Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Process/Steering Committee/Notes/2017-01-27

27 Jan 2017: Community Process Steering Committee

Meeting A: 8 a.m. Pacific (4 p.m. UTC) (See conversion)

Meeting B: 2 p.m. Pacific (10 p.m. UTC) (See conversion)

Committee members:

• Risker, Canada, Individual contributor/Former ArbCom/Functionary/Election Committee/FDC
• Lucy Crompton-Reid, UK, Staff/ED of WMUK
• Bishakha Datta, India, Former WMF Board/FDC
• Florence Devouard, Former WMF Board/Individual contributor
• Nicole Ebber, Germany, Staff of WMDE
• Mykola Kozlenko, Ukraine, WMUA
• Dumisani Ndubane, South Africa, WMZA/Former FDC
• Sandra Rientjes, Netherlands, Staff/ED of WMNL
• Kaarel Vaidla, Estonia, Former ED of WMEE
• Liam Wyatt, Italy, Individual contributor/GLAM/FDC
• Andrea Zanni, Italy, Wikimedia Italy, Wikisource leader

In attendance:

Meeting A:

• Lucy
• Nicole
• Dumisani
• Sandra
• Andrea
• Core Team: Guillaume, Suzie, Shannon, Ed
• CE Support: Jaime A (facilitator), Delphine M (notes)

Meeting B:

• Liam
• Risker
• Kaarel
• Mykola
• Florence
• Core Team:  Guillaume, Suzie, Shannon, Ed
• CE Support: Jaime A (facilitator), Nick W (notes)

Agenda

HH:00 Welcome and Orientation

HH:05 Following-up & Milestones Review

HH:15 Prototype Review: Guided Discussion

HH:50 Wrap-up and Next Steps

HH:05 Following-up & Milestones Review

What is the information need?	Status
We would like to post the membership of the committee on wiki.  For this consideration, please share your preference: private or public	11 of 12 members have agreed to be publicly listed. Jaime still needs to hear from final member who was unable to participate
We would love to be able to post the notes from these meetings. Ok posting notes with attribution: Liam, Lucy, Andrea, Risker, Mykola, Kaarel, Sandra. Bishakha, Nicole, Dumi, Florence	All committee members who participated in last week’s calls have agreed to posting the meeting notes with attribution. Jaime still needs to hear from final member who was unable to participate
Is there a way to bring in lessons learned from the outcomes of the last strategy as an input to our current process?	Here is a review document Check-in with core team - Core team will be collating this information to bring more to the committee next week.
Can the Community Liaisons/Ambassador support extend longer?	Right now we only have budget for 20 people working half time for 3 months. We have $28K available for additional translation, should we need it. Adding more budget here would necessitate a decrease in other areas.

Other tasks and responsibilities

Task	Status
Coordinating meeting times for our upcoming dates	Scheduling will continue at the same times on Fridays as those were the most selected times.
Job Description review & comment	Done - Great work everyone! This has now moved forward with suggested reprioritization and outreach to known affiliates will begin today for those language groups identified as likely for affiliate support to inquire as to their ability to resource. The Job Description is posted now on Meta. We hope to get it in the hands of recruiting today for some of the top languages where affiliate outreach is not being done so that we can begin recruiting as soon as possible next week. (Could be as late as next Friday.) We have a small team of staff set up to triage initial applications with weekly meetings throughout.

See also: Community Process Steering Committee Charter

• January 20: The Committee holds the first to discuss design parameters for the two track processes (organized groups and individual contributors) and share ideas on process with the core strategy team.
• January 27: The core strategy team shares the first prototypes of the two processes for discussion with the Committee and iteratively improves it based on comments.
• February 1: Post prototypes #1 of processes for Tracks A and B on Meta for comments
• February 3: Core strategy team shares second version of prototypes of the two processes for discussion with the Committee and iteratively improves it based on comments.
• February 7: Post prototypes #2 of processes for Tracks A and B on Meta for comments
• February 9: Core strategy team shares the third version of prototypes of the two processes for discussion with the Committee and iteratively improves it based on comments.
• February 13: Post Final prototypes for Tracks A and B on Meta

Design considerations:

• Engages our global communities with a process that is diverse, inclusive and robust, within the overall timeline and constraints.
• Process is highly participatory across languages, geographies and projects, with active facilitation through a variety of methods, potentially including online (synchronously and asynchronously) and in face-to-face discussions, which includes significant data to drive ultimate decision-making.
• Facilitates inclusive representation of all voices, without the loudest voices dominating.

