1 of 10

On Open-Source Packagement

Maintaining a package beyond the software

Slides: better-simple.com/talks

2 of 10

My involvements

Django Debug Toolbar
DjangoCon US & DEFNA
Djangonaut Space
Django Commons

3 of 10

Common traits for sustainability

Communicate for connection and understanding
Align people to positive feedback loops
Onboard people quickly

4 of 10

Common traits for sustainability

Communicate for connection and understanding

Build relationships
Understanding makes disagreements easier

Align people to positive feedback loops
Onboard people quickly

When communicating with your team, try to build relationships with each other. Yes your work is important, but it's so much more enjoyable when you have a connection. Share things about yourself and your life. Ask about your colleague’s lives. That said, it's important to have boundaries and for those boundaries to be respected.

I find self-deprecating humor to be a good way to forge bonds with others. In our last session of Djangonaut Space, I was the one who created the pairings of mentors and mentees of folks around the globe. It should have been easy enough. We had all the times people were available in their local timezones and their offsets. All I had to do was convert those times to UTC, then find which groupings allowed for the greatest overlap.

Simple right? Well it worked perfectly right up to the point where we realized that rather than subtracting the UTC offset, I added it. This caused confusion and strife, but things worked out thankfully. Anyway, in our celebration call at the end of the session, I made several self-deprecating jokes about my ineptitude around timezones and date math. The purpose was to show vulnerability and build a stronger connection with everyone.

5 of 10

Common traits for sustainability

Communicate for connection and understanding

Build relationships
Understanding makes disagreements easier

Align people to positive feedback loops
Onboard people quickly

6 of 10

Common traits for sustainability

Communicate for connection and understanding
Align people to positive feedback loops

Your work should be an energy booster
Helps fight burnout

Onboard people quickly

7 of 10

Common traits for sustainability

Communicate for connection and understanding
Align people to positive feedback loops
Onboard people quickly

Capitalize on their initial motivation
Early wins turn into long term success

8 of 10

Onboarding tips for community projects

If you need help ask for it
Set expectations
Find everyone's dopamine hits
Support people's bursts of inspiration

Now, to help you with the challenge of onboarding, I’d like to propose a few tips.

1. If your organization needs help, let others know. The great thing about the python and Django communities is that people want to help each other. Though it is difficult since you still need to identify folks who are available and compatible with your project and team.

Which leads me to #2. Set expectations. When bringing someone on, you should be upfront about what you're expecting them to do and what you don't expect them to do. You should give them a general sense of the time commitment. Finally, you should tell them why you're inviting them in and why you think they'd be a good fit. Setting these expectations and agreeing on them goes a long way to bringing compatible people into your team.

3. Find everyone's dopamine hits. This requires you to do some self-reflection to understand why you enjoy participating in Open Source. If a person isn't getting personal enjoyment out of their work they will become demotivated and burnout. Finding those positive feedback loops keeps everyone emotionally healthy and upbeat.

4. Support people's bursts of inspiration. Everyone knows volunteer time is difficult to come by. When you see a person hitting their stride with work, do what you can to support them. Recently with Django Commons, Daniel, a fellow administrator, suggested switching to filebased management of our GitHub organization. All he required at the time was agreement that it was a good idea and he was off to create a proof of concept. We now have a much better solution for managing our organization because he capitalized on that inspiration.

I've also made the mistake of stifling a person's inspiration. For another small package I help maintain, a colleague was suggesting multiple feature ideas to improve and expand the library. I was overwhelmed and told them that I didn't have time to review issues. Almost immediately, the flow of new issues stopped. Because of my poor communication, I made it more challenging for that person to contribute, stifling their inspiration. Now the package is lesser for it. So when you can, try to find ways to support people's bursts of inspiration.

9 of 10

General packagement tips

Set regular meetings
Document the things!
Something is better than nothing
Publicly celebrate everything!
Optimize for now

Moving past onboarding, there are some other things you could try to improve your packagement. With all of these, you can start small and add to them as you go.

1. Set regular meetings. I find well structured meetings provide people with accountability. They are also a great way to build relationships with each other. But please remember to respect people’s time.

2. Document the things. If you don't have any documentation, start with your current expectations and processes. Make it easy to find and edit. Then add to it as you go.

3. Keep in mind that something is better than nothing. Large volunteer projects are hard so make it easy to succeed. Set small goals, achieve them, then iterate.

4. Celebrate everything! Acknowledging people's efforts and hard work can rejuvenate them. Plus, public celebrations are a great form of marketing. Remember the Python and Django communities want to see people succeed. They want to celebrate you!

5. Optimize for now. It's easy to get lost in the possibilities of what if. But the unfortunate reality is that we're volunteering our time and future availability isn't guaranteed. Once you have something that works, make it more efficient, easier and repeatable.

I want to acknowledge that these and the other topics I brought up, are full of gray areas. All of them will involve several “it depends” answers.. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember that something is better than nothing and that people want to help you.

10 of 10

Thank you!

Email me directly schillingt@better-simple.com
Email hello@djangocon.us with subject, "Put me to work"
Open an issue on django-commons/membership
Email contact@djangonaut.space
Open a PR or issue on django-commons/django-debug-toolbar