[FM Discuss] Looking back, looking forward

[David Farning]

It is Sunday evening here in Amsterdam.  I must start by apologizing
to Andy.  I had planned to tour the city with him, but I thought that
I should think through the future of FM a bit more while the thoughts
and emotions are still fresh.  Sorry Andy.

As you may know, I have spent much of the last year helping Sugar Labs
through its infancy.  Quite honestly, I am looking at the next year at
FM with pure terror.

Just a short list of what we are getting ourselves into.
1. Lack of Time - The biggest constraint is time.  There is never
enough time to properly fund raise, recruit new contributors, keep the
infrastructure running, and most importantly, accomplish the project's
mission; _writing_.

2. Abundance of Ideas - There has never been a project that failed due
to a lack of ideas.  Everyone has ideas.  Many people have multiple,
often conflicting ideas.  Some ideas are good. Some are bad. Some
ideas are hard. Some ideas are easy.

3. Hard Decisions - The lack of time, combined with the over abundance
of ideas leads to tension in a project.  At one level, the scratch
your own itch nature of community projects solves some of the
problems.  There are also decisions that require the allocation of
community resources.  These are harder to make.

4. Managing the community - The biggest frustration is figuring out
which direction the community wants to go, how to point it in that
direction, and then how to get it to more forward under it's own
power.  Your are about to throw your time and efforts into a project
over which you have almost no control.

 The herd of cats analogy is overused, but quite accurate.  The only
traditional management tools at your disposal are encouragement and
brow beating.  In a world were a single click of 'send all messages
from X to trash' can delete someone from the conversation forever,
quality trumps quantity.

 The only useful leadership tool is your reputation.  Do you have a
reputation for doing good work? Do you have a reputation for following
up on your commitments?  Do you have a reputation for making good
decisions?   Most importantly, do you have a reputation for not
wasting other contributors time?

A look at why some projects succeed and other projects fail.
1. Culture of Getting Things Done - Successful projects depends on
creating a culture of getting things done.  As writers, you all know
that most great books are still in their author's head.  The author
has just never gotten around to getting it on paper. (or Booki in our
case)

2. Ability to Make Decision - Secondly, a project must be able to make
good decisions.  It might seem strange that a project must first focus
on getting things done and then turn to the decision making process.
As a writer, one can spend the rest of their life at workshops and
classes discussing how to the create the perfect plot and perfect
characters.  It all depends on getting that first draft on paper.

3. Attractive to Participants - Only after a project has figured out
how to get _useful_ things done, does it becomes attractive to others.
 Attracting participants is inherently a competitive process.  Writers
must chose how to spend their available writing time, on a novel or a
book sprint.  Developers must chose to work on Booki or Blender.
Board members must decide to spent their time and resources on FLOSS
Manuals or other activities.

There are many theories on what motivates people to participate in
community projects.  Some motivations are internal, some are external.

 The single unifying thread seems to be. 'Can an individual have an
_impact_ on something that is important to _them_ by participating in
the project.'

How to Get there.
1. Mission, Vision, Values - The project must clearly articulate a
mission, vision, and values.

The mission is a concrete, actionable goal. When someone asks you in
an elevator, "What does FM do?"  The mission immediately comes to
mind.

 The vision is more abstract.  The vision answers the question, “How
will the world be different if the project is successful?”

Values are the most abstract of all.  What does FM believe is
important.  Software freedom?  Making documentation available to the
greatest number of people?  Paying the rent?  Should book sprints be
fun, productive, or both.

Defining the mission, vision, and values, defines the project.

2. Create and implement a decision making framework.
Creating this framework can be difficult because:  Like designing a
logo, everyone thinks they know how to do it.  The potential for bike
shedding is enormous. Creating the framework must be a very open and
transparent process.  There is nothing quite as fun for a 'talker' as
talking about how to talk. Once the framework is in place, it slips
into the background never to be seen again.

3. Don't get bogged down by any of the above.
Focus on the mission.

4. Create the culture.
Luckily, the process of creating a project's culture us very similar
to writing.  Get something 'out there', edit it, circulate it for
review.... And then do it all again. In the open source world it is
called, 'release early and release often.'

Hope this helps.

david