Strategy
The original Wikipedia strategy may have been little more than 'produce 1000 Nupedia drafts in a year', but it has developed significantly over time.
Background
When the first elected Trustees took their seats on the Board, there were a variety of discussions about where the Foundation should set its sights.
- Early discussions: mailing list threads from Anthere and Angela from late 2004 were often about related topics
- Strategic goals: a few open meetings about goals, and some discussions on the wiki (1), ensued
The Mission and Vision statements were revisited in 2006/2007 to help lay uniform foundations for future work. The idea was for this to happen at least once a year, though we seem to have skipped 2008 – hence our 2009 strategy planning.
In late 2006 there was also an internal discussion of strategy with facilitated meetings of Board members and others, resulting in a few one-year planning documents. These do not seem to be public, though many resulting conversations are.
Strategic planning 2009
As of May 2009, A formal process of strategic planning is being planned for the coming year. Threads about how to proceed have been floated on foundation-l, and three one-year contracts to facilitate the process have been posted. The strategic planning process focuses on finding actionable strategies for the Wikimedia Foundation/Movement, answering what and how questions concerning participation, reach (outreach) and quality. Wikimedia strategy doesn't coincide with Wikipedia strategy.
Levels of planning
- How do we plan for next year, or a few-year financial crisis?
- How do we prepare for the next magnitude of contribution (1M active contributors)?
- How do we prepare for the next magnitude of content (a major people or books/citations project might involve tens of millions)?
Areas of focus
Communication
- How do we combine Planet Wikimedia, Twitter and similar updates, and non-minor edit summaries from central pages into a central exchange of wm updates and project highlights?
- How do we communicate new announcements across projects? unified randomized sitemessages. js banners with info.
Preservation
- What does it mean to be an archive of knowledge? Of revision histories and metadata? How central/essential is this? How many copies are needed to keep stuff safe?
Scope and project creation
- What areas of knowledge are worth covering? Why are some not - or is this only a matter of time? How do we decide, expand, modify?
Org structure
Sustainability
Setting effective goals
Define timelines and actions, help groups crystallize what they want to do in a way that allows them comparison with other major initiatives, a definition of needs, and structured review over time.
core groups
Reach, Quality, Participation : these have always been key goals, but without specific definitions.
- How can we compare where it makes sense to commit energy? To what extent is energy transferable from one topic to another?
Meta topics : org structure, communication, sustainability (and other topics noted above?)