Project Community

The Open Source model for software development and science succeeds because it allows a project to be owned by a community of users and developers with shared interests and overlapping needs. Open Science provides an entry point to understanding solutions to complex problems, and thus these projects serve as a natural entry point to a community of the curious. It is a natural goal of OMSF projects to move beyond simply developing a software product with professional, consortium-funded staff to be adopted by a wider community of developers and users. Such a community must be cultivated as a network of relationships, starting with the relationships among the staff and then expanding outward to include internal stakeholders (sponsors, other OMSF projects) and to the wider community.

Values

OMSF projects necessarily share the values of openness, collaboration and scientific excellence. Beyond these, a project should define its own core values to guide interactions, decision-making, and project priorities. A key piece of consistent and constructive communication is alignment - when a project team feels committed to the same goals, they are likely to be more productive as well as happier. A strong set of clearly defined values can assist project leadership in building infrastructure, hiring new members, and differentiating themselves from other open science projects.

Projects are encouraged to establish value statements that reflect their unique goals within OMSF’s broader mission. Projects should also encourage participation in community events, even host their own community events as appropriate - this reinforces a shared commitment to these values across an organization.

Ceremonies and culture

The culture within OMSF projects is cultivated through regular ceremonies that bring the community together and streamline development practices. A happy project is an aligned project. More often than not, as long as a team is working together in the same way, members of that team can more efficiently share experiences. This is a recursive cycle - sharing a culture begets more shared experience begets more shared culture. This cycle ultimately increased alignment, increasing productivity.

Project development styles

Each project adopts its own development style, tailored to the project’s needs and stakeholder expectations. Development can range from agile sprints to collaborative roadmap planning sessions, but often demonstrates a highly iterated, specialized set of cultural norms. Regular ceremonies and cultural events can include

• Regular Team Meetings: Gatherings such as daily stand-ups and weekly planning sessions allow teams to align on goals, address challenges, and celebrate milestones.
• Regular Organizational Meetings: Connecting with the larger community to share project updates, goals, and timelines affords projects the ability to celebrate and reflect with like minded peers.
• Agile Ceremonies: Starting with a long Planning meeting with short daily meetings capped by a Retrospective is a powerful tool in aligning teams to a mission. While the frequency of meetings allow for more comprehensive communication between projects, the physical meetings themselves align the project to a common language.

Culture is best maintained when it is consistent. Ensuring that daily meetings remain daily, or that regular practices remain regular, is key to maintaining an alignment at the project. Changes to culture should be undertaken only with significant data, qualitative or otherwise, and should be made slowly.

Brand

OMSF projects maintain individual brands that align with the overall identity of OMSF, presenting a unified yet diverse face to external audiences. This consistency helps establish trust within the scientific and open-source communities. Each project’s brand highlights its unique contributions, which also looks to attract new users aligned with the mission.

Alignment is important for a project internally, but it is just as important to align the external community. The internal community has the benefit of building together every day during ceremonies. The same mindset must be applied in order to align the external community - consistent messaging, imagery, and tone should be used in order to give external contributors a sense of normalcy.

A logo typically is the first signal someone has when encountering your project. A series of logos can help external contributors recognize your project quickly.

Developing a style guide, complete with typical layouts, colors used with HEX codes, typography, fonts, and brand voice can allow the internal community to understand how to correctly engage with the external community. Implicitly, a style guide will guide the aesthetic of the external community.

Community engagement

Engagement with OMSF’s community is central to each project’s success. OMSF promotes a culture of open communication and accessible knowledge sharing that empowers both contributors and users. Ultimately, engaging a community is the best way to gather further understanding. The more knowledge shared between the project and its stakeholders, the more likely these stakeholders will remain aligned with the vision of your project. This alignment should be key part of your sustainability strategy.

Communication channels

OMSF employs multiple channels to foster community discussions and keep stakeholders informed. Platforms such as Slack and GitHub facilitate day-to-day collaboration, while newsletters, blogs, and social media connect the wider community to project progress and events. Open meetings are held regularly to keep team members and the broader community aligned on project goals. These meetings are typically topical, focused on specific challenges or updates, and offer stakeholders a chance to connect directly with project teams.

At Open Free Energy, for example, we define the following “circles” of stakeholders and communicate with them through distinct channels:

In addition to these communication channels, engaging in more formal, qualitative discovery processes can help your project understand the types of individuals that make up the external communities. More often than not, there are common factors that draw external collaborators to a project. To engage these collaborators effectively, it is imperative to understanding these motivations. Standard practices, such as user surveys and stakeholder interviews, should be used to understand these motivations.

Code of conduct

A Code of Conduct is a shared set of behavioral norms that community participants are expected to follow. A CoC is distinct from bylaws because it governs interpersonal behavior, not financial responsibility. The purpose of a CoC is to empower the community to protect its own members from harm, such as bullying or abuse. A healthy community also contributes to a healthy workplace. It’s hard to hire and retain highly skilled staff with a modest budget; having an unpleasant working environment will make it impossible.

What protects community members from harm is not the code of conduct itself, but how the community enforces it. A code of conduct may not change anyone’s behavior, but an expectation that the code will be enforced can dissuade people with harmful behavior from participating in the community. The most effective way to enforce a CoC is to establish it as the governing document of some enforcement body, such as a safety or inclusion committee. The code of conduct should give the enforcement body a clear guide to taking swift, decisive action to prevent harm. It must:

• Define unacceptable behavior (because otherwise it can’t be enforced)
• Provide a clear process for handling individuals that cause hard to the community and protect the community from harm.

Resources:

• OMSF CoC: https://omsf.io/resources/conduct/
• Rosetta Commons CoC: https://rosettacommons.org/about/code-of-conduct/
• How to Respond to Code of Conduct Reports, by Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner: https://frameshiftconsulting.com/resources/code-of-conduct-book/#book

Growth strategy

OMSF’s growth strategy for its project communities centers on expanding awareness, building partnerships with other scientific communities, and nurturing new contributors and partners. By engaging with its unique stakeholders more closely, projects at OMSF can strengthen their own support networks.

While most understand why too little growth can be detrimental, it is also important to realize how too much growth can harm a project. Taking on new responsibilities, new costs, and new persons can distract a team and add overhead for a project. It’s important not only to develop a growth strategy, but to communicate that strategy through channels.

Social media and outreach are a critical component of project growth strategy. Setting and achieving preselected goals based on predetermined metrics is a key component to determining the success of project outreach. Regular posts on social media with a strategic cross-posting approach maximizes visibility.

In-person meetings and events are also crucial to stability and growth. OMSF projects operate primarily as remote organizations. Thus, in-person events play a key role in reinforcing community ties, and expanding project reach. These gatherings provide a platform for knowledge exchange, networking, and collaborative planning.