Core ideas from the first meetings:

• Identify appropriate channels and platforms, such as being brainstormed here
• Leveraging Affiliates in language groups where they exist to reach more of community; can organize discussion on and offline

• Engaging ambassadors (enthusiastic community members) and hired liaisons for different languages, especially to reach communities where there is no affiliate support and facilitate two-way conversation (not just input collecting)
• Using private and public channels as well as direct messages to talk pages, local wikis, Facebook
• Accessing editors through education and other programs

• Identify the pitch (articulating the goals and message to engage people). Should be tailored to communities. Could have basic inspirational video with subtitles.
• Identify the questions (e.g., a blank sheet, or a set of prompts or provocations)?
• Close the feedback loop, so that people can see what happened to their input. Even if it's not the exact thing they said, they can see through the extensive documentation that something of what they contributed has been retained.

:05 notes

Group A/B walk through of above and highlighting design criteria

• JA: go ahead and get started :P
• Introduction from JA: question about whether people have reviewed the prototype. Is everyone ok to be publicly listed and notes with attribution.
• JA: Question about whether we could bring in outcomes from last strategy process and review documents on lessons learned from the previous strategy process
• SN: will talk to core team to see how that is best done
• JA: Liaisons and ambassadors support: budget is for 30 people ½ time for 3 months. Coordinating meeting dates and times. Job description is already moving to recruiting and getting the word out. Today’s meeting. Reading agenda items.
• Channels Brainstorming now through next meeting see here as listed also in tasks section below
• Suzie and Shannon

HH:10 Prototype Review: Guided Discussion

• The draft prototype
• Gauge - 1-10 - how do you rank this flow for track A? Track B?
  • Strengths - What do you like?
  • Weaknesses - What don’t you like, and how might we improve this?
• Questions if not covered during the above conversation
  • We have budget for up to 20 liaisons for 3 months, running March 1 - May 31. Are we comfortable with this? Intention would be to have them respond to questions on local wikis during the cycle 1 on-wiki discussion (March 1-31), write summaries and report from cycle one, potentially respond to cycle 2 on-wiki conversations (May 1-31),
  • How do we allow for a second cycle of conversation but not have these conversations be too siloed again?
  • Is this enough opportunity for “quiet” voices?
  • How to ensure smaller organized groups and contributors in emerging communities are represented?
  • Specific recommendations for improving the prototype

:10 notes

Group A:

