Our strategic actions for 2019

You might have been wondering how we “pick our battles”. MyData Global staff uses the Objectives and Key Results -methodology (OKR) to set, align, communicate, and follow yearly objectives of the organisation. The General Manager reports progress on OKRs to the board every month. Staff members set more detailed individual OKRs on a quarterly basis and follow progress of those in weekly meetings. The yearly objectives are categorised under the six areas of activity.

Below you can see all the six action areas with their respected Yearly OKRs, and also read more about what are the staff’s individual OKRs for Quarter 3.

Objectives are the WHAT. Targets that are aspirational, challenging, time-bound, clear and usually qualitative.

Key Results are the HOW. Kind of intermediate goals: measurable, achievable, gradable, actionable, tangible and outcome-oriented.

The Action-areas and Yearly OKRs for 2019

Staff Quarter 3 OKRs

Teemu Ropponen, General Manager

OBJECTIVE: Strategy and vision become shared experience of success for the whole leadership team.

Key results:

16 people on leadership team have contributed to the Vision of Success after July 1
16 people on leadership team have contributed to the Strategic Action Plan

Description: 100% of the leadership has contributed to and is proud of the draft Strategic action plan and Vision of Success

OBJECTIVE: Impressive MyData Global story presented to investors and partners.

Key results:

5 investor deck development sessions
15 investor discussions had
10 investors, org member candidates or corporate partners met at the conference
10 new org members in 7-10/2019

Description: Continue discussions with investors, to solidify pitch deck and pitch delivery. Investors and partners should be met at MyData 2019

OBJECTIVE: Financial prediction process solidified for conference.

Key results

New CFO starts before 1 Aug.
Predictions for finance are updated every week, based on Pipedrive and Airtable figures
All contacts and ticket deals are in Pipedrive.

Description: The use of key financial tools (Pipedrive, Airtable, Holvi) is solidified and in use by new CFO, project manager and GM.

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Karolina Mackiewicz, Conference Project Manager

My objective in Q3 is to make sure the MyData 2019 conference is the biggest and the greatest. It’s an ambitious task, taking into account an epic history of MyData events. This year we aim at bringing together at least 1000 people from more than 40 countries. The conference will be a platform for meeting and action for the representatives of business legal, tech and society sectors – MyData needs them all! MyData needs you, so join us in Helsinki on 25-27 September 2019 and spread the word about mydata2019.org

If you cannot make it to Helsinki this year, perhaps you will be able to join one of our regional events next year. Embracing its diversity and its global dimension, MyData plans to organise three smaller regional conferences. We aim to announce places and dates for them in September in Helsinki and it’s my task to make it happen!

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Viivi Lähteenoja, Head of Programmes

My objectives in Q3 relate mainly to the programme at the conference in September, for which I am responsible. The first one of them is “The conference programme is universally praised”. This involves me ensuring the main stage sessions are each rock solid as well as liaising with the core team of track facilitators as they support their session teams build content for the conference which is aligned with our values: high-quality, solution-oriented and action-inspiring, engaging, and diverse. I will know if I’ve succeeded if the feedback, formal and informal, received at the conference and after is glowing.

My second objective for Q3 is to steward the Vision of Success 2022 process to a close in a way that the conference serves as a celebration for the completion of the document as well as the springboard from which we leap into action to make our vision a reality. The Vision process will in part aid the identification of, discussion on, and eventually the positions which the MyData Global organisation will take regarding the Big Hairy Issues that are relevant to this community, such as (but not limited to) where exactly do we stand on the GAFA and engagement with them.

Finally, my third objective for Q3 is more operational than the previous two. Dubbed “Post-conference fortnight is ‘just-add-water’”, this means that each of us staff at MyData Global can execute a well-prepared plan regarding what happens immediately after the conference. The conference week itself is incredibly rewarding but also extremely draining. And so my job is to ensure that no mental heavy lifting is needed immediately afterwards but rather we can put our brains on autopilot and just execute.

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Sille Sepp, Community Lead

After two successful quarters of community work, aiming to understand, strengthen and expand the MyData community, the third quarter will be much more about consolidation (1) as well as making sure the key event of MyData Global – the annual conference – serves it’s community the best possible way (2). In practice, this means that

the discussions and debates about relevant topics are taken forth, and the great work of the community members and the leadership team is also made visible for showing MyData Global’s impact.
the MyData local hubs and thematic groups are represented and promoted at the conference and the programme curation supports the community members to organise themselves for more sustainable action. In addition, the conference aims to be a medium for community expansion as well as collective learning.

Some work from previous quarters will also continue – we’ll finish off with numerous interviews with our community members and analyse these in the aims of extracting valuable insights for further community development. We’ll also continue developing the MyData case library that can potentially become a really valuable tool for communicating MyData in practice.

In all of this, we find it important to engage the community to contribute, to avoid working in silos and making sure our plans apply to the actual community members needs, wishes and expectations.

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Ansku Tuomainen, Communications Lead

On Q3 I will almost completely focus on the conference communications. The metrics and analyzing them consistently should affect all the moves. This leads to a wider audience and more tickets sold.

MyData 2019 conference is also an excellent opportunity to drive new membership sales, for that we need a good landing page for mydata.org/join. Also blog inside mydata.org helps us to communicate organisational matters such as OKRs.

OBJECTIVE: Getting the most out of mydata.org during the conference

Key result: A landing page created for driving membership sales during the conference (1. partner chosen for creation, 2. a plan made 2. A blog created with at least 2 posts published)