User:PierreSelim/On Wikimedia France Board Evaluation

As we all know that Every board needs a bit of maintenance, this year Wikimedia France board decided it was time to have a more formal process to contribute to our drive of continuous improvement.

Style

Searching the litterature on the topic, we found two main styles of evaluation process which got our interest:

• external audit
• self-evaluation

We identified that external audit can be good for evaluation when situation is complicated in order to have an external point of view on the situation but not only. We also identified one of the main default of self-evaluation may be to hide problems. However, we chose to go for a self-evaluation method over the external audit out of:

• simplicity
• cost
• belief in self organized team

Questionnaire itself

In order to build our questionnaire we used questions from the following document and we created a google form out of this questions:

• Board Self-Evaluation Questionnaire: A Tool for Improving Governance Practice For Voluntary and Community Organizations — Dalhousie University
• and Trustee Assessment Questionnaire (WMF)

Each board member had to evaluate from 1 (bad/do not agree) to 5 (good/fully agree) each statement/question. The interest of using such kind of ranking is you can use average, sum, median in order to compare how each statement is evaluated by the board.

Synthesis and criteria

We then synthetized statements where the evaluation was very positive (it's important to remember we are doing things right) and the evaluation was pointing an improvement axis.

Different criteria we found interesting to evaluate each statement/question:

• Median value: it shows the position that split the board in 2 equal part.
• Average value: it weights the opponion of each member (it insentives member to use the full scale when they feel its needed).
• Count of value greater than 3: Amount of positive evaluation.
• Count of value lower than 3: Amount of negative evaluation.
• Standard deviation: Low standard deviation shows statement where we agree the most, high standard deviation shows statements where there is disagreement in the board. We believe it is interesting to understand where we disagree to discuss and understand the disagreement.

Further readings

• The Problem With Board Evaluations, Steven Bowman
• Board Self-Evaluation Sample Forms, EFCA
• Board evaluation practices
• Boards that deliver, Ram Charan
• Owning up, Ram Charan
  • The 14 questions every board member needs to ask
• Improving Board Effectiveness
• Board Evaluation and Its Effect on Board Composition and Board Work — Tor Brunzel
• Best disclosure: Board Evaluation — Council of Institutional Investors
• WMF:
  • Board skills grid 2014
  • Trustee Assessment Questionnaire
• Autres:
  • Board Self-Evaluation Questionnaire: A Tool for Improving Governance Practice For Voluntary and Community Organizations — Dalhousie University
  • Board of Directors Self-Evaluation — Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.
  • McKinsey & Company Nonprofit board self assessment tool