My brief answer: better tools. A more detailed answer inline.
On Mon, 2 Jun 2008, Josh Boyer wrote:
On Mon, 2 Jun 2008 12:41:10 -0800
"Jeff Spaleta" <jspaleta@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Why do you need to track that?
Why does any volunteer organization want to keep track of the amount
of time individuals are committing and what things they are doing? We
want to make sure we are putting human resources into the overall
project in a way that we aren't creating bottlenecks, or worse in a
way that is wasteful. The most critically important resource we have
is available volunteer time and goodwill, and we need to start looking
seriously at how well we are managing those resources as they come
into the door. We need to make sure that when we encourage people to
participate we are doing it a way that we are asking people to spend
time in a way that makes a positive impact. And we need to find ways
to measure that impact. If we think mentoring is a good idea, then we
need to try to measure that impact. But we cant really gauge impact
unless we have a reasonable estimate of the manhours going in. More
important for me we need to try to make a long term effort to trend
the impact of different areas of 'contribution' that we stand up.
Unless we attempt to track manhours spent in different areas how do we
ever really get a handle on whether we need to push one area over
another through a project wide recruitment program? Different parts
of the project are going to grow organically on their own...but not
necessarily at the same rate. As one bit grows it can create growing
pains for other groups, and its exactly this sort of imbalance that we
need to watch out for and respond to via recruitment drives.
Fair enough. Good points. And I agree that having such data would be
great for planning, etc.
Now, you have issues with all of that too.
1) How do you do it across the Project as a whole without resorting to
a "timecard" that contributors punch.
We make sure that everything is tied as clearly as possible to FAS2
account info, and then we collect measurements where it makes sense.
2) How do you get around the fact that some people might not want their
contribution time tracked?
We make it so that they don't have to do the work, and whenever we present
"metrics", we do it in such a way that we're never penalizing, only
rewarding. No volunteer wants to hear "you didn't do enough to suit us,"
but many might like to hear "you did a tremendous amount of work that we
saw." And if that drives a bit of competition, so much the better.
3) How do you account for transient contributors? E.g. The overall
contribution time for a particular area may stay the same across two
different time periods. It could be all from the same contributor
base, or it could be spread across a bunch of different contributors
that come and go. The wiki would likely be a decent example of the
latter.
It's got to be possible to track different kinds of contributions. How
many times did "gdk" edit the wiki? Check something into a repo? Show up
on various mailing lists?
Or, put another way, do we want to track contributor retention? (See
lkml thread from last week for a similar discussion and the
observations they saw there.)
4) How do you balance "paid for" time vs. volunteer time? Both are
invaluable, and it's a fine line to walk in some cases.
A fair question, and perhaps a separate one.
5) How do you quantify "intangibles" like helping people on #fedora?
Make them tangible. Collect IRC screen names in FAS2, and do some
analysis.
6) How do you actively "recruit" people to areas that need help without
driving them away altogether?
By emphasizing them on the Join page, which is increasingly becoming an
effective vector into the project. Of course, the fact is that you can't
make a volunteer do anything they don't really want to do, which is
something we must be cognizant of at all times.
--g
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