Open Source Project Management: Applying Established Project Management Principles and Practices at the Mozilla Organization

With the phenomenal success of Linux, companies are taking open source business solutions much more seriously than ever before. This book helps to satisfy the growing demand for guidance on how to manage open source enterprise development projects. Expert Jan Sandred explores the open source philosophy, describes current software tools for managing open source projects, and provides expert guidance on how to organize and manage open source projects using the Internet as a collaboration tool. With the help of several fascinating and instructive case studies, Sandred explores practical concerns such as building, motivating, and managing virtual teams; structuring tasks and meeting deadlines; establishing trust; project management software tools; maintaining project security; and more. Summary. This book emphasizes the need for effective project management for enterprise OSS projects and the unique project management tools and techniques that have been used. The brief is categorized in this section of the study for its analysis of how to apply traditional project management principles in an OSS environment. The analysis describes the open source philosophy and traditional project management principles, and identifies challenges with applying these principles to virtual teams of volunteer contributors. Sandred describes OSS characteristics in commercial and community-based business models and addresses how OSS philosophy and implementation influence the role of project management. More specifically, the brief addresses global virtual teams, the importance of leadership among project managers, trust among volunteer contributors, principal differences among commercial and community-based organizations, necessary competencies of the OSS project manager, and tools that can be used for effective OSS project management. OPEN SOURCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT MOZILLA 19 Shaikh, M. & Cornford, T. (2009, May). Innovating with open-sourcing: Governance concerns for managers, 26(3), 309–316. University of Limerick Institutional Repository. Retrieved from http://ulir.ul. ie/handle/10344/1843. Abstract. Among various forms of innovation in industry structures and business models an increasing number of companies have shown interest in aligning themselves to an open source software model as a means to capture intellectual energy, productive software processes and relevant technical skills. This is evident both within small and niche businesses, but also within the largest companies – a phenomenon known as opensourcing. This paper presents findings from a field study of open-sourcing of software development within two large, global technology companies. It reports on the ways in which open-sourcing is accommodated within the corporate context, and assesses the innovative strategies managers use as they engage with this phenomenon and seek to work cooperatively with open source communities. The analysis focuses on three primary areas that emerge from the data and which are seen to require particular attention in such organizations; license and IPR regime; community approach; and a modified development process. Summary. This article addresses the tensions between community and corporate development environments and the challenges presented when straddling the two. It addresses both transparency and proprietary vendor relation problems that have been expressed in the Mozilla Project Management Initiative and project management meetings at Mozilla. The community approach and modified development process described is particularly relevant to the challenges that Mozilla faces and speaks to a broader audience of project managers including any who are involved with OSS and OPEN SOURCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT MOZILLA 20 proprietary vendors or commercial products. In particular, OSS project managers are advised to achieve a balance of control of company confidentiality and product while allowing open innovation to occur organically among contributors. The article is selected for its analysis of the broader shift from a proprietary to open business model and identifies relevant traditional project management principles in an OSS environment. Shapiro, L. (2013, June 18). Product management in the open (source): Community and direction [lecture]. Open Source Bridge: The conference for open source citizens. Retrieved from http://opensourcebridge.org/sessions/1085. Abstract. Product Management is a generally well-defined discipline inside large corporate organizations. But how does it work in the open source world? Do we need it? How does product consensus happen in open source? Summary. This lecture was given at an Open Source Bridge conference by Larissa Shapiro. Shapiro is a Senior Program Manager for Product Management Operations at Mozilla. In the lecture, she addresses what product management is and the role of the product manager in open source. Shapiro describes product management as creating a vision and developing roadmaps for products and managing the product lifecycle based on user data. Shapiro is involved in the Project Management Initiative at Mozilla and regularly attends the program and project manager meetings. In this talk, she shares her experience at a few of the open source organizations at which she has worked as a product manager and addresses how product consensus occurs in open source. Shapiro emphasizes the importance of keeping product users at the center of innovation and the decision-making process. Issues that she addresses relate directly to project management at Mozilla since project managers are tasked with soliciting feedback from project teams OPEN SOURCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT MOZILLA 21 and to keep projects in scope with product roadmaps. A large majority of Mozilla project contributors are both users and developers. Shapiro advocates utilizing user and developer data to inform what direction a product should go and describes the role of project managers in managing resources effectively in a community-based environment. This lecture is selected primarily for the discussion around maintaining project scope in open source and keeping projects on track according to product roadmaps. These tactics are identified in traditional project management best practices and are uniquely challenging in an open source environment due to the difficulty of propagating information about policy and project scope parameters across globally distributed teams. The importance of acknowledging user contributions in projects is discussed and could be considered a necessary function of Mozilla project managers. Category 3: Project Management Principles Most Closely Aligned with Mozilla Project Management Initiative Objectives Baysal, O. , Holmes, R. , & Godfrey, M. W. (2013, July-August). Developer dashboards: The need for qualitative analytics. IEEE Computer Society, 30(4), 46-52. http://doi.ieeecomputersociety. org/10.1109/MS.2013. 66 Abstract. Prominent technology companies including IBM, Microsoft, and Google have embraced an analytics-driven culture to help improve their decision-making. Analytics aim to help practitioners answer questions critical to their projects, such as "Are we on track to deliver the next release on schedule? " and "Of the recent features added, which are the most prone to defects? " by providing fact-based views about projects. Analytic results are often quantitative in nature, presenting data as graphical dashboards with reports and charts. Although current dashboards are often geared toward project OPEN SOURCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT MOZILLA 22 managers, they aren't well suited to help individual developers. Mozilla developer interviews show that developers face challenges maintaining a global understanding of the tasks they're working on and that they desire improved support for situational awareness, a form of qualitative analytics that's difficult to achieve with current quantitative tools. This article motivates the need for qualitative dashboards designed to improve developers' situational awareness by providing task tracking and prioritizing capabilities, presenting insights on the workloads of others, listing individual actions, and providing custom views to help manage workload while performing day-to-day development tasks. Summary. This work draws upon interviews with Mozilla developers and makes the case for the implementation of developer dashboards. The article draws comparisons among companies that use analytics to drive decisions and specifically outlines how Google has been able to use analytics to improve developer communication and project management. It presents dashboards as a potentially effective tool that can be used to aid in software development and management at Mozilla. This analysis and subsequent recommendations focus specifically on the need for qualitative and quantitative analytics in addition to situational awareness as it relates to policy and procedure decisions across the Mozilla enterprise. Challenges identified by the Mozilla project manager survey include: (a) differing tools to communicate and track projects, (b) respondents feeling like they don’t have enough information to determine what needs to be done and to set priorities, (c) project scope changes often, and (d) respondents feeling like their group is poor at accurately estimating the amount of effort to complete a project. These challenges OPEN SOURCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AT MOZILLA 23 could be addressed by using developer dashboards allowing project managers to propagate project and policy changes across development teams. Lee, M.R. (2013). Leading virtual project teams: Adapting leadership theories and communications techniques to 21st century organizations. New York, NY: Auerbach Publications. Abstract. In a 1945 speech, Winston Churchill stated, "We are shaping the world faster than we can change ourselves, and we are applying to the present the habits of the past. " Was Churchill predicting the future of project manage