The document discusses the concept of inner source, which applies open source practices to internal software development to enhance collaboration, transparency, and innovation within organizations. It outlines key characteristics, benefits, and challenges of implementing inner source, such as fostering a meritocratic environment and measuring success through various metrics. Best practices for getting started and aligning corporate culture with inner source principles are also provided.

1. Inner Source Webinar Series
Community Development Practices in Corporate IT
Inner Source Fundamentals:
Transparency, Collaboration and Self-Organization
Inner Source Fundamentals:
Egalitarianism, Meritocracy and Measuring Success
#innersourcing
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2. Speakers
Guy Martin
Andrew Aitken
Managing Principal Architect
Red Hat Consulting
Managing Director
Black Duck Consulting
@guyma
@andrewolliance
@RedHat_Training
@black_duck_sw
#innersourcing
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3. Agenda
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What Is Inner Source?
Why Use Inner Source?
Inner-Source vs. Agile
Inner-Source Characteristics & Best Practices
– Transparency
– Collaboration
– Self-Organization
– Egalitarianism
– Meritocracy
• Measuring Success
• Challenges
• Getting Started
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4. What is Inner-Source?
The application of best practices, processes, culture and
methodologies taken from the open source world and applied to
internal software development and innovation efforts.
http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/
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5. 3 Pillars of Inner Source
Ethos
Processes
Tools &
Technology
INNER SOURCE
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6. Why Use Inner Source
• Increased velocity
– Faster time-to-release
• Improved code
– Peer-reviewed/security verified
– Scalable/operational at velocity
• Reduced costs
– Code reuse/API development
– Shared development/maintenance costs
• Increased innovation
– Component teams collaborating
– Increased cross-organizational awareness
• Enhanced human capital efficiencies
– Improved morale, retention and recruitment
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7. Inner Source & Agile
• Allies - not competitors
• Some overlap, but in general:
– Agile specifies process
– Inner Source informs culture
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8. Successful Inner Source Efforts

9. Inner Source Characteristics
• Transparency
• Collaboration
• Self-organization
– Hybrids
– Evangelists, catalysts
• Egalitarianism
• Meritocracy
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10. Inner Source Characteristics
Frameworks
Databases
Applications
Cloud
Languages
Tools
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11. Inner Source Characteristics
Why are Transparency, Collaboration and Self-organization important?
• Transparency
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Establishes trust among current and potential participants
Lowers barriers to entry for potential contributors
Helps consumers validate project health (community, codebase, etc.)
Allows management to apply additional resources as required
• Collaboration
– Provides core processes/models for efficient work across team boundaries
– Allows for better idea generation and implementation
– Provides for an increased knowledge base of developer talent
• Self-Organization
– Encourages contributors to work on what motivates them the most
– Empowerment increases morale and retention of top talent
– Relieves some management burden for oversight of common components
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12. Transparency
Transparency, as used in science, engineering and business …
implies openness, communication, and accountability.
Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others
to see what actions are performed.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(behavior)
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13. Transparency Best Practices
• Code Transparency
– Fully readable code repositories
• Technical/Design Transparency
– Easily available design/architecture documentation
• Decision-making Transparency
– Project decisions made „in the open‟
• Communications Transparency
– All project discussions „in the open‟
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14. Collaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal… In
particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater
resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for
finite resources.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration
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15. Collaboration Best Practices
• Cultural Alignment
– Awaiting permission vs. taking initiative
• Development Cycle Alignment
– Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid
• Development Team Experience Alignment
– Experience/specialized vs. Youthful/general purpose
• Collaboration Tools Alignment
– Basic (email, IRC) vs. Evolved (Wiki, forums)
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16. Self-Organization
Self-organization is a process where some form of order or
coordination arises out of the interactions between the
constituents of an initially unordered or nascent system. The
process is spontaneous or loosely directed and the laws followed
by the process may have been chosen or caused by an agent
Guided
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Semi-guided
Unguided
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17. Self-Organization Best Practices
• Initially aligned with corporate goals, culture and
business/technology imperatives
• Optimized along a cultural baseline
• Empowered to effect cultural change
• Flexibility to implement own governance, incentive and
measurement models
Process
1.
