Managing Volunteers

Master on Free Software

 Introduction

● Dealing with people in a project is getting people

to agree and work together
● Requires people specifically dedicated to this

● Requires more social than technical skills

Master on Free Software

 Why do they volunteer?

● Interested in making good software

● Interested in fixing bugs that are important for

them
● ...

● That is what they say

● Understanding their true motivations is crucial

Master on Free Software

 Delegation

● A political, social and motivational tool

● You trusted him to handle the task

● Did you do it on a public forum?

● Pressure

● Engagement

● Authority

Master on Free Software

 Inquiring and assigning

● Assignment of incoming issues is tricky

● Do not take things for granted

● Do not punish the expertise

● Give the chance to neglect

Master on Free Software

 Follow up

● Remember to do it
● It will help you to find actually find out

● It shows that person that you care

● It shows the rest of the people that you care

● People get the feeling that helping you will count

Master on Free Software

 Notice interests

● People are happier if you know about them

● It will help you to do effective requests

● Do not treat a mailing list as a person

● Someone saying nothing may want to say yes

● Someone not saying yes may want to say no

Master on Free Software

 Praise and criticism

● Both are primary forms of attention

● Too much praise will devalue it

● Praising for things that are normal may be bad

● Criticism is not always bad

● Detailed and dispassionate criticism shows

interest and time spent

Master on Free Software

 Territoriality

● Avoid exclusive ownership of parts of the project

● It may look good at the beginning

● It discourages others to help

● Single point of failure

● Informal authority cannot be taken

● Author tags?

Master on Free Software

 Automatic tasks

● Try not to let humans things that machines could

do instead
● You will also avoid human mistakes

● Make good use of the tools

● Save your humans for more interesting things

Master on Free Software

 Users => volunteers

● Treat every user as a potential volunteer

● Filling a bug report requires interest

● You had a problem; We feel your pain

● Ask him to fix it!

Master on Free Software

 Sharing the burden

● Management
● Patch management

● Translations

● Documentation

● Bureaucracy

Master on Free Software

 Source

Producing Open Source Software

Karl Fogel, October 2005.

Master on Free Software