German-speaking Community mid-term planning

2015-12-24 at 18:44:26

Mozilla's Participation Team has started to do "mid-term plannings" with a few focus communities back in September. The goal was to identify potential and goals for a six month plan which would then be implemented with the help of all the community. Since Germany is one of the focus markets for Firefox, it's clear that the German-speaking community was part of that as well.

Everything started out at the end of September, when we formed a focus group. Everybody was invited to join the focus group to brainstorm about possible plans we can set in stone to drive Mozilla's mission forward. I'd like to thank everybody who chimed in with their ideas and thoughts on the German-speaking community and its future in our own Discourse category:

• Andreas Wagner
• Axel Hecht
• Elio Qoshi
• Henrik Mitsch
• Mario Behling
• Michael Kohler
• Philippe Brossard
• Sebastian Hengst
• Sören Hentzschel

After the community meetup at the beginning of the year we had a lot of momentum which enabled us to get quite a lot done. Unfortunately this momentum has decreased over time, with a low since September (my opinion). Therefore our main areas we picked for our mid-term plans focused on internal improvements we can make, so we can focus on Mozilla top-organizational goals once we have implemented our improvements. This doesn't mean that the German-speaking community won't focus on product or mission, but it's just not where we can commit as a whole community right now.

We have identified four areas we'd like to focus, which I will explain in detail below. Those are documented (in German) on a Wiki page as well to be as transparent as possible. We also asked for feedback through the community list and didn't get any responses that would say anything against this plan.

Community Structure

In 6 months it's clear for new and existing contributors who is working in which functional area and who to contact if there are any questions. New contributors know which areas need help and know about good first contributions to do.

Goals:

• Understandable documentation of every contribution area the German-speaking community is active in. At least 60% of the areas are documented initially.
• There are contact persons listed per contribution area with clear means of contact. At least 80% of the initially defined areas have at least one contact person for new contributors. For the three biggest areas there are at least two contact persons.
• Handling of new contributors is defined clearly for all contribution areas, including responsibilities for individuals and groups. The onboarding process is clearly specified and we get at least two new long-term contributors per area. These new contributors can be onboarded within a few weeks with the help of the contact persons as mentors. Further mentors can be defined without them needed to be "contact persons".

Website

In 6 months the mozilla.de website is the base for all information about Mozilla, its local community and contribution possibilities. Users of the website get valuable information about the community and find contribution possibilities which can be started without a lot of time investment to get used to the product. The website is the portal to the community.

Goals:

• The website clearly states the possibilities to contribute to the German-speaking community (even if this is only a link to a well defined /contribute page)
• The website lists all current Mozilla product and projects
• The content defined in February 2015 is re-evaluated and incorporated as needed
• The website is the main entry point to the community and promoted as such
• Through the new website we get at least 10% of new contributors which found us trough it

Meetings / Updates

In 6 months discussions among the community members are well distributed. New topics are started by a broad basis and topics are being discussed by a wide range of contributors.

Goals:

• There are at least 6 active participants per meeting
• The meeting is structured for efficiency and brings in a reasonable ratio between discussion and update topics. There are enough enough discussion points so that updates can be treated as "read only" in 60% of the time.
• The satisfaction of the participants who would like to join is increased by 30%
• There are at least 10 unique participants in discussions on the mailing list

Social Media

In 6 months the German-speaking community is active on the most important social media channels and represents Mozilla's mission and the community achievements to the public. Followers learn more about the community and learn about the newest updates and initiatives the community is supporting. Additionally these channels are used to promote urgent call-to-actions.

Goals:

• The different channels are clearly separated and the user knows what content needs to be expected.
• We have at least 1200 followers with @mozilla_deutsch, @MozillaDe and @FirefoxDe (not unique followers)
• We have at least 750 "likes" on our Facebook page
• We keep users engaged and updated with at least 8 tweets per month per channel
• There are at least 3 maintainers for the different accounts

To track the progress we created a GitHub repository in our organization, where everybody can create issues to track a certain task. There are four labels which make it possible to filter for a specific improvement area. Of course, feel free to create your own issues in this GitHub repo as well, even if it might not be 100% tied to the goals, but every contribution counts!

I have put together a share-able summary slides for easy consumption in case you don't want to forward the link to this blog post.

Even though I'm going to focus my time on the Mozilla Switzerland community, I will still help with and track the progress we're doing with the mid-term plan implementations.

Feel free to get in touch with any of the focus group members linked above or the community-german mailing list in general for any questions you might have.