Wikimedia Conference 2018/Documentation/Movement Strategy track/Summary
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Summary of the Movement Strategy Track Report
[edit]The Wikimedia Conference 2018, and more specifically the Movement Strategy Track, marked the beginning of Phase 2 of the Movement Strategy process.
Last year, Phase 1 of the Movement Strategy process was about defining the Strategic Direction. This year, Phase 2 (2018-2019) is about understanding what we want and need to change, so that we can start implementing those changes in Phase 3 (2019-2020). This change process that will lead us towards the Strategic Direction takes place on different levels: Conceptual, Structural, Programmatic, and Tactical. The focus of the Movement Strategy track was mainly on the structural level. Below is an overview of how these structural questions were addressed in eight sessions over the three days of the conference. The main outcome of the Strategy Track was to lay the ground for the Working Groups that will be an essential structure during Phase 2, and to identify the key thematic areas they will focus on. The thematic Working Groups will develop recommendations for the Wikimedia Movement, based on the Strategic Direction. In the second half of May 2018, there will be an open call to participate in the Working Groups.
The first session offered everyone an introduction to the work that has been done so far, and the challenges ahead. One of the exercises was, in small groups, to share perspectives on what “knowledge as a service” and “knowledge equity” mean for the respective organizations, groups or communities and how this will impact future activities. After this session, participants headed to the programmatic track that they were most interested in. Around 50-60 people stayed and participated in the Movement Strategy Track.
Within the frame of the Strategic Direction, participants were asked to imagine the possibilities that will help us move forward, by considering questions like: Imagine how the strategic direction could change your work in the next 3 years? What could you be doing more of, less of, new? – Small groups produced a series of possibilities that then got clustered in larger themes.
Having identified future possibilities, participants identified the challenges that the movement needs to overcome to make use of those possibilities. We worked in three larger groups with questions like: What are the concrete areas where change is needed? What are the challenges we need to resolve around roles, resources and responsibilities in order to move forward?
The results of the group work were collected on a big wall, to be clustered again according to commonality. Each participant marked the challenges they believe deserve particular attention. These are the final challenge clusters.
At the beginning of the second day, participants shared insights or concerns about their experience in the Strategy Track so far. After this, within smaller groups, participants discussed practical actions or solutions to address the challenges from session 3. The Strategy Core Team introduced 11 key thematic areas that were distilled from previous movement conversations and combined with the outcomes of the first sessions at the WMCON. The thematic areas can be seen as enablers (or disablers) for moving forward. The practical actions were sorted under the key thematic areas (with the possibility of removing or adding themes).
This session presented the model of the Phase 2 Working Groups. Participants divided themselves according to a key thematic area: these temporary working groups at the conference worked on clarifying what the critical questions within each thematic area are, following a number of guiding questions. The participants chose to discuss these 8 key thematic areas: Roles & Responsibilities, Resource Allocation, Diversity, Partnerships, Capacity Building, Community, Technology, and Advocacy.
The session started with a Questions and Answers session with the Board of Trustees. Representatives from different initiatives and work streams within the Wikimedia Movement then presented some of their current thoughts and ideas regarding their work and ongoing discussions, and some of the key questions they would like to share with participants for further reflection (Partnerships statement; Community Resources Funding strategy; Global Event Strategy; Future of the Wikimedia Conference; Technology directions for supporting our strategy; Statement of the Wikimedia Diversity Conference; Wikidata: What it means for knowledge as a service and knowledge equity; Tough Questions from the Chapters Dialogue (2014); Development of organisations of the Wikiverse – what do we need to evolve?). The purpose was to include more people into these discussions (whether presented by the affiliates, movement volunteers, or WMF). Everyone was invited to afterwards join the presenters and engage in a conversation around the questions they had shared.
This session carried on from Session 5: the conference working groups worked on questions related to the internal structure of each Working Group: Who should be in a Working Group and how should they work on the recommendations?. You can find the final output of each working group here. – This data is the first basis for the actual Working Groups; in terms of defining the scope of the key thematic areas and how to organise their work, as well as who should be in the respective Working Groups. The Core Strategy Team are working on analyzing and structuring this data, and the request for comments and the open call for participation in the Working Groups will be sent out in the second half of May.
In this plenary session all participants were presented to the next milestones in the Strategy Process, and two participants in the strategy track shared their impression of the experience, one of them was Pru Mitchell (Wikimedia Australia) who said: “We have produced working groups orientation for others to take on. Being involved in the strategic conversations: either you are involved, or you trust others in doing it”