InnerSource Program Guide for

ISPO/OSPO Leaders

Last Updated: 05/08/2025

Why do firms struggle to adopt Open Source practices internally?

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Systemic Friction

High friction ecosystems hinder collaboration, drive inefficiency, reduce transparency and create environmental barriers to innovation and reuse.

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*Source: 2021 Analysis of data, issues and pull requests from Watson NLP GHE repos

Healthy Friction

Optimize infrastructure to reduce friction and create a high collaboration ecosystem that drives innovation and reuse at scale.

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Remove systemic friction > optimize collaboration

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*Source: 2021 Analysis of data, issues and pull requests from Watson NLP GHE repos

Long-term commitment

Low-friction Ecosystem

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High friction ecosystems force teams to reinvent all the wheels which create redundancy & knowledge silos and reduce knowledge sharing, contribution, reuse & collaboration.

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Community Advocacy

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Short-term commitment and underinvestment in community enablement increases frustration and hinders knowledge sharing, contribution, reuse & collaboration.

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Common Infrastructure

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Suboptimized infrastructure lacks consistency, repeatability and standards, which drives friction and impedes knowledge sharing, contribution, reuse & collaboration.

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Invest in enablement infrastructure supported via program office to scale InnerSource

How can an enablement infrastructure drive reuse and collaboration at scale?

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Don’t reinvent all the wheels, start with a reuse first mindset, then solve a problem once that solves for many

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The Mindset

The Approach

InnerSource as an Experience (IaaE) is a programmatic approach to scale InnerSource adoption via a Program Office (ISPO) and enablement platform that maximizes impact by allowing InnerSource Practitioners to solve a problem once that solves many through reuse.

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The Foundation

Our Practices

Consistency

Work smarter, not harder by optimizing consistency through IaaE program infrastructure, automation, and standardized processes that enable scalability

Repeatability

Remove systemic friction to deliver impact through IaaE program infrastructure by providing standardized processes, patterns and templates that enable scalability

Reuse

Invest in creating and optimizing a low friction, open collaboration environment through IaaE program infrastructure designed for enabling reuse at scale

Community

Build an open collaboration culture using IaaE program ecosystem of InnerSource Practitioners to drive co-creation and reuse at scale

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Infrastructure

Standardized and optimized for a low-friction experience drives collaboration through IaaE.

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Pay-it-forward

High collaboration, low-friction environment drives ROI through IaaE by solving once to solve for many.

Business essential

Low-redundancy environment drives productivity and reduces cost through IaaE.

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Bleeding edge

Accelerate research>product integration for an innovation fast-track through IaaE.

The Catalysts

The Benefits

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Improve productivity

Eliminate ‘reinventing all the wheels’. Optimize to deliver differentiation.

Drive innovation

Access community of global thought leaders, experts and innovators.

Open collaboration

Experiment on new ideas. Solve big problems and pay-it-forward with reuse.

Deliver value

Break knowledge silos to improve quality and accelerate time to value.

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How does IaaE enablement infrastructure maximize business impact and deliver value for clients?

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Enablement Pillars

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Program

Consistency

• Program office (ISPO)
• Governance framework

Repeatability

• Learning journeys
• Playbook owner

Reuse

• Platform owner
• Program metrics

Community

• Outreach & education
• Showcases

Platform

Consistency

• Global search portal
• Metrics dashboard

Repeatability

• ‘How to’ guides
• Onboarding process

Reuse

• Pattern & template repo
• Content publishing

Community

• Badging program
• Event hosting guide

Practitioners

Consistency

• IaaE configured repo & metrics

Repeatability

• Project orientation and onboarding

Reuse

• Project reuse and contribution guide

Community

• Community welcome
• Project updates

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IaaE is an open collaboration infrastructure built on three keystone pillars

Metrics that matter

Methodology

CHAOSS* model from Linux Foundation Projects

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Approach

Adopt, adapt and apply CHAOSS model to IaaE

Guiding Principles

Adopt or reuse existing reporting tools, community data, data sources and types to define, collect and organize metrics for IaaE program levels and project level dashboard

Success Criteria

ROI measured through IaaE enablement infrastructure architected to drive high collaboration and reuse behaviors.

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*Source: CHAOSS community metrics and models k-base articles https://chaoss.community/kb-metrics-and-metrics-models/

Metrics that matter

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Program and project level metrics guide and chart samples

Contribution Activity

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Drive open collaboration through contributor or contribution growth by measuring pull request activity

Platform

• MoM % increased number of first-time contributors
• MoM % increased number of active contributors
• MoM % increased number of new projects onboarded

Projects

• MoM % increased number of pull-requests submitted (contributions attempted)
• MoM % increased number of pull-requests completed (contributions completed)

Program Foundation

Metrics that matter

Community Engagement

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Drive growth and diversity of adoption through increasing awareness and participation and measuring portal activity, site cliqrate, and contributor diversity

• MoM % increase of search activity of the InnerSource Platform
• MoM % increase of search activity of strategic InnerSource Projects
• MoM % increase # enablement workshop participants
• QoQ % improve organizational diversity of enablement workshop participants
• QoQ % improve geographic/location diversity of enablement workshop participants

Program Foundation

Metrics that matter

Reuse and Collaboration

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Drive adoption and reuse via consumption (run once) or continuous adoption (repeat use) by measuring new onboarding, usage, asset consumption or download and product integration

Platform

• QoQ% increase # of new projects onboarded to portal
• QoQ% improve ratio within 10% of 1:1 of # projects onboarded / # program assets used
• QoQ% reduce ratio by x% of # projects requiring hi-touch / self-service onboarding support

Projects

• QoQ% increase # of products consuming/downloading [name] project assets; or
• QoQ% increase # total usage of [name] project artifacts

Program Foundation

Metrics that matter

Time to Value

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Drive value through scaling of workflows for contributors and adopters, and acceleration of innovations into products by measuring velocity, turn-around time and code quality

• Improve ratio of contributions started / completed to > 75%
• Improve ratio of contributions started / completed to > 95 %
• Consistently maintain > 95% ratio of contributions started / completed
• Reduce QoQ review cycle time by x%
• Reduce QoQ response cycle time by x%

Program Foundation

Metrics that matter

How does someone get involved and who is allowed to participate?

