Technology
This section of the toolkit is focused on activities that will help you with
planning how to establish, stabilizeestablishing, stabilizing, and
evolveevolving sustainable
governancetechnology for your program. It is designed to help you structure discussions and gain consensus about next steps for sustainable
governancetechnology for your OSS program. It is not a toolkit for day-to-day
governancesoftware development.
Definition:
A governance model describes the roles that project participants can take on and the process for strategic and tactical decision making within the project. In addition, it describes the ground rules for participation in the project and the processes for communicating and sharing within the project team and community.The core of each program supported by It Takes a Village is open-source software or systems serving cultural and scientific heritage organizations. There are parallels with proprietary software development processes, but working within the open source world brings its own challenges around community, resources, and governance that affect the software development process.
Instructions
Brand new to It Takes a Village in Practice?
Check out our Getting Started Resources before jumping in!Review the activities and goals below to select ones you want to use for sustainability planning.
These activities are designed to help you move from one phase to the next and can be used in any order. You can use any or all of them.
Suggested persona pathways are outlined at bottom of page, but it is not expected that programs would do all activities. These activities are currently available for beta testing.As you use them,
the ITAViP Co Directorswe are eager for feedback via ITAV@lyrasis.org
Some beta testers have kindly provided samples of their work with activities. Those They are available included below as available.
Phase 1: Laying the Groundwork | |||
Phase 1 Objectives include: Understand Core Community Needs, Continue to Gather Data, and Communicate Progress and Process with Stakeholders | |||
1. Who Are Your Technology Stakeholders? | Goals: Identify and prioritize the community's technology stakeholders, create a high-level map of the technology stakeholder's characteristics, and identify the program's goal for high-priority stakeholder groups. Related Objectives: Understand Core Community Needs | DOC | |
2. Technical Skills Inventory (Part One) | Goal: Create an inventory of what technical skills are required for technical staff, contributors, and users to develop, support, and maintain the platform. Related Objectives: Understand Core Community Needs | ||
Pre-Work
A. Mission / Vision
Goal: To enable program governance to consider and create a Mission and Vision Statement if you do not already have one. Having a Mission and Vision Statement are helpful for many of the ITAV activities. Examples: Mission Vision
B. Strategic Priorities
Goal: To enable program governance to consider and create some high level strategic priorities if you do not already have them. These are helpful for many of the ITAV activities.
C. Who is Your Community?
Goals: To identify community stakeholders, consider goals for each stakeholder group, and prioritize community stakeholders
This is helpful as pre-work, but also for programs in any phase. Note, there is a fuller version of this in the Community Engagement Facet.
Phase 1: Establishing Governance | |||
Phase 1 Objectives include: Define the Need for Governance; Review Existing Governance Models; Selecting the Governance Model that Works Best Now, and Communicating Changes to Stakeholders | |||
1. Catastrophizing | Goals: Understand how the program’s current governance model (or decision making) works with unexpected issues; Understand if the model works well or has gaps; and Identify and document issues that need to be solved. Note: This activity is valuable for any phase. Examples: Ideate, Prioritize, Gap | DOC | |
2. Checklist of Governance Elements | Goals: Understand the elements of various governance models, and determine which your governance structure currently has. | DOC | |
3. Understanding Governance Models and Process ImpactPersonas and Pathways | Goals: Learn how to bring contributors onto your project using tools called "personas" and "pathways," help your program plan and test how you'll interact with new contributors, and imagine what is really involved for new contributors to succeed. Related Objectives: Understand Core Community NeedsGoal: Understand the range of various governance models, how they function, and what they could mean for your own program. | DOC | |
4. Structure: How Much Works Best for Your Program NowLandscape Analysis | Goal: Understand where your program needs in terms of more or less formality in governance structure.fits in the technology landscape, and use results to innovate, make decisions, identify opportunities for collaboration, and/or increase your program's usefulness or effectiveness. Related Objectives: Understand Core Community Needs | DOC | |
5. Selecting a Governance Model that Fits Your Program NeedsBuy A Feature Game | Goals: Help users prioritize among a list of pre-defined (but not yet developed) features, and promote cooperation among end users. Related Objectives: Continue to Gather DataGoal: Choose the governance model that most closely aligns with your program’s priorities and values. | DOC | |
6. Articulating the Case for ChangeCommunity QA Testing | Goals: Review program's current QA practices and evaluate whether they are structured in a manner that can be supported by the community, identify places for improvement, and conduct a successful round of Community QA Related Objectives: Continue to Gather DataGoals: Draft your communication strategy and communicate change to your stakeholders. | DOC | |
7. Evaluate Communication Campaign FeedbackDocumentation Friction Logging | Goal: Evaluate Understand how well your communication campaign was received.usable your current documentation is via friction logging with documentation users. Related Objectives: Continue to Gather Data | DOC | |
Phase 2: |
Expanding and Integrating | |||
Phase 2 Objectives include: |
8. Catastrophizing
Engage the Community, Grow Thoughtfully, and Consider Integration over New Development | |||
8. Shadow Observations | Goal : Gain insight about users’ jobs, pains, and gains; l earn about users’ day-to-day work in a real-life setting; and incorporate end-users’ experiences into program planning. Related Objectives: Engage the Community | ||
Goals: Test resiliency of current model; Understand how the program’s current governance (or decision making) works with unexpected issues; Understand if the model works well or has gaps; Identify and document issues that need to be solved.
