Added new pattern: Start as Experiment #66

gruetter · 2017-03-22T23:17:07Z

Hi patterns community. Here's a new pattern which describes a solution which we have (I think) successfully applied at Bosch. I'm looking forward to your feedback and suggestions.

Cheers,
Georg

NewMexicoKid · 2017-03-23T12:59:10Z

start-as-experiment.md

+  by for InnerSource.
+- If the InnerSource initiative has a huge uptake among developers and if many
+  projects come to rely on it, a decision to shut it down will be very 
+  unpopular and therefore hard to make.


If many projects come to rely on InnerSource, doesn't that mean that it is successful? Would a decision to shut it down then be very unlikely? Does this force represent a fear that management has about even starting this (a worry that they would lose control over the program because of its popularity)?

If many projects come to rely on InnerSource, doesn't that mean that it is successful?

That would be my definition of success, yes. But then, I'm not a manager. The benefits of InnerSource can sometimes be hard to quantify, especially the soft factors, such as employee satisfaction, improved learning and increased networking. Not being able to put hard numbers on e. g. the increase in efficiency might make InnerSource look like a failure to some managers.

Would a decision to shut it down then be very unlikely?

I think there are shades of grey, here. If the company does not support InnerSource on the highest level anymore (e. g. no funding for central platform), the projects which are relying on InnerSource would most likely maintain a more islolated version of it for their particular use. I guess you could call that InnerSource, too, but it would probably be a step back from the values of openness and transparency.

Does this force represent a fear that management has about even starting this (a worry that they would lose control over the program because of its popularity)?

Yes!

I have added text to explain how managers might fear loss of control due to huge uptake. Not sure how to factor in the rest of your feedback, though, @NewMexicoKid . Any suggestions?

NewMexicoKid · 2017-03-23T13:00:05Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- When implementing new working models such as InnerSource which are radically
+  different from working models previously practiced in the company, it is 
+  likely that existing, mandatory processes are no longer applicable and even
+  that one has to operate in a regulatory, sometimes legal no-mans land.


Can you elaborate on what some of the regulatory and legal concerns are?

I know of three areas, which were (are) problematic, at least here in Europe:

Tax problems (a project in one country contributing SW for free, a project in another country makes money of of it)

Open Source licensing obligations: In my company, there are strict processes ensuring that SW that we publish and that uses OSS complies with the requirements spelled out in their respective licenses. Technically, pushing SW to a platform that is accessible by multiple legal entities is already an act of publishing. I'm guessing that most companies which haven't practiced InnerSource do not have regulations for that in place.

Export control regulations: There are a lot of export control regulations (most of them put in place by the US) that apply to SW being published (same case as above).

I'm confused, though. These concerns wouldn't apply to InnerSource efforts (within a single company), right?

@rrrutledge , I think that the tax concerns would still apply within a single company if that company spanned several countries (each with different tax laws); but I am not a tax expert.

@NewMexicoKid is right. Bosch, e. g., has hundreds (!) of legal entities in more than 100 countries world wide.

I've updated the force to reflect your feedback.

nyeates · 2017-07-18T16:48:47Z

start-as-experiment.md

+
+# Forces
+
+- Managers will want to validate the claims of improved collaboration through


From 7/18/17 patterns meeting: Engineering-led inner source often does not scale to the wider organization because engineers lack a marketing skillset and upward/sideways org traversal.

Are we able to weave this interesting comment/observation in anywhere?

Is this comment/observation directly related to the thrust and intent of this pattern?

I think this is not directly related, @nyeates. This force was geared towards the desire of mgmt. to validate a new idea before they sign off on it. So it's more related to KPIs and measurements than marketing skills.

nyeates · 2017-07-18T16:51:19Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- In case of success, the data gathered during the experiment will allow
+  managers to make a longer lasting commitment to InnerSource. 
+
+Participants in the InnerSource experiment are conscious of the fact that, as


Comment from 7/18/17 patterns meeting: Consider having a "pivot, change, pause" point. Instead of an end-date, you re-evaluate

Sounds good.

I like it, too!

