Project Management in Open Source with Harmony Elendu

Hi everyone, before we get started, I know you're having an amazing time. Either you're sitting or you're standing or you're taking notes. Either way, let's have a conversation. No -code contributions in open source have significantly enhanced the community, improving not only the quality of code but also documentation, overall product development, the community health and a lot of other things. These contributions play a vital role in the success and sustainability of open source initiative. Today we'll have a look into project management in open source. But before that, I am Hamon Yelendo, a product and project manager with a great understanding and experience in building products. In blockchain, finance and other technological industries and infrastructures, while working with

diverse team of professionals I currently contribute in Chaos Community and serve as the technical documentation's lead and a host in Chaos Cast, championing discussions on African open source experiences and community health. I previously contributed in Glow Mafrica, another open source-oriented initiative. So let's get started. Project management in open source. Generally, open source refers to software's whose soft code is freely available for anyone to view, modify and distribute. However, when you fuse project management in open source, the view changes completely, especially in contributing and management of the way things are done

to ensure that the way things are done for projects and software is powered by either open technologies or open software. But in another illustration, you can view open source as a building that is accessible to the public where different public or different uh citizens or different personalities come together to ensure that they fix different things in this building, ensuring that the actual project scope. or objectives are being achieved and you can see these citizens or persons as contributors. These contributors usually belongs to a community and those communities are regards are are regarded as open source communities.

So with diffusion of project management in open source There are various key areas in the open source industry that tend to increase. Things like organized participation Open source contributors tend to become more organized because there is somebody that not just manages the project development cycle, but also the persons and the teams that are used to contribute into this project. For instance, the project manager skets to help to streamline issues and PR requests with the aid of GitHub bugs Some of the things that gets to improve is profile documentation. Documentation is one of those things that guides contributors in ensuring that they contribute the right thing

by A good understanding of what the project is or what the project looks like or what the initiative is or what we are trying to do So documentation is one of those things that project managers get to enhance when they are being onboarded into open source. Also, there are various ways in which project management tend to kind of manage the scope and project initiative. We all know that open source software usually have a very vast scope and due to this scope there's somebody that has to streamline this scope into chunks so that contributors can contribute in the areas that they are good in. With project managers, things like the code of conduct that enable

community culture, compliance, and even transparency. gets to be improved in a very large scope. So that is why today we are going to discuss a lot of things that has to do with project management in open source With the aid of project managers, open source is completely different, especially when it's being fusioned together with project management. There will be increase in productivity, there will be openness between teams and contributors there will be increase in collaboration and a lot of other things. Personally, I am a testimony of the impact of project management and open source. With my skills and that of other project managers and maintenance, the experience of contributors and also community enhanced completely.

As a person with a network of various project managers One of the difficulties that come with having conversations with friends or talking about talking in a group or in a closed group or even when we do hangouts is how money, how can I contribute in open source? Now, most projects, the project managers field or project managers skyrocket beyond just technological industry. There are various project managers from different industries. And one question that everybody keeps asking is, I don't know how to code. I don't know the things that come with uh JavaScript. I don't even know how to read this engineering terms and stuff like that.

And they want to know how they are going to contribute in open source. Questions like this are asked from known code contributors, especially because the development of a good product or open source software goes beyond the lines of codes and commits on GitHub Thankfully, there have been direct efforts by various open source communities, foundation, organizations, and also companies in ensuring that no-code contributors our own budget project managers can effortlessly build systems that enable people to perform various skill sets through collaboration and not just having an interest in these things but also with with our experience that comes with working with diverse skill sets

we tend to build things that foster collaboration as well as prompt premium productivity amongst community members and contributors. There are actually diverse waject managers can contribute in open source. Speaking from a personal point of view, there are various ways project managers can actually contribute into open source, one of which is documentation. Documentation is one of the essential things that enable open source projects to function better. Documentations like Read Me on GitHub Reports, Contributions Guide and even technical documents that would enable the public to use various open source softwares for public

use. These are ways in which project managers can contribute effortlessly in the open source industry. Pull requests and issues management is one of the core loopholes that happens within open source community and open source projects. With our experience in using Project FOD as well as the aid of GitHub Project FOD, project managers can serve as, can function as issues and pull requests management and coordinators with this function or with these issues being streamlined the productivity of contributors would increase, which also would foster

fast collaboration amongst pairs. we get to know when an issue is open when an issue is closed the project maintainer would also get to review pull requests with just the clans In the open source industry currently, there have been various initiatives that now deals with different ways of collecting data and also analyzing this data, which in turn improves community health. With our experience or kill sets in user personnel research as well as other forms of research. Project managers can tailor survey questions and also forms that would enable the appropriate data to be collected as well as impute

this data for better analysis and understanding which would definitely improve community health from DEI to disability, inclusion, and a lot of other public initiatives. Program management and project planning is one of the skill sets that comes with becoming a project manager and with the help of with the vast range of diverse conferences, public outreaches, as well as community development programs. Project managers would not just aid program management in the open source group or industry, but would also function as one of the key personnels that would help in planning this project.

