Organizational Growth & Development Network/Progress report (February 2011)

OGDN Pilot Project

February 2011 Progress Report

State of the project at the end of February 2011

Apart from the individual project progress with each chapter, emphasis was placed on finalizing and signing the pledge of commitment.

WMCZ & WMHU

Whereas the readiness to participate in the project was clearly stated by three Chapters, questions regarding the signing of the Pledge of Commitment aroused in February from WMCZ and WMHU due to the fact that the financial mechanism agreed upon in the project proposal were not sufficiently explained and discussed during the on-boarding phase. For some Chapters, the fact that the Chapters would have to engage themselves to bear the costs of the consulting fees was a challenging idea for several reasons. Even if the costs were to be covered by a WMF grant, for which the Chapters had to write a grant request, investing a significant sum in the organizational development of the Chapter also meant not only to engage and participate actively in a promising but immaterial goal, but also to be able to stand for it. As Sebastian put it, "love the program, don't mind spending the money, don't have it available, have a hard time explaining to our constituents" which is derived a lot from the fact that the program is new and there's no past experience to justify it. Obviously we should have spent a lot more time in the first phase of the project stetting the frame and clarifying this aspect (lesson learnt).

WMCZ

The Chapter did the Assessment on his own as planned. Due to the illness of Anna Royon-Weigelt, the Skype meeting on February 22 had to be postponed to March.

WMNL

The main focus was on preparing and executing the Assessment and Strategy development workshop held on February 19th and 20th, 2011 in Zeist, Netherlands. Siebrand Mazeland and Lodewijk Gelauff prepared the workshop with Anna Royon-Weigelt over several Skype meetings. Previous work of the Chapter (SWOT analysis) was updated and integrated into the workshop. 13 participants (board and general chapter members) attended the meeting. The workshop was structured in a way that allowed carrying out an assessment of the Chapter's achievements, resources and current situation in the first part. Then the facilitation went through different steps of strategic development (mainly formulation of mission statements & of possible strategic goals) in order for the group to experience the methods and to know how to use them. As it was clear that this first work would have to be completed after the workshop, the aspects or questions that should be worked on were put on a to-do list.

WMSE

No progress was made in February due to scheduling conflicts.

Next steps:

WMCZ

Based on the work done by the board and members of the Chapter, a workshop should be held and is expected April 16/17 in Prague. Interviews to be done by the facilitator in order to complete the 360° Assessment are also planned.

WMHU

Will be defined after the Chapter’s Conference in Berlin (probably with the same steps as for WMCZ).

WMNL

Some work will have to be completed by the chapter regarding some aspects of the assessment (resources assessment & stakeholder analysis) as well as regarding the drafting of mission statements and the identification of strategic goals. A workshop report was written by the facilitator and the participants and will be presented on the next General Assembly of the Chapter on April 2nd. Further steps regarding the process will be defined before the end of March.

WMSE

Scheduling conflicts need to be resolved.