I've added your idea to replace the end point with a pivot/pause/change point, @nyeates .

gruetter · 2017-03-23T16:56:46Z

start-as-experiment.md

+
+# Solution
+
+Declare the InnerSource initiative as a time limited experiment. Define and


from Erin: mention example for concrete criteria for measuring success

From what I was able to gather so far, (this was before I engaged with InnerSource at Bosch), the criteria put in place were used to evaluate the health of the InnerSource communities and not to evaluate the benefits of InnerSource. The thinking was that we need to assess first whether or not InnerSource can flourish within the organisation and that introducing "hard" measurements (efficiency KPIs and such) would substantially alter the nature and outcome of the experiment. Here are some of the criteria put in place for our experiment:

Geographical distribution (of developers)

Departmental mix (of developers)

Openness of communication (within community)

Career path based on merit (within community)

Democratic decisions (within community)

I have to admit that this is somewhat different from how I wrote it in this pattern. @ErinMB, @NewMexicoKid and @nyeates: should we go about this?

My opinion: I would rewrite this part of the solution section to better reflect how we approached it at Bosch.

Sounds good to me. Would the right thing to do be to reference another pattern. I see two in pull request that may be related (Cross-team Project Valuation, Add pattern for discussion: first steps with metrics). Or create a new one yourself?

I've enhanced the solution and linked to the (not yet existing) patterns as you suggested, @rrrutledge .

gruetter · 2017-12-01T13:12:21Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- When implementing new working models such as InnerSource which are radically
+  different from working models previously practiced in the company, it is 
+  likely that existing, mandatory processes are no longer applicable and even
+  that one has to operate in a regulatory, sometimes legal no-mans land.


@NewMexicoKid is right. Bosch, e. g., has hundreds (!) of legal entities in more than 100 countries world wide.

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:04:12Z

start-as-experiment.md

+
+# Context
+
+The majority of software development projects in the company are distributed


I'm not sure if the global distribution of developers is relevant context for this pattern. It feels like the following sections would all still apply even without this context.

It's a condition of a (the) known case; I think it doesn't do any harm to mention this point, even if the pattern applies without it. (perhaps there could be a parenthetical statement about how the global distribution is not believed to be a necessary condition for applying this pattern?)

The way I have rewritten this hopefully makes it clear that global distribution is just one example for a criteria.

I think that parenthetical statement would be good. Wouldn't want anyone to be discouraged from trying out this pattern because they don't believe it applies to them.

I agree with Russ that the pattern will apply regardless of whether or not SW development is globally distributed or not. I'll remove it. Thanks for persisting, @rrrutledge !

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:05:49Z

start-as-experiment.md

+Declare the InnerSource initiative as a time limited experiment. Define and
+communicate the criteria for evaluating the experiment and ensure that 
+sufficient data is gathered to perform the evaluation. Consider establishing
+a _Review Committee_ (**tbd**: pattern link) to increase the chances of 


Link to review committee?

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:06:39Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- If the InnerSource initiative has a huge uptake among developers and if many
+  projects come to rely on it, a decision to shut it down will be very 
+  unpopular and therefore hard to make.
+- When implementing new working models such as InnerSource which are radically


Split this bullet into 2-3 sentences.

done. It was a very german sentence, indeed ;)

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:09:46Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- In case of success, the data gathered during the experiment will allow
+  managers to make a longer lasting commitment to InnerSource. 
+
+Participants in the InnerSource experiment are conscious of the fact that, as


I don't understand these last two points in the resulting context - how are they good, desirable, or related to the problem or opening context?

Hmm, you have a point there, @rrrutledge . What I wanted to express is that being transparent about the fact that the experiment might not continue would help avoid unnecessary frustration in the developer base. I can say that this wouldn't have helped me personally, though. One way in which the experimental nature of our InnerSource initiative did help was that it communicated to us developers that we had to prove that InnerSource (which we all love) does work well, indeed. Does that resonate with you, @rrrutledge ?

I've rewritten this paragraph. Does this work better for you, @rrrutledge ?

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:10:54Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- When implementing new working models such as InnerSource which are radically
+  different from working models previously practiced in the company, it is 
+  likely that existing, mandatory processes are no longer applicable and even
+  that one has to operate in a regulatory, sometimes legal no-mans land.


rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:11:43Z

start-as-experiment.md

+
+# Forces
+
+- Managers will want to validate the claims of improved collaboration through


Is this comment/observation directly related to the thrust and intent of this pattern?

