Tracking contributions

Greg Dekoenigsberg gdk at redhat.com
Tue Jun 3 19:01:04 UTC 2008


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 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> 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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