Your open source community needs a program manager
I may be a little biased: I can feed my kids because Red Hat pays for Fedora to have a program manager. Even though most communities don’t have a program manager title, they have people doing the work. I wrote Program Management for Open Source Projects to give those folks a way to do the work intentionally.
In my latest article for The Pragmatic Programmers, I explain why communities need a program manager — and how open source program management is different from its corporate counterpart.
Program management is a discipline just like any other. But that doesn’t mean your community needs to wait for an experienced program manager to come along. Open source has long relied on — and enabled — people working outside of their usual expertise. So define the program manager role for your community and find a person or two to take the role. The improved communication and coordination will make a difference.
Be sure to read all the way to the bottom for a discount code on my book!
