Wikimedia monthly activities meetings/Quarterly reviews/Legal, Finance, HR, Communications, April 2015

Notes from the Quarterly Review meeting with the Wikimedia Foundation's Legal, Finance, HR, and Communications teams, April 13, 2015, 2:00 - 3:00 PDT.

Please keep in mind that these minutes are mostly a rough transcript of what was said at the meeting, rather than a source of authoritative information. Consider referring to the presentation slides, blog posts, press releases and other official material

Present (in the office): Katherine Maher, Garfield Byrd, Luis Villa, Terence Gilbey, Tilman Bayer (taking minutes), Erik Moeller, Lila Tretikov, Damon Sicore; participating remotely: Geoff Brigham

Terry: Welcome
hope everyone had a chance to look at the slides

Presentation slides: Legal team (abridged)
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slide 2

[slide 2]

Geoff: 3 focus areas

 
slide 3

[slide 3]

3 successes:
NSA suit is about a key value: privacy
learning from this that Legal and Comms can form a strong partnership (also earlier with RTBF and transparency report)
mobile TM: more than half were addressed by those developers after friendly approach, without heavy hand
[slide]

 
slide 5

[slide 5]

will provide this scorecard [shown here in abridged form] every quarter
only 1 DMCA granted, illustrates agressiveness with which we defend
[slide]
[slide]
Core Workflows
commit to provide this [list] every q
[slide]

 
slide 4

[slide 4]

delivered well on all except transparency report
[slide]
Q4
Lila: this looks great
scorecard is a fantastic way to get insight into what team is doing
workflow too
have questions mostly about Q4:
--> can we put in some metrics (quantitative goals) for the year; for both strategy programs
--> (for Board:) timely approval of resolutions and minutes, SLA: on a good track but we should monitor this
Geoff: we should have that midway through quarter
Lila, Geoff: (on hire)
Lila: comfortable to set yearly goal for strategy commitment?
Geoff: definitely this q for 1st year goal


 
Presentations slides: Finance and Administration

Finance

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Terry: over to Garfield

 
slide 2

[slide 2]

Garfield:
Q3 was a tough quarter
ran into tech difficulties (software), had to start over with new vendor

 
slide 3

[slide 3]

5th floor delivered on time, very happy about that - it was the primary goal

 
slide 4

[slide 4]

Office wiki makeover delayed, but on track for April 30
ran into legal (privacy) issues that need to be discussed more generally
e.g. with sharing [Office wiki] user activity
Lila: what did you try to do?
Garfield: first on sharing activity with contractor, but that was resolved
then on to the issue of whether we can share [Office wiki user] data with Google
Geoff: offered to do separate privacy policy for the wiki, but need rationale in place
--> discuss Office wiki privacy policy issues
Garfield: Terry taking lead on monthly scorecard now
Joady leading work with international contractors
Lila: why not just do scorecard in e.g. Excel?
Garfield: request was to avoid manual processes and to have automatic approval
Lila: could automate as second step
I think it could still be simplified
--> have interim [approval] process, PO (purchase order) system
Garfield: Appendix?
Lila: I really liked Geoff's appendix about workflows
e.g. how long do approvals take
could have them everywhere, but especially useful in some areas
would also help with deprioritization
Luis: first one would be painful to do, but useful afterwards
Terry: Geoff is comfortable doing this on quarterly basis, but there is the question on whether we should be doing them in a more granular way than that
recall we split goalsetting process in two (first review for Q4 already complete by now)
Lila: how to expose this - present report card in e.g. metrics meeting, or ...?
Terry: continue present process for a few more quarters, then see
publish in form of Tilman's quarterly report, with Katherine taking care of messaging
also recall that the notes/decks from this meeting are redacted if needed


 
Presentation slides: Communications team

Communications

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slide 2

[slide 2]