• Suzie: Walking through prototype + timeline
  • Small circles represent conversation groups. Three cycles with decreasing number of groups as cycles go along the road to Wikimania
• Suzie will talk people through the frame. And ask to score 1 to 10.
• Track A (see timeline)
  • Conference in Berlin + Wikimania can’t shift
• We’re in the process of designing, we’ll have our first circle of engagement with groups with independent discussion in cycle one. Toolkit. Part of toolkit will be summary report format. Will be put in the sense-making machine. Process so that they’re ready for Berlin. Initial work and ideas that would feed the strategy track.
• Some of the affiliates and organized groups will not meet before Berlin, so will have some time to do so before cycle 2. Cycle 2 looking at discussions, refining themes. Making sense of them and making selections. Cycle 3 would be posting the recommendations.
• GP: Goal is to publish this before Wikimania, everyone can look at it before Wikimania. Wikimania is a starting point for the next phase, diving into the specifics and the roles, who wants to take which part of the project.
• Suzie: Back to prototype page:
• SN: Other prototype page. High level. Who do we want to hear; sorting tracks by audience. Wikimedia movement organized groups is in track A. Track B are individual contributors. Figure out outreach to groups and individuals. Lots of comments that will be taken into consideration. Easier to do when we talk through the process and know what it exactly looks like.
• SK: Role of facilitators in the discussion: TA=> someone from the affiliates
• SK: TB different roles: #1 higher language liaisons, #2 ambassadors (volunteer their time), #3 someone from the affiliates that can help reach the individuals
• SN: survey component and summary that will be summarized, avenue for people not wanting to go on wiki. Summary reports. Design a  template that works to allow the synthesis to be captured and make sense.
• How do we cross pollinate the information from the on wiki conversation, or individual contributors or surveys etc. The idea is to share with the whole group so that the tracks interact with other points of views. Second cycle: to be able to add more information shared. 1st cycle: open divergence. 2: refining, deeper dive in top themes.
• Gauge - 1-10 - how do you rank this flow for track A? Track B?
  • Andrea:7 Dumi: Lucy:7 Nicole:6, will be 8 if comments taken into account Sandra: 7
  • LCR: pretty pleased with the design. Opening out. Berlin as key milestone. Then converging. Finding ways of describing that process is key. Initial look at the document was not as clear. It feels to me that we are asking quite a lot of the people facilitating. We need to make sure that there are opportunities for everyone, even in communities that don’t have so many opportunities to have facilitators. Making sure that there is equity. Channels are comprehensive. Conversations in Berlin will be crucial. How do we facilitate them effectively. Very immediate thoughts and impressions. Toolkit looks helpful.
  • NE: Comments in the document. Conference is good, of course ;). We are going to have great conversations. Like the idea of a toolkit, because the facilitators have a load of work and we should be making it clearer and easier form them, so better for them and the more capacity and the more we can ask the facilitators. More visual would be better understanding the process. Creating a video. 10 minutes video about what we are up to in the process. Huge amount of work and I like the draft. Looking forward. Question re: toolkit is ETA known? How much time will we have to test it?
  • SN: Do we also run a group for the collection of all affiliates' board member input? Or are Board members invited to the organized group's discussion?
  • GP: The current thinking is that we have identified organized groups but that groups that are not identified would be invited to use the tools and have the same discussions also.
  • SN. For all of these; opt in. We’d be paying attention of volunteers/staff etc. and their means that they have to participate.
  • NE: I would work with them at the board meeting or GA to work with members and board members to use the toolkit. Reasking the question about ETA of toolkit.
  • GP: It makes sense to have some review of it, so taking this into consideration.
  • NE: Toolkits different for each cycle. So we need to develop number 2 in Berlin(?)
  • SN something about buckets and consistency
  • LCR needs access to the document. Would also do the same thing as NE? Ie. use the toolkit with different stakeholders. Also there is a call like the ED call for the chairs of chapters. Good avenue to spread this there.
  • Ed: Two things:(I missed the 1st one)  if you only had an hour, or 30 min in advance of these, read this document. An attempt to summarize and distill into a much smaller number of slides. Digest of the background. (everything that is on meta etC.) Once that is done, this might help give a good basis for the video.
  • SN: Idea is to communicate information beyond the words on a page.
  • SR: I appreciate the efforts in the doc to reach out. Quite a monumental process. An example for many orgs. Worried about 2 things: #1 reach people who just edit. (only in main namespace). #2 This means going out of the meta box.
  • GP: Agrees. Relying on the people we know in different circles (affiliates etc.) who know the local context and their wikis will be critical. Watchlist is an opportunity to reach people. About meta: not everyone likes to go to meta, not their wiki, why should they? They will have an opportunity to have a discussion on their wiki and that is important. We want information to come to their wiki. We should have monthly updates in both directions.
  • Ed: Thank you Sandra. Do you have ideas about it? For example we think survey that is not on wiki and not on meta That they can answer. But idea welcome to find ways to engage them.
  • SR: most people in chapters will know who the big writers are. OK to reach out to them and say that although they don’t like this stuff, their input is valued. Interviews considered?
  • Ed: we have identified “Gurus”, people who have a long experience in the movement, we have an idea. It would be important to reach out to editors, people who have not been elected and such.
  • SR: editors who have survived for example.
  • SN: If we put up a stream of 1:1 interviews as part of the toolkit. Is that something that people would be able to take on on their local level?
  • SR: volunteers in our chapter might be interested in doing that.
  • SN: so we can add that as a whole other avenue to get interviews.
  • Du: Survey collating before the conference, to make sure that we have this information so we can get more into the common theme emerging. (breaking up) before we get to Berlin. What I have seen in most of the conferences I have attended…; [gone].
  • GP: registration has questions about this already.
  • Dumi: Organized regional groups will have meeting in the evenings. There are important discussions being held there. But it would be good to document what they discuss. For meetups, thematic meetups. Such as African Wikimedians, French speaking, etc. Have scribes there to capture what is being said.
  • SN we need to see with the volume to determine how much synthesis can be accomplished before WMCON. Minimally, everything will be posted on meta as feedback before the conference.
  • Du: Some important discussions are lost in these meetings that we don’t bring back to the conference and that is not good.
  • DeM: Information needs to be not just put on meta but also communicated to the people.
  • JA: next steps:
  • - input idea in channels brainstorming document
  • - post a revised version of the first draft
  • Iterations during the conference as well.

