Congrats, Howie! On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Erik Moeller <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hello all, > > It’s with great pleasure that I announce the promotion of Howie Fung > to the position of Director of Product Development at the Wikimedia > Foundation, effective February 1. > > Howie joined us in October 2009 as a consultant for usability > projects, and became a permanent staff member in May 2010. Prior to > Wikimedia, Howie was Senior Product Manager at Rhapsody, where he > helped grow the music site's traffic five-fold within the the first > year on the basis of extensive customer research, including web > analytics, focus groups, user testing, and customer surveys. Prior to > that, Howie was Product Manager at eBay, prioritizing features based > on business objectives, usability studies, and economic impact. He > has an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA and a Bachelor of Science > in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. > > I’m really proud of all the work Howie’s done for Wikimedia since he’s > joined, calmly and rationally introducing method where there was > madness, always challenging us to increase our understanding of our > communities and to use our limited resources for the projects that are > likely to have the highest impact. In addition to the work he’s done > on the Usability Initiative, he’s worked on a variety of projects, > including the Editor Trends Study, the Former Contributors Survey, the > Article Feedback Tool, Moodbar, and the Feedback Dashboard. We’re > very lucky to have him in this new role. > > This announcement also means that we’re formally establishing a > Product Development department at Wikimedia, which is part of the > larger Engineering department. Product, in our context, means really > digging into what we want our projects to look like in a year, in two > years, in three years, and working together with software developers > and architects, as well as across Wikimedia, to make that vision a > reality. Our work will be organized along the following product > areas: Editor Engagement, Mobile, Analytics, and > Internationalization/Localization. > > The following staff and contractors will be part of the Product group, > going forward: Phil Chang, Brandon Harris, Fabrice Florin, Diederik > van Liere, Siebrand Mazeland, Dario Taraborelli, Oliver Keyes, and the > new Interaction Designer, when hired. > > The Mobile team, which works on both mobile apps (such as the > Wikipedia Android app) and the mobile web experience, is a good > example of how this works in practice. It has Phil as a product owner > (reporting to Howie), Tomasz as a scrum master and engineering > director, and Patrick, Arthur, Max, and Yuvi as engineers (reporting > to Tomasz). The team itself is the most important unit here: it drives > the success of any given initiative. The connection into the Product > Development group helps to ensure we follow a consistent strategy and > coordinate efforts across the board. [1] > > This is an important step in our organizational development and will > help us parallelize and coordinate product and engineering work more > effectively. > > Please join me in congratulating Howie, and WMF. :-) > > All best, > > Erik > > [1] In case you’d like to learn more about agile product development > and software engineering, this presentation is a good intro to scrum, > a specific methodology we've started to use on a couple of teams: > http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/presentations/30-an-overview-of-scrum > > > -- > Erik Möller > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation > > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > > _______________________________________________ > Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately > directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia > Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ > WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- Pats Pena | Global Fundraising Operations Manager Wikimedia Foundation office +1 (415) 839 6885 x6764 cell: +1 (415) 816 3349 fax: +1 (415) 284 9511 Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
