Duck Alignment Academy

2022-01-06

Program Management for Open Source Projects is here (in beta!)

After almost a year of work, I’m excited to share some very exciting news: the first beta release of Program Management for Open Source Projects is available from The Pragmatic Bookshelf! You can get DRM-free eBooks in PDF, mobi, and epub formats. Everyone does program management; some just do it poorly. Program management is the art of communicating and coordinating...

News

2022-01-19

Spreading the work with infrequent contributors

Over on The Pragmatic Programmers, I wrote an article about spreading the work fairly when you have infrequent contributors. This is a common issue in open source projects that have people who work on them as their full-time job. Contributors are the lifeblood of an open source community. You want to attract and retain people so that the project is...

Posts

2022-01-12

Picking the right animal metaphor

“Herding cats”, “aligning ducks”, “Nemoing tuna”. There are so many animal metaphors for program management. Which one works best?

Posts

2022-01-07

How to Tell If You Are a Successful Program Manager

One of the questions I often ask when discussing a new plan is “how will we know if we’re successful?” The same question applies to your role as a program manager. I just published an article about how I evaluate myself over at the Pragmatic Programmers blog. Computers are difficult and people are difficult and when you put people together...

News

2021-11-06

Your bug tracker and you (SeaGL)

At SeaGL2021, I presented my talk on bug tracking for the first time. One fun fact about this talk: I got it completely written and then realized that I had focused on entirely the wrong aspects and had to rewrite it. I’m pleased with how it turned out, though. I plan on proposing it for future conferences. Slides Abstract: Your...

Talks

2021-09-16

Hold on loosely: project management in open source (POSI)

I joined Jim Hall, Jen Krieger, and Jamie Rachel for a panel moderated by Sam Kimbrel at the inaugural Practical Open Source Information (POSI) conference. We discussed the challenges that open source communities present and how they can benefit from project management. Abstract: Whether you’re an experienced project manager or new to the field, project management in open source projects...

Talks

2021-08-05

Exploring our bugs (Nest With Fedora)

At Nest With Fedora, I shared a preliminary exploration of historical Fedora Linux bug reports. This was a building block for the “Your Bug Tracker and You” talk, as well as the bug management chapter of Program Management for Open Source Projects. Slides Date: 5 August 2021 Location: virtual This post’s featured image is by Neringa Hünnefeld on Unsplash

Talks

2020-11-07

Scheduling your open source project (SeaGL)

At SeaGL 2020, I shared a variety of ways to schedule an open source project release — and how to keep the schedule accurate as you go. Talk was essentially a trial run of the scheduling chapter in Program Management for Open Source Projects. Date: 7 November 2020 Location: virtual This post’s featured image by J Taubitz on Unsplash

Talks

2020-09-25

Herding cats: program management in communities (DevConf.US)

This is an updated and extended version of my DevConf.CZ 2019 talk presented at DevConf.US 2020. Date: 25 September 2020 Location: virtual Abstract: Large open source projects are complex. Whether you have someone formally filling the role or not, your project is performing program management tasks. This talk covers some of the key work that program managers perform in community...

Talks

2019-08-08

Changing the Changes Process (Flock to Fedora)

Shortly after I delivered this Flock to Fedora talk, we abandoned the planned improvements. The Taiga interface proved to be a little too user-hostile. Specifically, the requirement that each field be saved separately would almost certainly result in a lot of lost data. So we’re (as of the end of 2021) still using the old system. But I’m still thinking...

Talks