Leading an Open Source Project: Where to begin?

jsvoyager

What do you guys look for in a good project admin? I've been elected one on someone else's project and I have my own project, that I'm currently working alone in, but plan to bring other devs into. I've never really done it before and I haven't been in the Open Source community long enough as just a developer to know what makes a good project admin. As such, I want to try to become the perfect project manager 😃. Here are some questions to get you thinking:

What kind of documents did you use (roadmaps, dev docs, etc...)?

What documents did you not really use or need?

If anyone's ever used the SF.net tasks tracker, how helpful was that. If not, what did you use to assign tasks; or perhaps you just put out a roadmap and everyone just did what they wanted? (ie, how do I choose who does what?)

Methods of communications (forum, AIM, email, etc...)?

Something that really stood out that an admin did that was really cool

Something that an admin did that was just foolish/distracting/annoying/etc...

Some “war stories” you might have

thanks a lot

planetsim

well if you havent been developing long enough Project Admin wouldnt be the best thing, also if you havent been part of a project to begin with being an admin should be avoided its just looking for a disaster.

I was in a small project which the project leader really didnt have much idea where to go with the project, and wasnt really competent with various things involved such as design, programming etc. Since this person really didnt have much clue and in the end because of it become agressive I left the project.

So firstly what Id do. If a project has been past on to you only accept if you have been part of the project. It allows quicker transfer between admins, allowing the new admin some idea where the project is heading.

You dont need to be a genius in all areas of the project but having some basic concepts of each section e.g. graphics would be something good.

Another good thing is to be assertive and make sure everyone knows your in charge however not being agressive or passive. So make sure you listen to what developers say and not just ignore something.

The project I was in we used AIM and MSN, it was a relatively small group so a consensus on what should be used was relatively easy. However I think communication will be determined by the amount in the project. I wouldnt use AIM, MSN etc for a group with over 8 involved a Forum would be better however getting into quick contact still will be required maybe still using AIM, MSN for smaller development chats isnt too bad.

As for Documents, the team I was in didnt really have much in documentation it was basically an overview of what was to be done. This will also depend on the project and if you wish to have time constraints.

vaaaska

Interesting post planetsim...

Aside from just hoping that team members will arrive to the doorstep of your project at Sourceforge, do you have any suggestions how a team leader might try to recruit people to a project? And I don't mean via spamming forums and such...

On the subject of project management...

I've done some very informal work with project mangement and simple forums...I've found that with a few rules (and perhaps a couple mods) they can work pretty well. A thread can get long, but the record of everything is there...and the moderators go through and clean things up from time to time (and their posts should have a slightly different background color too).

Now that I think about it...anybody want to join me for a project trying to create a plug-in for Apple Mail so that with the click of one button you can record an audio message in mp3 and it will automatically be an attachment in your message? Or, it automatically uploads to a web server so you only need to send the link instead...

Crimoney, it's Sunday...why am I thinking about this stuff...

jsvoyager

Thank you both for you input.

For clarification, I consider myself to be competent in PHP and such, I just haven't been doing open source projects for too long. I was also a member of the project that I'm an admin in. Also, I'm only really an assistant admin; he didn't leave or anything, he just didn't really know how to lead people very well so he wanted my help. I guess it's the blind leading the blind in some ways.

This is what I have done so far. I wrote up a RoadMap and some half-developed dev docs. I also posted tasks on the SF task tracker for all of the developers. We also have a forum and AIM methods of com. However, I don't think people are doing the work that I've assigned; we're about 2 weeks behind schedule, though that doesn't bother me. To cut the developers a little slack, all of them besides myself and the real admin are new to the project, and it's about 75% development ready (we've both done a lot of coding :-) ). What can I do to help this situation?

planetsim

Well this is probably one of the faults in Open Source, im sure this isnt a project that is going to get any money so you cant exactly give monetary reward for being on schedule.

The first thing Id do is ask if there still interested in doing the project usually having developers slow down or stopping in the project suggests there not interested or something has come up. If there not interested you should find a new developer interesed in the project (of course this can be a hard task if the project isnt complete)

I think your doing quite a bit to try and get it on schedule but really doing most of the work, showing your wanting to complete the project soon but properly of course, other than that unless your willing to spend money to motivate people to work a little faster, or to do some work I think your just going to have to realise it and move on.

The only other thing is to ask what developers dont like about the project, they may feel the project to be a waste of time, not organised properly or something along those lines. But as this is open source I think you should respect others decisions.

pohopo

Here you go..

http://www.pmi.org/info/PDC_CertificationsOverview.asp

A project manager is completely different job then a programmer. You can be an awesome project manager and have little experience programming. This is not to be confused with a development or programmer lead.

To be good at project managing you need to manage the project timeline, milestones, resources, time, cost, requirements, testing, documentation, and a host of other little things. It is making sure everything stays on track and that what is being done is what the business wants. Too often a great app is built, but it is not what was needed. This would be the fault of a project manager and/or business analyst.

jsvoyager

thanks again. If there are any other links anyone could provide about OS management, It would be appreciated.

pohopo

I highly recomment you read 'Rapid Development' by Steve McConnell. following his advice can significantly reduce development time for any project type on any platform. i keep this book next to me during all projects.