I am pretty certain that nobody doubts how hard we work in the office but part of our job will be to make sure people understand what we are doing and delivering.
As Fae says there is a weekly report to the board which covers the twenty or thirty key events of the week. To be useful this contains a lot of detail that is personal or involving third parties so it is not appropriate for public dissemination. WMUK works like any charity (or employer). I have regular meetings with the Chair, and the staff have them with me where we go through their work patterns and priorities. It is my job to deliver the programme agreed by the community through the board and manage the staff accordingly. This is an ambitious programme and with only four staff supporting the volunteers time is a very precious commodity. There are also competing demands from different projects and this needs balancing. I would be loathe to add hours of staff time writing work diaries. (I also think this could be patronising and demotivating.) The biggest problem is avoiding burn-out. Our contracts expect us to work 35 hours a week but in reality we tend to be on duty seven days a week with a lot of evening and weekend activities. I rarely work less than 50 hours plus checking and replying to texts and emails at other times. I am sure we have really talented and dedicated staff and am keen to show the community what they are achieving. - They are often seen at wikimeets and events - Visitors to the office meet them - They are active on the lists - They respond to calls, texts and emails But not everyone goes to wikimeets or reads the lists. That is why, as part of the ongoing communications review, I am looking for ways to keep volunteers, members and supporters better informed. This could involve more blog posts from the staff, 'my diary' postings to our webpages, regular IRC's etc. Feed your ideas into the review http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2012_Communications_Review Jon PS To give you some idea reading the emails about this, thinking about them, talking to staff and writing this email has taken approximately 43 minutes. or (at least in theory 2% of my working week) On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 11:15 PM, Fae <fae...@gmail.com> wrote: > As a trustee with a duty to monitor rather than direct, I'm interested in > necessary, accurate and easy to consume reporting. The Board needs to know > that our investment in staff and office is well spent. Jon and I have > talked about the option of one-page dashboard style reports that might be > maintained publicly on-wiki so everyone can get an idea what is going on. > > At the moment we have an "office" wiki where staff and board can see loads > of (mostly rather dull) stuff including the weekly one-page operations > report which Jon calls the Chief Exec report. It contains some detail we > ought to keep confidential such as exactly who has been part of what > meetings (for example, it says that Edward Buckner came in for a friendly > chat last week with generally positive results, but I hope you realize that > I would not tell you all that on a public list unless Edward had written > about the experience himself in another public place) and how many bids we > have had for the Train the Trainers requirement. However, I see no reason > to avoid being open about the non-confidential stuff and our most eager > critics may be just the right people to find new angles on hard problems. > > It is important that any reporting does not become a massive burden > compared to its value, but simple reporting of key metrics, necessary > tracking of risks and issues and progress to plan might be the sort of > things to make public so our widest possible community can review and > contribute early to opportunities for improvement based on the best "live" > data on the weekly and monthly level. Stevie had some ideas about what a > one-screen full Operations page on our wiki might contain (including our > live IRC channel as part of a mash-up to keep it interesting?). > > This coming week we are all going to be committed to having a great > WikiConference UK, but this would be a useful topic to kick about and think > of pragmatic ways of doing it, and for Jon to pick up on in a couple more > weeks. Please, however, try to be kind to the lovely staff we have with > their fragile egos, and keep your expectations realistic for the small but > smart organization we believe we all are part of. > > I can assure you they are not sitting around drinking tea from Wiki mugs > editing articles about celebritards. Apart from lunch times. ;-) > > Cheers, > Fae > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org > > -- *Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. 07976 935 986 tweet @jonatreesdavies Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited. Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). It is an independent non-profit organization with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents. Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
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