2.
3.
4.
Catalyze
Test, measure, refine
Settle
Replicate
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18. Inner Source Governance
Corporate alignment as pre-conditions to success
Inner Source Governance Models
Wholly Self Determining
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Completely Structured
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19. Cultural Determinant
Spectrum of attributes determines tolerances for risk and
innovation
• History
• Industry
• Development process
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• History
• Industry
• Development tools
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20. Egalitarianism
All humans are equal in worth or social status… a positive
attitude toward group decision making… and
decentralization of power.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism
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21. Egalitarianism
Why it’s important
• Breaks down „class barriers‟ to contributions
• Facilitates a wide variety of experiences/viewpoints
• Everyone starts on equal footing
• Enables fundamentally shared goals
Contribution model
• No limitations by organizational position
• Decisions made by consensus
• Technological diversity
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22. Meritocracy
Power should be vested in individuals according to merit …
Advancement based on intellectual talent measured through
examination or demonstrated achievement.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy
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23. Meritocracy
Why it’s important
• Project direction driven by most valuable contributions
• Provides an incentive structure for contributors
• Project has built-in peer review/feedback loop
Contribution Model
• Peer review/vetting of contributions
• Voting mechanism
• Constructive feedback – no bullying!
• Advancement path
• Management trust in self-organized leadership
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24. Measuring Inner Source Success
Strategic and Organizational
• Innovation
– Ideation
– Innovation velocity
– Participation
• Cultural
– Geographic
– Functional
– Operational
• Organizational
– Employee turnover
– Cost-per-hire
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25. Measuring Inner Source Success
Technical
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Time-to-deployment
Support costs
Standardization
Code contributions
Developer productivity
Code quality
Establish a measurement framework and review regularly including
quantifiable; ROI/KPIs, technology/platform reuse,
retention/hiring metrics
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26. Measuring Inner Source Success
Bell Labs (Gurbani, et al.)
• Improved organizational model
• Trained developers
• Improved code quality and functionality
IBM (Community Source)
• Increased developer creativity and innovation
• 30% faster software development
Philips Healthcare (CTO – Frank van der linden)
• Improved technology utilization
• Improved product quality
• Reduced time-to-market
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27. Challenges
• Overall
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Cultural gulf
Lack of clearly defined and communicated goals
HR concerns
Management “support”
• Egalitarianism
– Fear of loss of control
• Meritocracy
– Initial seeding of „project influencers‟
• Measuring Success
– Poorly designed and implemented KPIs
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28. Best Practices
• Realistic vision, articulated shared purpose and clearly
defined problems or opportunities being addressed
• (Initiators, catalysts, evangelists) need to have
collaborative experience/mindset
• Acculturation model for new participants
• Programmatically facilitated continuous interaction and
behavioral consistency
• Start with an intra-organizational group of people with
defined shared goals
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29. Getting Started
• Align Corporate Ethos
– Encourage egalitarianism through example
– Reward collaboration with appropriate incentives
– Facilitate meritocratic leadership
• Adjust Processes
– Transparent contribution policies
– Meritocratic governance model
– Allow/seed self-organization
• Deploy Tools/Technologies
– Evaluate/adjust tools based on feedback
– Standardize
– Simpler is sometimes better (phase)
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30. Estimating Investment
• Cost to include
– Program costs
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Infrastructure
Governance
Training
Developer productivity
– Cost for code sharing
• COCOMO-based estimates
• Test by sampling of projects
• Costs best ignored
– Initial code development
• Cost was sunk for other purposes
– Support and maintenance
• Balanced by cost reduction on receiving side
• Under-estimated for unused, over-estimated for widely used
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31. Questions
oss-enablement-info@redhat.com
aaitken@blackducksoftware.com
View the Full Recordings from this Webinar Series:
• Inner Sourcing: Community Development Practices in Corporate IT
• Understanding Inner Source Fundamentals:
Transparency, Collaboration and Self-Organization
• Inner Source Fundamentals: Egalitarianism, Meritocracy and
Measuring Success
10/28/2013
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