@@ -39,171 +39,8 @@ start reading "Getting Started with InnerSource"[^3] by Andy Oran. After that, o
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you have already decided to start the inner source path, this book will give you better
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understanding of inner source scenarios, framework and management skills.
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- ## The Digital Transformation hype
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- During the same period of time, many companies have started facing what
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- they call their “Digital Transformation”, to become software omnichannel
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- companies[ ^ 4 ] . They become heavy IT users and the key transformation
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- steps usually are defined by
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- - breaking cross-organizational silos (cultural change)
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- - adoption new IT technologies (cloud, big data, mobile, etc.)
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- The adoption of these technologies usually means that companies need
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- to build strong and competent “DevOps”[ ^ 5 ] teams.
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- Yes, “DevOps”, the second hype-word after “Digital Transformation” of
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- these ages.
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- “DevOps teams” share some principles with collaborative development
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- teams in the open source world. As first described by John Willis and
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- Damon Edwards in 2010, CALMS, standing for Culture (collaboration),
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- Automation, Lean, Measurement, and Sharing to describe the “DevOps
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- framework”, obviously contains terms familar to any open source
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- developer.
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- These teams usually develop custom software solutions and deployment
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- recipes for their companies. For small, medium enterprises (SME) this
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- could be useful and easy to manage. But, what happens when the company
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- has several DevOps teams around the world? How can they ensure a maximum
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- code/knowledge reuse across the organization?
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- We have seen companies facing the same problem with different solutions
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- due to the lack of cross-organizational transparent and collaborative
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- methodology.
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-
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- ## The World of Silos
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- In some cases, there is a corporate head or central unit that decides
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- the technology for the rest of business units. When these business units
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- adopt the technology, they usually need to customize it, ending with
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- something slightly different to the orginal product. While the central
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- unit evolves its product in their “closed silo”, the other units are
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- probably doing the same in their “silos”. The result? The adoption of
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- any update of the “core product” is a nightmare.
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- In other cases, business units behave as independent companies. Each one
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- uses their own IT architecture, ending with an inefficient management of
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- resources caused by multiplication of technologies, developments, etc.
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- Collaborative development in open source ecosystems has been used several
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- times as an example of how these methodologies can break silos between
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- companies that might be even market competitors. Those companies have
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- been able to share knowledge and resources with a common goal . If competitors can
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- collaborate to build technology in which their business rely on, why
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- could not corporate business units do the same if they have corporate
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- succes as mission?
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- ## The start-ups bubble
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- Many people might discuss if we are living a “start-ups bubble” or not,
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- but we are clearly surrounded by news about how a group of few people go
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- from a garage to a multinational company in a few years through
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- investment rounds.
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- Our experience tell us that opening offices abroad is always a
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- challenge, and managing development teams growing that fast can be a
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- serious problem.
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- The lack of effective and transparent communication channels and
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- documented procedures, might make harder any new employee on-boarding
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- and to be engaged with the company.
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- On the other hand, recently created companies have been born taking
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- advantage of the existing IT solutions to provide omnichannel services.
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- They are used to work under “DevOps culture” and it might be easier for
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- them to adopt a common cross-organizational methodology that allow
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- transparency and collaboration.
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- ## Disengagement at work
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- If previous scenarios are familiar to you, probably you don’t feel
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- engaged at work. Don’t worry, you are not alone. According to World
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- Economic Forum [ ^ 6 ] 70% of employees say they are disengaged at work.
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- In the same article, it says that “Research from the University of
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- California found that motivated employees were 31% more productive, had
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- 37% higher sales, and were three times more creative than demotivated
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- employees. They were also 87% less likely to quit, according to a
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- Corporate Leadership Council study on over 50,000 people”.
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- Towers Watson[ ^ 7 ] found that companies with engaged employees produced
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- 19.2% more operative incomes in one year, but companies with worse
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- engagement operative incomes get reduced by 32.7%.
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- It was Daniel Pink in his book "Drive"[ ^ 8 ] who argues that human motivation is
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- largely intrinsic. The aspects of this motivation can be divided into
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- - autonomy, typical for OSS projects developers that are self-managed
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- - mastery, as the desire to improve developer skills to improve the project they are involved in
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- - purpose, defined as mission in many OSS projects
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- These aspects are key for software developers motivation, since their tasks
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- involve cognitive skills, decision-making, creativity, or higher-order thinking.
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- ## Adopting OSS development principles
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- Briefing, there are several scenarios found in companies with an strong
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- IT factor:
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- - “Silos Culture” avoiding cross-organizational transparency
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- - Inefficient resources management
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- - Disengagement at work
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- By adopting OSS development principles, companies are adopting:
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- - Governance model with policies to self-manage their projects under a
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- collaborative methodology
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- - Transparent communication channels to break silos
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- - Meritocracy, or do-cracy, for developers, who become engaged “contributors”
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- (autonomous, willing to improve their skills and focused in project purpose)
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- - New roles for project managers, empowering their soft skills for
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- people/community management
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- These principles will help the companies on:
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- - Effective resources management, with better code/knowledge reuse
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- and cost sharing accross the different units
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- - Faster technology innovations/improvements, since the code is
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- developed collaboratively and transparently by interested people and
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- units
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- - Empowered employees, increasing engagement by letting them to be
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- part of companies development roadmap
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- - Higher inner-innovation, by allowing employees to propose new ideas
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- implementation based on company’s technology/knowledge
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- Adopting OSS development principles inside your company is the main
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- definition for Inner Source or Inner Sourcing. If you have already
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- decided, or have started to adopt Inner Source in your company, this
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- book will provide you some insights about how you can track the status
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- of your path.
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- “Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom, but sharing data
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- is the first step toward community.” – Henry Lewis Gates (professor at
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- Harvard):
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[ ^ 1 ] : https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460
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[ ^ 2 ] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ozaFbqg00
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[ ^ 3 ] : http://www.oreilly.com/programming/free/getting-started-with-innersource.csp
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- [ ^ 4 ] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnichannel
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- [ ^ 5 ] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps
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- [ ^ 6 ] : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/70-of-employees-say-they-are-disengaged-at-work-heres-how-to-motivate-them/
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- [ ^ 7 ] : http://www.towerswatson.com/DownloadMedia.aspx?media=%7B1EBA6F1E-B1E7-4F0A-A9F7-D828C4D8B2AE%7D
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- [ ^ 8 ] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_About_What_Motivates_Us
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