Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee/Board skills grid 2012

In June 2012, the full Board did an exercise on identifying missing board skills. This exercise was led by Matt Halprin, then chair of the Board Governance Committee. Arne Klempert and Phoebe Ayers were board members at that time and participated in this exercise.

Each board member individually filled this table. We were each given 100 points and asked to allocate them among the various categories. The results of this exercise are summarized below and represent the collective vision of the board in June 2012. They capture board members' thoughts on needed board skills in June 2012 - and are intended to serve as a backdrop to current conversations on this. This is not written in stone; our thoughts may have evolved over time.


Board Skill Allocation (how important is this skill)
Board effectiveness (the ability for our board to work through debate and conflict constructively) 20
Ethnic / multi-lingual diversity for the board as a whole 14
Gender diversity for the board as a whole 13
Financial expertise (e.g. Audit, Budgeting, Financial Controls) 12
Management experience (e.g. Experience leading teams to aid in counseling and evaluating the ED) 12
Geographic diversity for the board as a whole 11
Sector diversity for the board as a whole (non-profit, for-profit, public sector) 9
Legal expertise 6
Diversity of technical savvy (to represent current and future editors/readers) 4
Personality type diversity (e.g. Myers Briggs) 3
Mobile expertise 3
Comment from the board wiki:
We need an editable version of this. We should certainly have "technical expertise" on the list - which would rank higher than "absence of technical savvy" in importance I think. SJ + 15:32, 5 June 2013 (UTC)