Examples: Ideate, Prioritize, Gap| DOC | ||
9. |
Recognition and Contributions | Goals: |
Understand how the program currently recognizes contributions, understand the kind of recognition that is most appreciated/motivating to each kind of contributor, and discover how the program can improve in this area. Related Objectives: Engage the Community | DOC | |
10. |
Goals: Assess the financial and organizational stability of your program’s governance, and identify gaps or areas of governance that need improvement.
DOC - Activity
DOC - Checklist
PDF - Activity
PDF - Checklist
11. Position Descriptions for Elected Leaders
Value Propositions for Job Descriptions | Goals: Create a value proposition for a new program position (e.g. community manager, technical lead) to help articulate significance of allocating resources to program leadership, and optionally, create a job description for a new program position. Related Objectives: Engage the Community | ||
11. Building Welcoming Communities | Goals: Identify what documentation your program has that supports growing a successful community, and prioritize missing documentation and develop a plan for its development. Related Objectives: Grow Thoughtfully |
| DOC | ||
12. |
Not Invented Here: Assessing Integration Options | Goals: Identify functional requirements or feature requests that may be solved by integration, and identify and assess potential integration solutions to satisfy functional requirements or feature requests. Related Objectives: Consider Integration over New Development |
| DOC | ||
13. |
How We Retire Features | Goals: Identify elements of the platform that can be retired, develop a plan for communicating retirement plans with the community, and communicate the retirement decision to the community. Related Objectives: Consider Integration over New Development | DOC |
Phase 3: Preparing for Change | |||
Phase 3 Objectives include: Reassess Community Needs, Plan for Evolution, and Document an Exit Strategy | |||
| 14. Technology Stakeholders: Does the Shoe Still Fit? | Goal: Re-identify and re-prioritize the community’s technology stakeholders, create a high-level map of the technology stakeholder’s characteristics, and support program team’s work developing strategies to advance technology sustainability. Related Objectives: Reassess Community Needs | ||
14. Org Home: Requirements Gathering and Assessment
| DOC | ||
| 15. |
| Catastrophizing - Tech Edition (Part One) | Goals: |
Understand how the program’s current |
technical staff, stack, and |
Phase 3: Evolving Governance
Phase 3 Objectives include Support Consistent Structures, Continue to Evaluate and Evolve Governance Practices and Expand community Participation in Governance
16. Succession Planning
roadmap work with unexpected issues (catastrophes), and help programs identify how resilient their staff, stack, and long-range technical strategy are. Related Objectives: Reassess Community Needs |
| DOC |
| 16. List of Dreams | Goals: |
Articulate what future directions your core application could take, assess skills and technology requirements for future directions, and plan for and prioritize professional development opportunities for program stakeholders (staff, contributors, trainers, etc.). Related Objectives: Reassess Community Needs | DOC |
17. Catastrophizing |
Goals: Test resiliency of current model; Understand how the program’s current governance (or decision making) works with unexpected issues; Understand if the model works well or has gaps; Identify and document issues that need to be solved.
- Tech Edition (Part Two) | Goal: Turn the issues identified in Part 1 of Catastrophizing into actionable plans. Related Objectives: Plan for Evolution |
| DOC |
19. Representative Governance Assessment Checklist
Goals: Evaluate if governance structure is representative, prioritize any gaps, document or revise governance policies or decision making process, and devise a plan to make change to practices.
DOC - Activity
DOC - Checklist
PDF - Activity
PDF - Checklist
20. Expanding Community Participation
Goal: Develop a plan to expand community participation in governance.
You can use any of the activities in any order but we have designed some suggested pathways based on a few personas:
18. Technical Skills Inventory (Part Two) | Goals: Update your program’s inventory of what technical skills are needed for technical staff, contributors, and users to develop, support, and maintain the platform; and identify new skills that your program will need to acquire or old skills that can be phased out as the program advances. Related Objectives: Plan for Evolution | DOC | |
19. Developing an End-of-Life Communication Plan | Goal: Develop plan to communicate end-of-life decisions with community. Related Objectives: Document an Exit Strategy | ||
20. Winding Down an Open Source Software Program | Goal : Decide when a project or program is no longer useful, understand how to disengage from a project or program, and determine what to do about code, repositories, websites, wikis, and other project or program assets. Related Objectives: Document an Exit Strategy | DOC |