Assholes are killing your project (MDC 2017)
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The strength of your team is the best predictor of its long-term viability. What happens when that group is gradually infiltrated by assholes, who infect everyone else with their constant negativity and personal attacks? Although someone may be a valuable technical contributor, that person will never contribute as much to a product as the many others who are scared away and demotivated. This talk will teach you about the dramatic impact assholes are having on your organization today and will show you how you can begin to repair it.
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Assholes are killing your project (MDC 2017)
- 2. It's all about barriers to entry Wikipedia: Smokefoot
- 4. Your ability to get results depends on your community.
- 5. What makes a great community? Assholes The best Most of us
- 6. Ubuntu launches 3 developers start receiving complaints Developers removed Black Duck Open Hub
- 7. Lead maintainer inactiveMove to Git Black Duck Open Hub
- 8. Same developer forks projectCore developer asked to resign Black Duck Open Hub
- 9. What isn't an asshole? Conflict is good
- 10. What is an asshole? A simple test After talking to the asshole, does the target feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled?
- 11. What is an asshole? Look for patterns
- 12. How many good interactions does it take to cancel out one bad one? Sutton
- 13. Sutton
- 14. Sutton
- 15. Sutton
- 16. Sutton
- 17. Fight Flickr: undergroundbastard Men tend to Pearson & Porath
- 18. Flight Flickr: noeluap Women tend toward Pearson & Porath
- 19. TCA: Total Cost of Asshole Team lead Developer relations team Project leadership Recruiting & training new developers Targets & witnesses __________________ Total Cost of Asshole + + + + Sutton
- 20. Problems assholes cause to targets ● 48% decreased their effort ● 47% worked less time ● 38% dropped their quality ● 66% declined in performance ● 80% lost time worrying ● 63% lost time avoiding ● 78% became less committed ● 25% quit; 20% of witnesses quit! Sutton
- 22. Problems assholes cause to projects ● Reduced innovation & creativity ● Reduced cooperation & cohesion ● Cost of targets' retribution toward project ● Impaired cooperation from external projects & people ● Impaired ability to attract the best & brightest ● Recruiting more assholes Sutton
- 23. An asshole is incompetent Flickr: escapo
- 24. How do you fix it? Flickr: trp0
- 26. Flickr: hashir
- 27. How do you prevent it? Flickr: redefyne
- 30. In the long run, dealing with assholes is never worth it.
- 31. Want to learn more? Read these
- 32. Donnie Berkholz @dberkholz Questions? Some content in this presentation falls under Creative Commons licenses: CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-SA-NC
Editor's Notes
- Gentoo experience Quantitation, social-science research RedMonk: bigger picture
- … Now let's think about where community fits into this
- Best predictor of long-term viability How do you attract new contributors and users? Your brand. Function of your ability to create results.
- Getting results from largely volunteer community means they need to be happy, feel a sense of ownership and pleasure in their accomplishment – assholes ruin this
- Metrics Greatness is a process, not a result Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? – come back to this later
- Reputation is sticky; stayed down 20% permanently
- … How do we define what an asshole is?
- … How do we define what an asshole is?
- Intent to harm not required Difference between how a person treats the powerless and the powerful is a great judge of character
- Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
- Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
- Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
- Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
- Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive 5 good for 1 bad. Your team needs 5/6 positive people just to break even! … This affects the diversity of your project too
- Male targets: reciprocity Female targets: avoidance (Pearson & Porath) – pic: fight vs flight Targets hold leaders at fault Role models Typical women in tech communities are not typical women – outliers in career path
- By tolerating assholes, you alienate women Male targets: reciprocity Female targets: avoidance (Pearson & Porath) – pic: fight vs flight Targets hold leaders at fault Role models … Effects of these negative interactions
- Refusal to confront reality Dreadful stats - 50% of targets considered quitting, 12% of targets quit. One asshole, multiple targets. Reputation: word of mouth. Cascade
- Word of mouth transforms one asshole into an avalanche Theo – OpenBSD
- External cooperation & recruitment: based on reputation, caused by word of mouth Recruitment is different in FLOSS from biz; everyone has the power
- Social and technical ability are orthogonal. One never balances out the other. A good coder has one; a good developer has both. … So what do we do about them?
- Personal interactions—have a conference Modeling
- People need somewhere to complain and a sense that action will happen—rapid feedback Reporting: encourage; have a place; respond; rapid feedback
- Culture is like molasses, not like code. Problem of change in diffuse organizations: persuasion, shared interests, reputation
- Show that social aspects have metrics, too. Developers believe numbers.
- Nobody knows your culture when they start. Do you want them to learn it from an asshole? Provide a code of conduct. Clear expectations set a baseline: code of conduct
- Get rid of them, and later you'll wonder why it took you so long to act.