WikiConference UK 2013/Elections/Questions/Saad Choudri
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Answers
1. Key Issues. I believe that we face the following issues: (i) the need to continue to increase our profile, membership and active volunteer base: (ii) stabilise and ensure our processes are robust to tackle all situations; (iii) managing growth and ensuring the core principles of the charity are maintained; and (iv) ensuring our current membership remains engaged and active.
I trust our profile will increase with our continued outreach programs. One of these ways is to continue the WiR program as we partner with great institutions it will help to increase our profile and potentially shine a light on WMUK to a group of members who would not normally engaged with Wikimedia projects.
Over the course of the last year we have had to manage a governance review. As we start to implement and take on board the recommendations made in the review all of the processes, the checks and balances that are either currently being implemented or considered will need to be refined in order to ensure our effectiveness as an organisation is maintained. It would be a mistake to believe that there is no need to continue to hone and amend our processes to deal with the unique set of challenges we face. I will continue to use my professional and experience as a current trustee to make sure we have a solid base to continue to do the important work of delivering our program of activities.
We need to manage growth to ensure our volunteer base is empowered to help deliver the projects and continue to move the Wikimedia projects forward.
2. Volunteers. This is an important issue that we face. We often discuss this as a board and it is clear there is a balance that must be struck. It is important that volunteers continue to contribute their time and knowledge to the organisation for free as this is the key principle of Wikimedia projects. That being said some projects are suited and will require full time support and staff are well placed to provide volunteers with this support. Having been a Special Constable I understand that having the support of full-time staff to support your volunteering efforts certainly made me, and I trust our unit, a more effective and efficient resource to the challenges the organisation faced. My experience on the board and through my own volunteering efforts means I have the requisite understanding of how to strike an appropriate balance.
3. Membership Base. It need not be either one or the other. In any organisation there is always going to be members who are more active than others. It would be preferable to have a larger membership, as with any increase in membership you will inevitably have a core set of members/volunteers who will be more involved than others. The active members will always be there and building more members around that core group is important. If I were pushed for an answer I would prefer a smaller more active membership at this point because as we continue our growth I would hope that the active membership also increase alongside the same growth pattern as our overall membership. The smaller group would hopefully lead to a larger group of active members by demonstrating to the other members that active participation provides great value to all involved.
4. Hudson Review. As a current Trustee I have read the Hudson review extensively. I thought the recommendations are generally appropriate although I do not think the review always understood the Wikimedia movement and our values. The key lessons are we must ensure we have a robust governance structure in place that allows us to manage our projects for our members. However, it is important that we ensure there is a level of flexibility to allow us to move nimbly when appropriate. It is important that we are always conscious we have the correct checks and balances in place and this should lead to a an organisation and management structure that will provide a strong platform to push our mission and projects forward. I trust we learned that it is imperative that our governance and decision making process be held up to the highest standards and how to best conduct our business.
5. Metrics. Metrics and KPIs is some thing that I deal with everyday in my job. The modern day games industry is very much data driven. The important thing that we keep in mind is that our decisions are not solely based on the metrics, as you need to consider the wider issues as well. Clearly there is a need for metrics as it is a good indicator of how we are doing and can be useful to measure success. In the training delivered by WMUK we need to know how many training sessions have been delivered, how many people have been trained, has there been an increase in users, was the training useful – follow up by looking at those that have attended training to see if edits have improved.
In taking metrics forward we need to remember we must not blindly follow the metrics and try to arbitrarily increase the numbers. That being said metrics are a great tool to make informed decisions and we should collect actionable and quantifiable data to ensure our time and efforts are well spent. -- Saad Choudri (talk) 18:32, 2 June 2013 (UTC)