CE report to board on planning - Feb 2013

Towards a five year plan 2013-18

How long should the plan be?

A lot of suggestions here. I suggest the equivalent of four pages of A4. This will be manageable but not too much text! Should it relate to the Foundation's Strategic Priorities? Definitely. Complete consensus on this.

How do we reconcile global and local community interests?

Consensus that our local interests are in harmony with the global ones. Ideally our plan should be 'Think global,act local'.

Should it create its own strategic priorities?

There is a general agreement that this should be the case. Propose starting with our current vision (below) and creating priorities form there?

Vision

• Free knowledge for all

Mission

• Wikimedia UK’s mission is to help people and organisations build and preserve open knowledge to share and use freely.

Values

• To value the contribution of volunteers

• To encourage, involve and engage volunteers

• To recognise that the contribution of volunteers is central to the activity of the organisation

• To be transparent and open

• To promote the value of free and open licences

• To have respectful and professional working relationships internally and externally

• To promote an open approach to learning and knowledge

What sort of internal structure should it have, e.g. work areas, targets, success criteria, SWOT analysis etc?

Many ideas were received:

It should be placed in a context of both the Wikimedia movement (WMF) and our own strategic goals. The plan could be broken down by operational areas; Governance, Finance, Outreach, Fundraising, Communications, Membership, Community etc and then each should have sections with SMART targets for the period. This can emerge and does not need to be pre-judged in too much detail.

How much depth should we look for?

"It should have enough detail that an external person looking at the document would understand the rationale behind the targets. The targets should, however, not be too detailed."

As said by one contributor but gauged mood of others.

Needs to have the annual plans fitting in to it.

What should we NOT put in?

Not too much detail but with some SMART targets.

Who should we consult and involve?

Agreement that this should be as wide as possible. In a sense this has already begun. To include members, community, donors, fellow open knowledge organisations and contributors. Good idea to use a survey as part of this process.

How do we make sure it reaches the widest possible community? The blog, Twitter, Facebook, geonotices / talk page notices, email lists, Signpost, the village pumps of the relevant language Wikimedia projects.

How should we consult and involve them?

Some special events – this is a good idea but would tend to indicate a timescale that would include the AGM not finish at it. These should be held around the country, including a day of workshops on March 23rd in London, and could act as a trigger for more local wikimeets. The aforementioned survey that must include open question options.

How to start the process

'The process could start with a situational analysis which the whole community can get involved with. We should ask questions like;

• What are we good at now? What aren't we good at now?
• What assets do we have?
• Where are we within the "ecosystem" of other open-knowledge, cultural, and educational institutions? What do we have a natural advantage in vs what could easily happen without us? '

We then need to establish what our long-term objectives are, and build the strategy about how we can reach those goals.

Proposed Timetable

• February 8/9th Agree overall method
• February/March Staff to draw up plan for enaction
• March 23rd In person workshops for community
• March/April Survey published and shared with stakeholders
• April/May Volunteer co-ordinator, staff and trustees attend wikimeets and special meetings to discuss options
• May First draft shared on UK wiki with call for comments
• June Second draft brought to annual conference.
• June/July Third draft open for consultation.
• July 13.14 Signed-off by Board

How often should it be reviewed, by whom and in what ways?

Once completed an annual review should be about right to monitor how we are progressing with a more substantial review at least 18 months before the next five year period starts. The annual plans can have more detailed targets that are monitored against the 5 year plan.

Risks

• That we never come to a conclusion.
• That there are too many competing ideas and the document becomes unmanageable
• That there is no buy-in from a broad range of interests, just a small group dominate the debate.