Group B:

• Jaime: Explanation of agenda, welcome/thanks, Note about the brainstorming doc (linked above in "Core ideas")

• Suzie: Walking through Link to timeline graphic + prototype
  • Small circles represent conversation groups. Three cycles with decreasing number of groups as cycles go along the road to Wikimania
• Suzie will talk people through the frame. And ask to score 1 to 10.
• Suzie: Back to prototype page: (overview repeated from above)
• Risker:7, Liam:7, Kaarel:7, Mykola:7, Florence 7
• Risker: like basic concept, biggest challenges area of getting facilitators with some of these groups, and persuading to participate, some groups very small (e.g. FDC), often very busy people already, often have other connections (e.g. in multiple groups) so might not get a specific per-group response because they already commented with another hat. Confused about at what point a facilitator will kick in though, as we have mention of both before/after Berlin.
  • G: We have a list of organized groups, but understand some of those limitations you mentioned.
  • SN: The intent for when starts, would be for them to start in cycle 1, and then in cycle 2 it would an option. We think a lot more will participate in cycle 1 and not turn up again for cycle 2. But we want to toolkit to help at both stages. Helping to get important themes get continual activity. Someone might say "I'm opting out of being a facilitator, and just showing up as an individual".
    • Risker: good point about people dropping out after cycle 1, might also see new people showing up later in the process
• Liam: [Some technical issues, both microphone, and not having
• Mykola: Good points: track A - organized groups are diverse. Both well-organized and less-organized. Ambiguous: some groups might not have facilitators. [?] double tier system, a facilitator who will have to coordinate a small group, and a large community.  Good: Multilingual groups. Bad: Mostly English speakers.
• Mykola: Track B - need to know who we want to invite personally, better profile of the silent majorities. E.g. people who follow meta, and people who follow VPs, are not representative of entire community. Need to find a way to find the editors who don't normally part.
  • Indeed, great point about creating connection between facilitators. Possibly a low-activity mailing list?
  • (open to better options)
• Mykola: For local discussion, we might want a standard framework for applying to all Mykola: communities.
• Berlin: Will be hard for us to work with [?] not prepared well enough. Would be good to have synthesized feedback before Berlin. So we don't have to go through hundreds of pieces of feedback during the event.
• Mykola: Disappointed cycle 2 will not have paid liaisons. Means it will only be meta only. Would like this not to go in same way as Lila's strategy, where we got a lot at start, but had trouble summarizing it.
  • Clarification: they would be working through cycle 2. [?]
  • Cycle 2 would be similar to what's done in past with guided questions/themes.
    • Liam: I would have actually thought that the official/paid liaisons would be more important in cycle2 than in cycle1 (following Mykola's point)
    • the extension for liaisons is good and important
  • SN: We can't do all the synthesis, we'd all need to collaborate on it. We need ideas on how to find volunteers who would want to (and be good at) helping with this. ideas?
• Kaarel: We have to be prepared for the possibility that new people join in in cycle2. Need to handle it effectively and not go into loops
• Liam: Cycle 1 feedback might be very diverse and off-track, if they're very meta questions. People would be able to provide more useful/actionable feedback later on, when there are more practical decisions to be made,. Beginning will be very open-book and with contradictory answers coming back.
• Liam: Main concern is about A/B audiences refer to contributors/groups that are already inside WM, they're identifiable. Was wondering if we could find a way, we could deliberately find a way to include groups we respect but have not been part of this before. E.g. CreativeCommons, OSM, GLAM orgs, or even non-digital things.
  • G: Tracks C/D will focus on people not yet in the conversation. Current Readers, Current Partners, New Readers, New/potential partners, and External Movement Partners.
  • Kaarel: But as said before, we need to involve also affiliates with networks in these discussions
  • SN: Haven't yet targeted people who used to be part of the movement but are not anymore.
• FD: Groups. Will the groups be distinct, or talk to each other?
  • SN: Track A will have a toolkit, so we'll use our channels to invite them to participate
  • SN: Track B: Non-grouped people, will have potential to gather within the groups, or if an affiliate knows they want to gather as individuals, there'll be part of the toolkit to help them do that to.
  • G: If multiple groups want to work together they can do that, too.
• SN: What would make it into a "10"?
  • Risker: I do not know if it could get to 10, I would rarely give that rating for anything
  • Liam: my number went 'up' because you reminded me about 'track C' - but I remain somewhat worried about the usefulness/'collate-ability' of the feedback received in 'cycle 1 discussions'.
  • Kaarel: part of the low score is extremely tight timeline, especially in cycle 1
  • Mykola: concerned about timelines. Concerned about massive feedback needing to be summarized/synthesized by Berlin. People need to know about how to participate, and be given time to do so, at a local level. At Berlin, people will want action items.
  • Florence: I second Kaarel. Tight timeline for cycle 1
• FD: Can you clarify what is meant by "toolkit"?
  • [pointer to last page of the draft doc]
  • Way to summarize relevant information, and putting them on metawiki, or even into a slidedeck. We shouldn't all have to review (and couldn't) the hundreds of pages where the discussions will take place.
  • Aiming to provide resources for various possible ways for people to facilitate a discussion.
• GP: Reviews documentation and synthesis model used previously that might work to organized a layered approach for sense-making across groups but keeping traceability
  • S: Has the potential to make the moment at Berlin more productive as well.
• FD: main question was whether the output of Berlin conf would be one language only or translated as well
  • GP: Want regular updates throughout, not just a single round of consultation. Want as much as possible, regular cross-update summaries from AND to the various places. Translation will be the biggest challenge.
• Mykola: could we have a schedule of these feedback loops between languages please?
  • GP: We don't have a precise schedule yet but we'll try to add it into the next draft

