Talk:Reading/Strategy

This Talk page is dedicated to adding comments and questions on strategy. If you are looking to provide input on strategic choices, please add it to the kickoff talk page.

As a starter, we have a mini FAQ:

1. Why are you choosing this specific strategy approach?

We're attracted to the rigor of this approach - in particular its requirement to elicit assumptions embedded in a strategy, then test those assumptions before committing to it.

2. How are decisions of features or product promotion from beta to stable made?

We have a number of features that we think users would enjoy, and even some with pretty strong numbers. But we have to evaluate whether they are the correct fit for the readership-oriented emphasis of the Reading vertical The Reading strategy derived through the Reading strategy process will help to provide more clarity on priorities in the future, but in the mean time we do think it would be valuable to pause and consider whether there's a strong existing feature that would be a good fit for production / stable. We may decide that it would make more sense to work on something new instead of promoting a feature, as well.

3. How are concerns from the community consultation conducted earlier this year incorporated?

The organizational strategy is built in part from themes that emerged from the community consultation, and the Reading strategy will be aligned with the organizational strategy.

The current strategy schedule says "Week of 14-September-2015: Communication of tests." Has this happened? I'd like to learn more about the planned tests, but I can't find any information about them.

More will be published this week. :)

@Melamrawy (WMF), @TNegrin (WMF), @Tbayer (WMF), can you share more details about what this process has produced so far? I'm particularly interested in the lists of possible strategies, necessary conditions, and diagnostic tests you've generated so far.

Editing is thinking about whether we should try a similar strategy process, and I'm sure other communities would be interested in an update as well!

We have a draft here Neil Reading/Strategy/Strategy Process/Testing

We didn't yet publicize, though, but early comments are welcome ;)

Thanks Moushira. That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for!

First of all, thanks for sharing the work on the strategy early, this is really great for participation.

In the bullet list on the strategy page, the second point (which seems to be the next step) is about "Q2 feature(s)". I think features (i.e., solutions) should be driven by the problems identified. That may be an assumption but it would be great to represent it more explicitly: make sure the problems to be addressed (as well as the evidence they are happening and their potentially measurable impact) will be captured before exploring solutions.

The Q2 work around features is interspersed mainly to acknowledge that we need to to do the strategy work in tandem with Q2 work.

I believe we should be able to do some quick user surveys to gauge sentiment for Q2 work. Failing that, I think it will be helpful to look back at data, if available, and qualitative research as a basis for prioritization.

Terms like "WMF ED", "Q2" (which probably refers to three months somewhere in a Gregorian Calendar) or "FY 2015-2016" are not necessarily understandable. (Very general note: If you want anybody to understand what this document is about, avoiding Foundation-only terms, business-only terms and USA-cultural terms is helpful. And not easy, I admit.)

Thanks. I've tried to expand the acronyms and define the months a little better.