ts11 community anti-patterns
DESCRIPTION
Building on David Neary's presentation of same name - disruptive patterns of behaviour and possible fixesTRANSCRIPT
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Community Anti-patterns
Steve LeeOpenDirective
TransferSummit September 2011
Oxford UK
© OpenDirective licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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Based on a talk and materials
byDavid Neary
www.slideshare.net/nearyd/community-antipatternscommunitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Anti-patterns
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Patterns are discovered
not
designed
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Patterns allow reproduction of best practice
throughdistilled essence
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Anti-Patterns
•Damaging or counter-productive practices or patterns of behaviour
•Often from best intentions•Some have polar opposites
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Symptoms
•Volunteers start work (or claim so)•Infrequent or vague progress reports•Others cannot do work as is in progress•Hand over resisted
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Causes
•Perfectionism•Over commited•Delusion•Letting go is to admit failure
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Treatment
•Clear Roadmap and assignment•Timebox•Parallel activity•Failure is OK
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Symptoms
•Newbie asks endless questions•Soaks up core team time
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Treatment
•Good docs•Encourage other newbies to answer•Encourage self help with pointers not answers•Let me google it for you (and others)•Walk the line between RTFM and being a crutch
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Symptoms
•Company keeps control•Community are all employees•Dual licence + commercial pressure + process•Water cooler decisions, big show, day 1 commit
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Treatment
•Founding companies need to embrace the chaos•Exchange influence for control•Work in glass houses with policies for progress•If it didn't happen on the list it didn't happen
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Symptoms
•Discussions about relatively unimportant issues•Endless extensive debate•Everyone has their say (me too)•One discussion drowns out others•Related to decision paralysis
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Treatment
•Diagnosis is often enough•Encourage action – implementation or bake off•See bikeshed.com
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Symptoms
•Insightful messages – flame bate•Concern•Off topic
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Treatment
•Ignore•Strong Moderation
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Treatment
•Ignore•Strong Moderation
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Treatment
•Very firm hand•Amputation
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Symptoms
•Contributor gets hired•Less visibility and less activity
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Treatment
•Train employer in value of community•Job description includes contribution•Metrics
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Symptoms
•Lack of care•Snowballs - increase in entropy•Vandalism
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Treatment
•Clear best practice•Identify problems or vandels•Manage and spread policing
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Symptoms
•Over zealous problem identification•Misanthropic moaning (Victor Meldrew)
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Treatment
•Private email – gentle reminder
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