Open Source Project Management Lessons

cpfeifer writes "Paul Baranowski takes a moment to reflect on Open Source Project Management in his blog. His reflections are based on the first two years of the Peek-a-booty project." Interesting comments on media coverage, choice of programming language, when to release a project, and more.

Comments

Re:Project management Lessons

[mmcshane]

. . . and the other lessons read just like Project Management 101 too.

Good point. Not surprising, I suppose.

If you're interested in Open Source project management you might find some of these Mozilla lessons learned interesting.

What's this guy doing?

[JohnwheeleR]

1. He shouldn't speak so generally by saying things like "C/C++ is no longer a viable development language."
2. He shouldn't speak so authoritatively having only one OS project under his belt.

It sounds like he busted his ass on a project no one appreciates because it is generally useless.

Communication!!!!!!

[hughk]

Congratulations on a successful project. However, you mentioned what worked without commenting on it:

Two years ago we took the descision to re-design the toolkit from the ground up with as much input from as many people as possible. Since that time we have strived to make sure that as many people as possible have an input into the design process and we keep that process as open as possible by pubishing the IRC sessions in which discussions take place.

The moment you involve other people in a project, you need to document and explain design decisions and any discussions arising. By doing this you have made it very easy for other developers to get involved. I also like the way that you publish IRC discussions.

You are almost a text book example on how to do things right.