User talk:JAnstee (WMF)/Sandbox/Draft/Leadership Development Dialogue

Please respond to any of the discussion prompts to share your ideas about how we can design the peer academy.

There are many ways to participate. Share a new idea, add to or comment on an existing idea, ask a question, or vote on words and labels.

One thing I've learned from doing previous consultations is that it's really good to frame questions in terms of the actual experience of respondents. This limits the contributions by participants who might want to engage in more "theoretical" discourse that is unlikely to be helpful in achieving your goals. May help to think through the questions with this in mind. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 19:20, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not a fan of the dropdown boxes. If the information's important to the question, it should be included directly. If not important, should be included on the main page. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 19:21, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Part 1: How should we design the peer academy?[edit]

Which ideas seems best for deciding who should participate in in-person trainings organized by WMF, to ensure that participants share what they learn with a broad selection of Wikimedia communities?[edit]

Click here to read more about the challenges of an inclusive selection process.

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One big challenge with current training opportunities offered by the Wikimedia Foundation is the WMF must limit the number of participants at in-person events such as Learning Days, and organize these trainings alongside other major movement events in order to save on costs. This means that not all potential attendees are able to attend these events, and that the group of potential attendees is often limited to those who are already participating in major movement events and may have had access to trainings and leadership opportunities in the past. These limitations make reaching a broader group of participants that can bring more skills back to Wikimedia communities more challenging. We need a process for selecting applicants for these trainings that will bring real benefits back to a broad selection Wikimedia communities.

Some of the ideas we have:
1. Select based on evidence of sharing and mentoring in Wikimedia communities - applicants will be selected based on how much they share and mentor in Wikimedia communities.

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2. Select based on progress toward goals set at previous trainings - applicants will be selected based on proven track records of achieving intended results.

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3. Select based on first-come-first-served system, with a limit of no more than one person per group.

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4. Select based on an application that includes recommendations or on-wiki nominations.

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5. Other ideas!

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Thinking about affiliates, peer mentors, and other kinds of community leaders, what kinds of events, tools, or resources would be most help leaders reach their goals?[edit]

Click here to read more about the difference between peer mentoring events and existing trainings.

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Peer mentoring events will not replace Learning Days. We want in-person trainings like Learning Days to be one part of WMF's strategy for supporting healthy communities. We think that there are opportunities for many kinds of support. We need your help, to understand how you think we should provide this support.

The goals of the peer academy:

Increase transparency, inclusiveness, and equitability through leadership development opportunities
Increase learning and collaboration across the movement
Make it less difficult for community leaders to find people, resources, and development opportunities
Streamline communication to empower people across regions and programs to share knowledge
Increase accountability for those who receive support

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In what ways might individuals, groups, and organizations in the Wikimedia movement encourage others in the movement to develop leadership skills?[edit]

Click here to learn more about specific skills.

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During our consultations we discovered interest in skills for:

Cultivating inclusive environments
Empowering others to act
Sustaining leadership through development
Engaging people in the Wikimedia movement
Supporting and growing the cooperation and collaboration

Specific skills that were named as important included:

For cultivating more inclusive environments that help individuals empower fellow Wikimedians to achieve more, skills related to: empathy, patience, emotional intelligence, the ability to listen, positive reinforcement of successes, humor and self irony
For empowering others to achieve results in Wikimedia communities, skills related to: training and educational leadership skills, mentoring ability and listening skills, the ability to connect others to learning materials, and persuasion.
For sustaining leadership roles in Wikimedia communities, skills related to: delegation, burnout prevention, educating more replacements leaders, finding sustainability for the community processes, etc.
For sustained engaging new people and activating existing people in the movement, skills related to: communication skills, ability to empathize with the motivations of external communities, etc.
For growing cooperation and collaboration across communities, skills related to: encouraging equity in opportunities and rewards, appropriate titles and assignments of authority, valuing community consensus, etc.

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Part 2: How should we describe leadership in the Wikimedia movement?[edit]

Click here to learn more about the language we use to describe leadership in the Wikimedia

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In general, our community has a shared understanding of what it means to to guide communities or programs, and to support others through teaching and coaching. Language used to describe “leadership qualities” in the Wikimedia movement:

Emergent -- skills are developed because a timely response is needed, based on the situation in the community
Demonstrated experience -- skills are defined by actions and a history of achievement, not through a formal process
Invitational -- an individual, group, or organization calls on others to participate in activities, in a decentralized way
Empowering -- other individuals are supported by interactions with a person, group, or organization

Despite this shared understanding, we have not identified a shared term to describe this form of leadership. The word “leader” doesn’t translate well among communities and cultures, but we discovered some other words that could be used to describe this role in our movement.

Language discovered in consultation to describe “leadership”, Wikimedia/Wiki:

Leaders
Guides
Mentors
Liaisons
Facilitators
Builders
Organizers

WMF need your help to decide what language we use moving forward.[edit]

Please follow this link to vote and input to the best language for community and program leadership in our movement on All our Ideas.

We plan to use the ideas we gather to help set our course for developing the peer academy, if you want to pursue an idea you have shared, or you would like to start more conversation about your idea with the Wikimedia communities, please add it to IdeaLab.