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:14:20Z

start-as-experiment.md

+
+# Solution
+
+Declare the InnerSource initiative as a time limited experiment. Define and


Sounds good to me. Would the right thing to do be to reference another pattern. I see two in pull request that may be related (Cross-team Project Valuation, Add pattern for discussion: first steps with metrics). Or create a new one yourself?

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:14:38Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- In case of success, the data gathered during the experiment will allow
+  managers to make a longer lasting commitment to InnerSource. 
+
+Participants in the InnerSource experiment are conscious of the fact that, as


Sounds good.

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T14:19:51Z

start-as-experiment.md

+# Title
+
+Start as an Experiment
+


Interested in a Patlet in this pattern?

absolutely!

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T17:22:26Z

start-as-experiment.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+# Title
+
+Start as an Experiment


I think that this pattern may be rediscovering a lot of Trial Run from the Fearless Change Pattens. It's awesome because it means that the content and idea here is solid, but I think it would be good (in the long run) to think about how patterns here relate to what is already documented and printed there.

The connection is obvious, indeed. Are you suggesting to add a section Related Work or something similar?

I think that would be good for now. In the long run I'm wondering if we explicitly just start referring people to go read patterns from that book and just focus on any innersource-specific adaptations/examples in our documentation.

Added section on related work.

…d Erin

rrrutledge

Thanks for these updates.

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T17:32:48Z

start-as-experiment.md

+accompany the experiment with appropriate metrics (**tbd: Pattern link**). If
+the projects in the experiment don't provide a direct impact on the companies
+revenue, consider introducing [Cross Team
+Valuation](crossteam-project-valuation.md) to highlight its value contribution.


Thanks for thinking of this document! It is not in master yet so you'll have to link to the branch for now if you want to reference it.

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T17:35:50Z

start-as-experiment.md

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+# Title
+
+Start as an Experiment


I think that would be good for now. In the long run I'm wondering if we explicitly just start referring people to go read patterns from that book and just focus on any innersource-specific adaptations/examples in our documentation.

rrrutledge · 2018-02-15T17:40:09Z

start-as-experiment.md

+- In case of success, the data gathered during the experiment will allow
+  managers to make a longer lasting commitment to InnerSource. 
+
+Participants in the InnerSource experiment are conscious of the fact that they


I've rewritten this paragraph. Does this work better for you, @rrrutledge

Yes, this paragraph makes sense to me. Still not able to connect the dots on the one below, though.

added new pattern draft

9dea83c

gruetter added 1 - Do 1st Review 3-validated Patterns proven in multiple cases with advanced requirements (Please see our contribution handbook) labels Mar 22, 2017

NewMexicoKid reviewed Mar 23, 2017

View reviewed changes

nyeates reviewed Jul 18, 2017

View reviewed changes

gruetter commented Feb 15, 2018

View reviewed changes

rrrutledge reviewed Feb 15, 2018

View reviewed changes

rrrutledge requested changes Feb 15, 2018

View reviewed changes

rrrutledge reviewed Feb 15, 2018

View reviewed changes

incorporated PR feedback. Thanks @rrutledge @NewMexicoKid @nyeates an…

34967a6

…d Erin

rrrutledge reviewed Feb 15, 2018

View reviewed changes

gruetter added 2 commits February 16, 2018 18:00

Incorporated more review feedback. Thanks Rus.

6fbe28e

final changes during patters working group meeting

2b81dad

gruetter merged commit 946736e into master Feb 16, 2018

rrrutledge deleted the pattern/start-as-experiment branch March 18, 2020 13:53

lenucksi added the 📖 Type - Content Work Working on contents is the main focus of this issue / PR label Sep 28, 2020


		# Forces

		- Managers will want to validate the claims of improved collaboration through


		# Solution

		Declare the InnerSource initiative as a time limited experiment. Define and


		# Context

		The majority of software development projects in the company are distributed

Added new pattern: Start as Experiment #66

Added new pattern: Start as Experiment #66

Uh oh!

Conversation

gruetter commented Mar 22, 2017

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

gruetter Feb 15, 2018 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

gruetter Feb 15, 2018 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

gruetter Feb 15, 2018 •

edited

Loading

gruetter Feb 15, 2018 •

edited

Loading