Wikimedia Conference 2018/Documentation/Movement Strategy track
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Structure of the report
editThis is a report for the Movement Strategy track at the Wikimedia Conference 2018. It is written in a narrative way, following the day-by-day flow of activities, to offer the reader an illustration of the process participants went through, and its associated outcomes. Each section of the report represents a step of the Movement Strategy track, which starts starts with a short introduction to its process and purpose. Within each step, there are several sub-steps or sessions that lead to the final output. All work produced by participants has been transcribed into this report, and links to all original documents are made available throughout the document, in their respective sections.
01 . Flow of Movement Strategy Track — Explained!
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Although the flow of the Movement Strategy track was explained in the afternoon of Day 1, we place its explanation at the beginning of the report to give the overview of the process and how the different pieces fit together. All the slides used to guide each step of the Movement Strategy track are available in the beginning of each section of the report.
Bhavesh guided participants through the logic flow of the Movement Strategy track, illustrated by the panels created by Anna Lena to the right. Last year the track explored the strategic direction of the movement. At the end of 2017, the majority of movement organizations have endorsed the strategic direction to become the essential infrastructure in the ecosystem for free knowledge, with focus on the two concepts of knowledge as a service and knowledge equity. Like in 2017, the movement strategy track took a participatory approach, designed like a “journey”, with each session building on the next session towards a conclusion.
The general aims of the Movement Strategy track were:
- To start the event by getting everybody on the same page and together.
- To share with each other what the strategic direction means for me and others.
- To together generate both the key actions/questions, and the strategic themes within which they exist, that must be addressed.
- To together create draft 01 of the thematic working groups.
- To cultivate ownership by asking people for their contribution and commitment.
Below is the summary of the key steps of the track, with their main purpose and activities.
Following the arrows on the image above, the process started by setting the frame and giving The Big Picture of where the Wikimedia Movement stands in the strategy development process, and where it is going until the Wikimedia Conference in 2019. This meant recalling what had been done in the past, and highlighting the stakes in the present, including:
- Starting together with an overview of the whole conference and each track.
- Having a sense of the status of the movement strategy process now and where it is going in the next two years;
- Obtaining clarity about the aims and process of the movement strategy track, and what will happen with all the input/discussions generated during 3 days.
From here, we jumped 3 to 5 years into the future, within the frame of the Strategic Direction, to imagine The Possibilities that will help us move forward. We asked:
- How do we contextualize and apply the direction? How can we implement it in our own organizations, groups or communities, and align our strategies, goals and programs?
- Imagine how the strategy could change your work in the next 3 years? What could you be doing more of, less of, new? What are the opportunities?
Looking back from that future position, we identified the Challenges that we need to overcome in order to grasp the surfaced possibilities. In this step, we worked with the following questions:
- What are the concrete areas where change is needed? Discussing what blocks us from moving forward.
- What are the challenges we need to resolve around roles, resources and responsibilities, in order to move forward? Discussing the challenges we need to address to be fit for purpose.
Dealing only with opportunities or blocks could create a huge list of work forever. This step created a focus on the key things that must be addressed, made it more manageable and focussed, and gave ideas for action. We established the Way Forward by defining the practical steps that will help overcome challenges, and take hold of possibilities. In this step, we worked with the following questions:
- How do we address these challenges and move towards our opportunities and the strategic direction? Suggesting practical actions to address our challenges and move towards our possibilities and the Strategic Direction.
- What are the processes and decisions needed - categorizing the actions into larger thematic areas?
In Preparing to Work the practical actions were redistributed in key themes that can be seen as enablers (or disablers) for moving forward. In this step, we:
- Presented the model of working groups (those groups worked on how to tackle each of the identified themes) and form temporary working groups.
- Worked on clarifying the aims and outputs of each Working Group.
Working on operational key areas require taking into consideration previous work streams within Wikimedia that might be relevant when moving forward. Thematic Inputs from existing initiatives and structures allowed the conference participants to:
- Come together to hear presentations on some of the work done already that we could build on in the Working Groups.
- Discuss the presentations in parallel smaller groups to clarify questions and understand connections with other areas of work.
The possibilities, challenges, practical actions and thematic inputs are finally brought together into working groups structured around key themes. Getting to Work implied taking all the input surfaced during the Movement Strategy track so far to create an orientation on how to work towards the identified changes needed to align the Wikimedia Movement with its new Strategic Direction. In this step we worked with questions like:
- what are the critical questions that need to be answered?
- who should be involved?
- how should changes be implemented?
Again bringing together all participants in the conference, the Wrapping Up session gave everyone a sense of what the next milestones in the movement will be, in particular for aligning the organisation with the Strategic Direction, and invited different voices from the different conference tracks to share the gist of what happened from their own experience. The session ended with expressions of gratitude for all that had contributed to the process.
Credits
editThe report was written by Luís Manuel Pinto, but several people made it possible by contributing with facilitation, creating infrastructure for documentation, clustering, analysing and transcribing inputs from participants, and photographing activities.
People who have contributed directly to this report:
- Bhavesh Patel & Rob Lancaster (Design and facilitation)
- Anna Lena Schiller (Graphic facilitation)
- Hişar Ersöz and Sabeth Kerkhoff (studio amore)
- Jason Krüger (photography)
- Olha Kotska (Support)
- Cornelius Kibelka, Kaarel Vaidla, Nicole Ebber, Anne Kierkegaard
Should you have any comments or questions concerning this report, please contact Nicole Ebber (WMDE).
Most photos by Jason Krüger for Wikimedia Deutschland e.V., except photos of all boards and posts produced at the conference which were taken by Luís Manuel Pinto (own work). All illustrations and graphics were created by Anna Lena Schiller. All photos have a CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) license, via Wikimedia Commons.