Le 2012-12-07 01:04, Sue Gardner a écrit :
Hello folks,
On-passing this FYI --- I hope the formatting doesn't break too much.
If people want to discuss this, maybe the first person could put it
on
a wiki page (attached to Narrowing Focus, maybe?) so the discussion
is
recorded for other interested parties and can be revisited later,
rather than just being ephemeral.
Thanks,
Sue
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Sue Gardner" <[email protected]>
Date: Dec 5, 2012 7:05 PM
Subject: Announcement: Wikimedia Foundation restructure (Global Dev &
Engineering)
To: "Staff All" <[email protected]>
hey folks,
The purpose of this note is to lay out some changes to the structure
of the Wikimedia Foundation. Some will take place immediately, and
others will play out over the next six months. I’m announcing it in a
single big note rather than bits & pieces because I want everyone to
have the overview: where we’re headed and why. This will be long ---
please bear with me.
First, some context. Why are we restructuring? Basically: if an
organization’s going to function well, it needs to reorg every now
and
then. As an organization grows and changes and learns, its
organizational structure gradually gets out-of-date --- it needs to
be
refreshed based on our experiences and our ambitions, or else it’ll
eventually stop working. And structure should follow strategy: as
strategy evolves, structure needs to evolve as well. With the
Narrowing Focus emphasis on engineering and grantmaking, we’ve
revised
our strategy, and so we need to refresh our structure too.
Well, one may argue the exact inverse point of view : if it works,
don't break it.
Could you, please, provide us some pointers to documents describing the
"Wikimedia strategy changes" ?
The whole purpose of this restructure is to support increased
emphasis
on engineering and grantmaking. Some specific issues:
* The FDC is off to a good start: it’s proved it’s able to make tough
choices, and its decisions are being respected by the chapters and
the
community. For the FDC to do a really good job for us next year
though, it's going to need to be able to assess the impact of the
funding it’s given out --- not just “is this organization capable of
spending this much money competently” but “to what extent is this
spending helping the movement achieve its goals.” The FDC won't be
able do that without support from us, and so we need and want to
invest in support for programmatic evaluation. At this point the
movement has very little ability to say “x kind of activity is having
a good effect” and “Y kind of activity is not” -- we need to help
equip it to do that.
What's the FDC ? Sorry if my questions seems naives, but I'm not a
native english speaker nor a long term contributor on this mailing list.
Please fell free to provide me links to document you think I should read
to better understand subjects discussed on this list.
* Currently more than half the organization’s staffing and spending
is
concentrated in engineering. That’s great and it fits with our
strategy, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense to have half the
organization reflected at the C-level by a single person. I would
like
the C-team to be less admin-heavy and more weighted towards
programmatic activities.
Does C-team working on C language software, or is that some internal
classification ? What do you call programmatic activities ?
First, we’re going to revamp Global Development. Starting now, that
department will be called Grantmaking and Programs. It will be co-led
by Anasuya (grantmaking) and Frank (programs). Anasuya and Frank will
have separate direct reports and budgets, but we’re going to keep it
as a single department because neither sub-department is very large
and because the two are deeply interlinked: we wouldn’t have one
without the other. Anasuya, currently Director of Global Learning and
Grantmaking, will become Senior Director of Grantmaking, and Frank,
currently Global Education Program Director, will become Senior
Director of Programs.
This point sounds like wind, smoke and mirrors to me. Those said I have
no problem with people playing with syntactic games, enjoy! ;P
* Siko is taking over responsibility from Asaf for all funding for
individuals. This will make it possible for us to grow our individual
grant-making, and it will also free up Asaf to do more small
organization development. Siko will also be responsible for
documentation and analysis of all grants except the ones funded by
the
FDC. It’s important for us to grow grantmaking to individuals because
individuals create 99% of the value in the projects. They do it with
practically no funding, but in some cases a little money will be able
to make something great happen.
On the other hand, don't you fear a reaction from contributors who
could feel wronged when they see some people got money where they get
nothing? I personally doesn't have opinion on this topic, I just wonder
if some thoughts were already thrown on this topic.
--
Association Culture-Libre
http://www.culture-libre.org/
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