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Enablement Pillars

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Program

Consistency

• Program office (ISPO)
• Governance framework

Repeatability

• Learning journeys
• Playbook owner

Reuse

• Platform owner
• Program metrics

Community

• Outreach & education
• Showcases

Platform

Consistency

• Global search portal
• Metrics dashboard

Repeatability

• ‘How to’ guides
• Onboarding process

Reuse

• Pattern & template repo
• Content publishing

Community

• Badging program
• Event hosting guide

Practitioners

Consistency

• IaaE configured repo & metrics

Repeatability

• Project orientation and onboarding

Reuse

• Project reuse and contribution guide

Community

• Community welcome
• Project updates

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IaaE is an open collaboration infrastructure built on three keystone pillars

Practitioner Community > Force Multiplier

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Explorers

New to InnerSource practices, first-time contributor, looking for a community to join

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Contributors

Active InnerSource Practitioner, frequent contributor, joined at least one community

Trusted Committers

Experienced InnerSource Practitioner, feature contributor, tech expert, community advocate

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Starters

Advanced InnerSource Practitioner, advocate, project kick-starter, community builder

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Open Collaboration

Reduce systemic friction > optimize collaboration

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*Source: 2021 Analysis of data, issues and pull requests from Watson NLP GHE repos

Practitioner Community > Use the Force

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Solve Once to Solve for Many

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Starters

Explorers

Trusted Committers

Contributors

• Explorers build community by engaging with global experts, knowledge sharing and attending community events
• Contributors build community by joining one or more communities, making contributions and knowledge sharing
• Trusted Committers build community by coaching, mentoring and knowledge sharing with Explorers and Contributors
• Starters build community by engaging Trusted Committers, and nurturing Contributors and Explorers

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Practitioner Community

InnerSource Contributor Funnel

*Source: Open Source contributor funnel by Mike McQuaid

Participation > Open

• Optional % Learning
• Office Hours
• Slack #

Agile Cadence

• Stand-ups
• Sprint Demos

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Participation > Active

• Voluntary % x Sprint
• Good First Issue
• Bring a Friend
• Slack #

Agile Cadence

• Stand-ups
• Sprint Retro
• Sprint Demos
• Sprint Planning

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Participation > Ongoing

• Voluntary % Continuous
• New Feature Contribution
• Mentor New Contributor
• Slack #

Agile Cadence

• Stand-ups
• Sprint Retro
• Sprint Demos
• Sprint Planning
• Sprint Refinement
• Contribution Reviews

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Participation > Dedicated

• Dedicated % Continuous
• New Project / Join Project
• Manager Support
• Slack #

Agile Cadence

• Stand-ups
• Sprint Retro
• Sprint Demos
• Sprint Planning
• Sprint Refinement
• Contribution Reviews
• Roadmap Refinement

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An InnerSource Practitioner’s Journey

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Practitioner Community

Learning

• Learning Credit
• Intro to InnerSource

New Skills

• Explorer Badge

Incentives

• Badging Fast Track
• Early Access

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Learning

• Learning Credit
• Intro to InnerSource
• ‘How to’ guides

New Skills

• Contributor Badge
• Good First Issue

Incentives

• Badging Fast Track
• Early Access
• Peer Review

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Learning

• Learning Credit 
• Intro to InnerSource
• ’How to’ guides
• Role Based Module

New Skills

• Trusted Committer Badge
• Co-development
• Review Contributions

Incentives

• Badging Fast Track
• Early Access
• Peer Review
• Professional Eminence

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Learning

• Learning Credit
• Intro to InnerSource
• ‘How to’ guides
• Role Based Modules
• Onboarding Workshop

New Skills

• Starter Badge
• Project Launch
• InnerSource Readiness
• Community Building

Incentives

• Badging Fast Track
• Early Access
• Leadership Influence
• Professional Eminence
• Enablement for Managers

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Benefits for becoming an InnerSource Practitioner

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Practitioner Community

Our Rules�

Open everything

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We practice an Open Source > InnerSource approach to begin development so we can break down silos by adopting a reuse first mindset.

Failure is necessary

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We continuously experiment, embrace failure, try things, fail, and try again because failure is fundamental for innovation.

Focus, focus, focus 

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We limit work in progress to focus on one thing at-a-time by investing in the most valuable, non-renewable resource we have…time.

Pay-it-forward

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We pay-it-forward by documenting processes, decisions and taking time to write clear guidelines for the next person to understand.

Respect & patience 

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We must have an environment where failure and innovation go hand in hand via empathy and respect for people and ideas.

Plan as a team

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We use Agile practices to plan work, manage communication and we welcome community participation, so show-up to be heard

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We agree to follow these rules of engagement. We further agree that these may evolve to meet new needs as the community grows.