How to organize an open source project so that it's fun, and it gets done effectively?
Hey, all!
For quite some time, I build an open-source project, Osm Admin.
Today, one folk contacted me on Twitter, and joined the project. I'm so excited, that I literally can't sit still!
However, it changes a lot:
- Before, I've been picking the most pressing problem and went solving it. Then the next one, and so on - you get the idea. Now, there are two of us, and this "no process" won't work.
- Also, I'm caught in the middle of something, and a lot of things just don't work as expected.
How would you:
- On-board them effectively, so that they feel at home with the project vision, and the codebase?
- Organize work, so that it's fun, everyone is the best version of oneself, busy with meaningful things but not overwhelmed, contributes only what they want, and yet, things are addressed according to their priority?
Any help is really welcome. š
And by the way, if you want to join the project, I'd be very happy!
More about the project:
Trending on Indie Hackers
Seeing you never got an answer here and probably won't need one by now anyway as I don't see any other author in the commits, I still wanted to give you some pointers.
The first few additions to your team should take work out of your hands, not add onto them. So they should be able to work with your "no process" as much as possible by figuring out what needs to be done, how that can be solved and how to effectively ask you questions (take your time). If they cannot do that, they will be a burden and that's going to wear you down in the long run.
Aside from that, sit down for an hour and write down what you are trying to achieve with the project, if that is clear enough write down what you want to achieve on a short notice and in the long run. Let this settle in and on another day, revisit your list and draft a roadmap for upcoming minor releases and one for the next major release. Talk to your co-dev/team what they think of that, let them help shape these (if they can) and make them publicly visible (GitHub now offers great roadmap views, see ours).
Whatever you do, understand that you need to be in control of your enjoyment of the project above the thrill of the attention. There are enough so-called "high caliber" contributors that demand their way above the maintainers'. Don't follow that path, stay true to your own ideas, but be open to proper argumentation. Remember, they can fork if they dislike you/the direction, but it would be a huge shame if you'd give up on your "baby" because you're burned out or no longer feeling enjoyment.
Hope things work out!