while taking the call objectives that are required for these programs in the open source. With this area you could understand that project managers can also function beyond just managing contributors or managing the open source project development circle, but they can also function in focus groups, in communities like research compliance, data science and a lot of other focus groups which would in turn improve community health in general. Best practices of project managers Open source software is known to be one of the most critical components of modern software

technology today, based on backed data. 80 to 90% of new application code or new innovation in the technological industry is usually open source. Bearing in mind the complexities that come with open software development processes merge with the diverse personalities of contributors. The need for project management best practices becomes paramount. in development and contributions management in community and also projects processes. Due to these complexities that comes with managing open source software development circle I have been able to tailor various best practices that I think project management, project managers and project maintenance should enforce while working with open source development.

Open source project or open source community. Some of them might include inclusivity Project manager should be able to create a soft landing grant or mediums that would aid source landing for newbies either through documentation, beginners program, coffee chats, and a lot of any so many more things to be done. Inclusivity should be one of the paramount things that we should do as project manager in our development processes or even in community-oriented initiatives. People regardless of their gender or personality should be welcome to contribute amicably and they should also be given room to be seen in the projects that they have done

The next best practices that you could think of should be equity and fairness. This is a key requirement in every aspect of open source, especially as managers, maintenance or persons with role. Fairness should be seen in everything that we do as project managers, ensuring that contributors should be given a level grant to contribute, regardless of their experience or expertise. Encouraging collaboration. Collaboration is one of the skill sets that comes with being a project manager. Because of our experience we're working with diverse team, especially with sales and all of that, right? So encouraging Collaboration amongst contributions should be our watchword

as project managers while working with open source software. Open communication and transparency, these are one of the core best practices in open source beyond project management. While this encourages transparency, it also ensures that everyone is in sync with the same conversation and also with the same information, as much as all of us are regarded as contributors. Open documentation. Documentation is the core front of methods of enforcing transparency within open source industry and also for projects that are done by communities So open documentation should be encouraged and enforced by project managers.

It's not just going to only aid openness. amongst the things that we do as community, but it also ensures that everybody collaborates and contributes directly to this document while enforcing change and enhanced enhancement, which in turn fosters a good positive community health. Contributors are the core pillars of the open source industry globally The experiences of contributors are a reflection of project management or project maintenance processes either directly or indirectly. But it is of importance to know that contributors effects can be influenced through project

managers or the decisions of project managers or maintenance. Bearing this in mind, these are ways that we can equip contributors through project managers or project maintenance, knowing fully well that the projects that are being done in the open source industries are managed by either the project managers or project maintenance. One of each would include basic tutorials. New intakes or newbies and open source community. usually find it difficult in making their first contribution in the open source industry. And knowing that the first contribution of every contributor makes up or begins

their experience. in the open industry the need for basic tutorials becomes paramount project managers should create time and also create basic tutorials to enable newbies that are not used to the kind of softwares that we use. to learn this software and know how to contribute. It could be as simple as creating their first issue on GitHub. The next one is compliance education. Compliance education is very essential. This is as a result to open source projects needs to seek certain essentials to enable public use. Project managers are expected to educate

contributors about the compliance regarding the open source project that they are working on. This compliance education enables contributors to use the right equipment and the right materials either in that project or performing that tax as a contributor. Risk management. Quality assurance and risk management goes hand in hand as one of the responsibilities. of project managers. Open source project VIX are evaluated by project managers or project maintenance ensuring that the processes and the technologies used during the course of open development and minima from either the contributor's point of view or

the organization or the foundation or the foundations that powers this open source project. RIX management is important beyond just the coffers of the project manager, but it also extends down to the coffers of the contributors ensuring that weeks are minimal on the project or the contributions that are made towards the project. Issue tracking and management Personally, I think issue tracking and management goes beyond the responsibility of project managers. The method in which issues are being streamlined would in turn influence the contributor's behavior in not just issuing issues, but to be able to move issues from a particular board.

to the next but this issue tracking and management if this culture is enforced directly to the contributors it will aid more productivity which in turn foster collaboration amongst contributors. In conclusion, lack of project managers in typical open source projects and community doesn't mean Our work are irrelevant. But on the contrary, due to the distributed and volunteer nature of open source projects, project management is at the core front, making us very important and paramount. This session goes beyond project management in open source, but it also serves as a means to encourage known

code contributors to come into the open source industry. Making their skill sets useful and contributing in building the global technological world Thank you for having me once again. I am Harmony Elendo, a product and project manager with vast experience in building technological products. And also I am an active member in the Chaos community. Where I contribute in technical documentation, Chaos Cast and a lot of other community-oriented initiatives. Thank you once again. Indeed it's my pleasure.