Katherine: this was a fairly large quarter for us
did a lot that is not reflected here
this is why I like Geoff's workflows
onboarded Fabrice as Tilman offboarded to Erik's team
intern program: recruited 6
now have 6-8 positions open
stealing from Legal team's program (Michelle) ;)
State of the Wiki: originally also envisaged separate reports for other parts of the ecosystem
ultimately decided this is better for 15th anniversary
but published WMF report, positive feedback
workshop with Product
worked with them on messages for Wikigrok, Gather, and Error pages. Worked on launch plans and press work for Lead Images and Share a Fact.
expanded beyond product managers: also involve CLs, UX, other parts of Engineering like Analytics
brand & content:
look where our brand is; deliverable: brand book
most interesting: gaps on tone and voice, also e.g. colors. this becomes beginning of roadmap
Lila: next step on brand?
Katherine: brand research plan for FY15, message platform, plan for WP15
content: video, blog (underperforming re where it could be), social media
instead of full strategy, went back to metrics
ran blog survey re core value proposition
technical audience strongest
see deck in appendix
[so far, we use content as] communications to community, internal, press ... not currently using content for marketing our product (Wikipedia/projects), this is interesting opportunity area
external collab: workshop with PBS/NPR, and US chapters
inverse demographics to ours, so could be interested for user acquisition
what's the public media equivalent of GLAM work?
alignment with public content?
ACLU coverage extremely well on message
60 minutes
Art & feminism editathons

 
slide 3

[slide 3]

Annual Report
state of the WMF
3 parts of team worked together on these
Lila: what came out of Inspire campaign?
Luis: still doing review of proposals, see later review today
Katherine: success learnings:
Long lead times = success
Support for product works in driving product stories

  • Actions - Next Q: Request for dedicated PMM marketing support

Support for community efforts has strong public relations brand value

  • Actions - next Q: working on bringing Chapters together for annual workplace

Resourcing for department specific-support

 
slide 4

[slide 4]

Katherine: global visits - not enough planning, canceled a trip
unsuccessful media outreach - both from teams which were very excited about their project, but short prep time
e.g. found out too late we could have presented at major conference
Luis: what could have been done better re the "funding free knowledge" report?
Katherine: should have had more insight in how it was produced
Lila: more about Wikidata and open data?
wonder what Geoff thinks about e.g. participating in advisory boards
Luis: open data just hasn't been a high priority so far
Geoff: I like the idea
--> Katherine, Geoff and Luis to get together on open data
Katherine: appendices - we're a very content heavy department ;)
blog: quality over quantity
10k views is a very good traffic for a post currently
issue management
Katherine: miss learnings:
Resourcing and prioritization

  • Particularly for unique, non-core projects (e.g., WP15, ED tour) that are not driven by hard, interdepartmental collaboration
  • Deprioritize low-value PR pushes
  • Anticipate longer timelines for interdepartmental collaborative efforts

Lila: between you and Luis' team, figure out how to monitor [on-wiki processes] and escalate better if support is needed
--> Katherine: happy to work with Luis, need to figure out interface between teams
Lila: want more quantifiable data [in genera], but monitoring too
Damon: tremendous work for small team


 
Presentation slides: Talent and Culture (HR) team

Talent and Culture

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slide 2

[slide 2]

Terry: hit all but two goals
contractor issue with ADP

 
slide 3

[slide 3]

successes: keeping up recruiting after departures
implementation of international contractor solution started, still figuring out some things with Geoff

 
slide 4

[slide 4]

misses: ...
I would give us a B-

General meeting feedback

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[meeting recap:]
general appendix to these decks
Geoff: just want to clarify we are in compliance (board)
Lila: I like the new meeting format
it answered my questions
Damon: liked how fast it was, and green/red for goals
more practice
Katherine: like speed. find more ways to bring to rest of org / involve team, learn about how we are dealing with failure
Luis: I am going to bring my directors [in the quarterly review for the CE team]
Damon: miminize number of participants
Terry: can play this by ear
Garfield: liked pre-training
Damon: will we do pre-checkins for all quarterly review meetings?
Terry: yes, until well-practiced (Lila: agree), and then still for new hires
Luis: pleased how consistent decks are already
but still some gaps to close re consistency
Tilman: like the formal "what by when" part. should still improve slides format (in particular unreadable font size in objectives slide)
Geoff: there is a balance between bringing in mid-level folks and sharing honestly and directly. People will need to feel comfortable with direct, honest feedback on development areas.
Lila: can we bring in...
Erik: I think it's great; work still needed on monthly scorecard
appendix is a bit of a placeholder right now. metrics re readership etc.?
Terry: technology needs to get better, have everything in one place
Lila: agrees
Terry: thanks everyone (8 minutes over time)