most common frameworks and it helps a lot because the external audits have a reference.

A framework is the basis for any governance and the governance has the aim only to evaluate the maturity and the risks not to indicate how this objectives must be reached.

Basically everyone is free to use their organization or their creativity to organize processes or organization, but the framework is a tool helpful to evaluate if this structure is valid or not. The peer review has got a system of evaluation, WMF gives the maturity of the models in order to be complaint and, most important, the risks are reduced. --Ilario (talk) 08:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Ilario. I will be laying out a simple checklist, based on my experience in the field of organizational maturity and focused on our shared vision of the role of chapters. COSO has a financial and IT focus (I understand, I have never used it and I am unclear how widely used it has been in Europe in comparison to the USA). I would not rush to recommending an established assessment model just yet, in fact for our inter-chapter peer review and best practice sharing I envisaged that we would would have a very simple set of topics that all chapters would want to assess themselves on, and that the simple checklist underneath each topic would be very simple indeed and subject to being customized for local needs (legal, tax and financial controls may vary by country). With so much interest in me personally this week (probably too much), I am delayed in getting on to this, though I would hope to start it on :meta next week and we can talk around specific examples. --Fæ (talk) 09:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

1. . I don't think it benefits anyone to go into a detailed philosophical discussion about the nature of governance. Each of us likely already has a vision of what the term means. and those visions probably vary widely. I prefer "governance" as a broadly based and pragmatic concept about what works.

   Yes, that's why the first thing to come out will be a simple check-list for any chapter to make use of.

2. . What are "COSO" and "COBIT"? Can the avoidance of obscure abbreviations and jargon become a part of our governance model.

   They are standards for (mainly IT and Finance) organizations to be assessed against. It's management jargon that you can probably ignore.

3. . Governance of what? My first impression was that we would be looking at the operation of the Association itself, more so than of the chapters, and that this committee could be the one that marshals improvements to our own charter and other operating procedures.

   Governance of Chapters in general so that the Chapters Association can start to deliver on that bit of our charter that relates to "supporting such motivation and enabling such empowerment is the fundamental purpose of the Wikimedia Chapters, which must therefore be able to grow into strong, capable, sustainable, and self-sufficient organizations."

4. . I don't see the Association as having an enforcement role. It is one thing provide standards of best practices that give governance options to chapters, but quite another to confront chapters that persist in choosing alternatives that are not a part of our guidelines. Eclecticology (talk) 09:26, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

   I agree, this is not enforcement. --Fæ (talk) 09:32, 1 August 2012 (UTC)