From Kaarel via notes following call time:

Concerns:

• Very tight timeline, especially regarding essential cycle1. There is not much we can change about the timeline and so it is just question if we are effective enough to make it work in this timeframe. And if we can, can facilitators and ambassadors in various cultural setting and contexts.
• Unsure about synthesis. We want to be as inclusive as possible, but this comes with the problem of synthesis. For cycle2 it would be create to be already on the same ground with all the tracks. Is this manageable with only April in our hands?
• New people showing up to new cycles. Have to make sure that we will not enter the limbo of going over same thing over and over and over again. Makes it much harder to reach higher levels of generalization for cycle3 and Wikimania

What would make initial proposed score higher?

• Getting consultations going ASAP. Simple, more time, more hope.
• Proving that we can synthesize in short time. Values discussion example was excellent, but I am still not convinced. See the Synthesis red link :)! And in the case of strategy it would be excellent to have a common basis created from cycle1 for cycle2. I will give the process an excellent grade, if this concern will be managed.
• Plan for not falling down in discussions helix, i.e. clear ways how avoid going through cycle1 in each and every discussion cycle. Probably toolkits, especially cycle2 toolkit will give an answer for that.

HH:50 Wrap-up and Next Steps

Task	Responsible	Target
Continue to share suggestions on the prototype document as the core team will be working early next week to iterate on the second draft version based on your input (Please do not direct edit this one but use comment or suggest mode)	Committee members	Input by end of Sunday
Input ideas to the channels brainstorm document (Please edit this one directly and just leave your name in front of your comments in the considerations column in case we need clarification)	Committee Members, CE Strategy support team	By February 3
Core team will be working on next iteration after your feedback on this first prototype - posting a revised Draft to meta next week to start gathering input more broadly	Core Team	To Committee by Feb 1 to meta by February 3