|
| 1 | +## Title |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +Incentive mechanisms to foster voluntary contribution |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +## Patlet |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +TBD |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +## Problem |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +In hierarchical and silo-organized organizations, getting voluntary contributions in InnerSource |
| 12 | +projects can be challenging. It is crucial to create mechanisms to incentivize managers to foster |
| 13 | +voluntary contributions. Consider the following story: |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +Company A has started an InnerSource initiative. Their InnerSource concept expected to have |
| 16 | +associates voluntarily contributing to InnerSource projects, regardless of topic and regardless of |
| 17 | +home-business-unit alignment. |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +After some time in activity, the core team realizes that their InnerSource project is not getting |
| 20 | +voluntary contributions. While engaging with potential individual contributors, the |
| 21 | +core team (pattern link) has consistently learned that the contributors in question were |
| 22 | +not allowed to contribute or have their participation in InnerSource projects rejected by |
| 23 | +their respective line managers. The reasons presented by management are: |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +- the lack of strategic alignment between the InnerSource project goal and the business unit product/service portfolio, |
| 26 | +- managers have planned their developer's capacity 100% to the home business units projects. |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +So, the management is not motivated to provide their scarce developer capacity to the |
| 29 | +InnerSource project. |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +As a result, the total number of contributors remained restricted to the core team and the |
| 32 | +project cannot build a community of developers. Furthermore, contributions mostly originated |
| 33 | +in the same business unit the Dedicated Community Leader (link to Dedicated Community Leader) |
| 34 | +belonged to. Innovation did not happen in the expected scale. Top management is no longer |
| 35 | +convinced that InnerSource yields the expected benefits and abandons the initiative altogether. |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +## Context |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +- The InnerSource initiative is sponsored (budget) by top level management. |
| 40 | +- The managers (middle-management) have their bonus directly depending |
| 41 | +only on business units results under their responsibility |
| 42 | +- The capacity of every associate is usually planned by their superiors |
| 43 | +and 100% allocated to the home business unit projects |
| 44 | +- Cross organizational collaboration is not the norm. |
| 45 | +- Contributions to InnerSource projects are expected to be made during working |
| 46 | + hours. |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +## Forces |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +- Managers of business units are held accountable for their results. Reducing |
| 51 | + the capacity of an associate contributing to an InnerSource project rather |
| 52 | + than the goals of the business unit will make it harder for them to reach or |
| 53 | + exceed their goals. |
| 54 | +- The more time an associate spends on contributions to an InnerSource project |
| 55 | + which does not benefit his day-to-day work, the more will the workload for |
| 56 | + his teammates in his business unit increase. |
| 57 | +- The individual contributor would like to participate to enhance his |
| 58 | + professional network within the company and gain knowledge and experience |
| 59 | + with both the InnerSource method and the technical area he makes a |
| 60 | + contribution to. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +## (Possible) Solution |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +- The top management sets and communicates a corporate strategy where development |
| 65 | + capacity are to be planned and committed to a maximum of 85% to home business units projects |
| 66 | +- A central funded formal contracting mechanisms, where line managers get |
| 67 | + refunded by the percentage of associates work time in InnerSource is in place. |
| 68 | +- Managers (middle-management) have a percentage of their bonus associated to |
| 69 | + contribution and the results of InnerSource projects not directly related/sponsored |
| 70 | + by their business units. |
| 71 | +- Utilize any existing engineering-wide bonus that allots some percentage of each employee's |
| 72 | + bonus to be aligned with Inner Source interactions. It could be # of commits, or commits + |
| 73 | + issues + documentation + chat interaction, etc. Utilize some kind of personally-linked |
| 74 | + statistic to fill, for example, 15% of each employees bonus. Note that this encourages |
| 75 | + after-hours type work more-so than regular work-week hours, but if combined with other |
| 76 | + solutions above, could hit the issue from multiple angles. (used partially @ RedHat) |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +## Resulting Context |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | +- The top management communication of the strategic decision to plan and commit |
| 81 | + 85% of developers capacity and have 15% buffer for other company initiatives, |
| 82 | + for instance InnerSource projects, shows their support and sets a clear sign |
| 83 | + that InnerSource is part of the corporate goal and get executive air cover. |
| 84 | +- Allocation of corporate funds to business units for reimbursement of |
| 85 | + development capacity makes easier for business units to contribute to InnerSource |
| 86 | + projects without to commit their cost center budget. |
| 87 | +- Setting the bonus of middle-management partially depending on contributions and the success |
| 88 | + of InnerSource projects, motivates managers to encourage their developers participate on those |
| 89 | + projects |
| 90 | +- With a stable group of contributors, it is more likely that some of them will |
| 91 | + eventually achieve trusted committer status and the InnerSource project will be able |
| 92 | + to establish a healthy community around their project. |
| 93 | + |
| 94 | +## Status |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | +* Initial |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +## Authors |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | +* Diogo Fregonese (Robert Bosch GmbH) |
| 101 | +* Georg Gruetter (Robert Bosch GmbH) |
| 102 | +* Robert Hansel (Robert Bosch GmbH) |
| 103 | +* Nick Yeates |
| 104 | + |
| 105 | +## Alias |
| 106 | + |
| 107 | +Get Contributions Despite Silo Thinking |
0 commit comments