This is a manifesto that any private organization can use to build their collaborative transformation. Please read and let me know what you think.
I gave a presentation at the Linux TODO Group using this article as my material. For those unfamiliar with the TODO Group, they are an organization that supports open source leadership in commercial companies. Interdependence is important because legal, security, and other shared knowledge is very important for open source communities to move forward. Especially because we need to represent the best interests of both business and public communities at the same time.
“Open Source First” means we consider open source first before thinking about vendor-produced products to meet our needs. To use open source technology correctly, you need to do more than just consume, you also need to participate to ensure open source technology exists long-term. To participate in open source work, you need to allocate engineers’ work time separately to your company and open source projects. We expect to bring open source contribution intent and internal collaboration to private companies. We need to define, establish, and maintain a culture of contribution, collaboration, and merit-based work.
Open Garden Development
Our private company is committed to being a technology leader through contributions to the tech community. This is not just about using open source code; being a leader requires participation. Being a leader also requires various types of engagement with groups outside the company (communities). These communities are organized around a specific R&D project. Participation in each community is like working for the company. Major results require significant participation.
Code More, Live Better
We must be generous with computing resources, stingy with space, and encourage the resulting messy but creative outcomes. Allowing people to use these tools for their business will change them. We must have spontaneous interactions. We must build online and offline spaces that encourage creativity through collaboration. Collaboration cannot happen without being able to contact each other in real-time.
Innovation Through Meritocracy
We must create a meritocratic class. Quality of ideas should outweigh group structure and tenure within it. Promotion by performance encourages everyone to become better people and employees. When we become the best bad people, arguments between passionate people will happen. Our culture should have an obligation to encourage dissent. Strong opinions and ideas will turn into passionate work ethics. These ideas and opinions can and should come from everyone. It shouldn’t change who you are, but should care about what you do. As meritocracy proceeds, we invest in teams that can do the right thing without permission.
Project to Product
Since our private company embraces open source contribution, we must also achieve clear separation between upstream work in R&D projects and realizing the final product. Projects are R&D work, where failing fast and developing features are the norm. Products are what you put into production, have SLAs, and use the results of R&D projects. Separation requires at least separating repositories for projects and products. Normal separation includes different communities working on projects and products. Each community requires significant contribution and participation. To keep these activities independent, there needs to be a workflow for customer features and bug fix requests from project to product.
Next, we’ll highlight the main steps in creating, supporting, and scaling open source in private companies.
School for Technically Talented People
Experts must mentor inexperienced people. When you learn new skills, you pass them to the next person. When you train the next person, you face new challenges. Never expect to stay in one position for long. Gain skills, become strong, through learning, then move on.
Find the Best People for You
We love our work. We like it so much we want to work with our friends. We’re part of a community larger than our company. We should always remember to recruit the best people to work with us. Even if not working for our company, we’ll find great jobs for people around us. This mindset makes hiring great people a lifestyle. As hiring becomes common, reviewing and helping new employees becomes easier.
Coming Soon
I’ll post more details about each principle on my blog, stay tuned.
This article was originally published on Sean Robert’s blog. CC BY license.
(Figure: opensource.com)
Author Bio:
Sean A Roberts - Led by empathy while focused on results. I practice meritocracy. Wisdom found here.
Reposted from: Developer Relations »
