I have been reading books about group development and would like to share the thoughts about appling this to debian.
The book identified several different, interconnected "state variables" for groups: empowering leadership gift-oriented cooperation and work enthusiasm for the group's goal functional structures holistic small groups need-oriented advocacy loving relationships inspiring meetings groups that rate high in all of these areas have been found to be growing and thriving. They are much fitter then groups where one or more of these areas are underdeveloped. This approach can also be used to identify and remove the bottleneck for further growth. the most effective way to grow (both in quality and quantity) is usally to remove this bottleneck by finding ways/strategies to develop this minimum factor. I would like to go through these "state variables", explain them a little further, apply them to debian and give examples. Empowering leadership It is obviously more important that leaders are good planners, communicators and people persons then that they are excellent technicans. The most distinct difference between good and less good leaders is their ability to enable the others to do their job well and give them authority in their area of responsibility. They coach and councel the few who they are leading directly, not micro-managing each and every one. It is important to notice that there are several leaders in big groups on different levels, not just one, above all others. Debian seemed to have elected mostly technical persons as their DPL, with the result that their success to innovate and reach their goals was limited. In other areas delegates of the DPL try to let no one interfere with their area of competence, while they, as leaders themself, would be wise to find others interested in their center of competence and in turn educate, train and empower them. (here the keyring management comes to my mind) Other delegates do just that and they seem to have better success to recute new people and the result is some self-organizing and much more resiliant structure. In the case of people resigning from thier job, there are others taking up the tasks, being trained on the job since long. (the listmaster group seems to work along these lines.) talent/gifts-oriented cooperation and work Different people have differnt gifts and knowledge , needs/personal goals and ways to work. Obviously they will work more dedicated on tasks where these three come together can be combined and the results will be better. Not so surprisingly people working this way feel much greater gratification, too, and will be better motivated in the future, to do work in this way. It would be the task of the individual to find out about his own preferences, talents and goals and the task of the leadership to help finding the right job for him. In Debian this is the driving force for most things, i feel. People fix things that disturb them and package things they need and get something done for the greater good on the way. Often people put their emphasis in debian work in areas where they feel they are especially able and most try to expand their knowledge even further. THe new maintainer process tries to help along nicely. Enthusiasm for the group's goal if an individual burns for something and is excited about it, that helps to compensate for some shortcomings in other areas. it mobilizes additional engery and makes live more enjoyable. If a whole group does this together and has a common goal, and tries to fan the flames (no flamewares now!) or at least tries to keep the enthusiasm from subsiding, this can develop great long-time persistancy and motivation. This increases the attractivness of the group to the outside, too. During the NM process the understanding of the social contract and the GNU part of Debian is checked for. it is hard, but not impossible to check for the actual enthusiasm of people. What debian has not managed well in my point of view is keep enthusiasm alive or newly create it. You can see that in the large number of people who became Debain developers and dropped out over time. some Debian longtimers are beginning to show signs of burn-out. the technical commitee is one example. If someone quits and says: "i have not enough time for debian anymore" he actually is stating that the priority which he gives debian is no longer high enough and that he is not excited about it anymore. functional structures This point deals with the official and inoffical ways how work is done, how information flowes, how decisions are reached etc. The more scaleable and flexible these structures are and how well they fit the needs to cope with reality indicates how well a group is at this point. Do the existing structures make the work that needs to be done easier, or do they create friction? Groups that managed to create a good leadership with sub-leaders and sub-sub-leaders are normally better scaleable (self organizing). Groups that seem to be sluggish and traditional tend do do less well then dynamic, adaptive groups. Debian has great tools, a great infrastucture, the policy, which structures the packages, the constitution, which determines the democratic processes, and the cabal, which determines what happens. (c: Recent discussions about gentoo seem to indicate that younger distros with less restictions are more attractive to some people then debian is. to me it appears to be really two-fold: the democratic process in debian is having a hard time to reach valid, usefull decisions due to flamewars and the shere mass of developers which need to participate. The information flow within the project has a high noise rate and for people from the outside it takes a long time to understand how things work and who is who. It is time consuming and tiring to follow discussion on debian-devel. Structures like DWN, communication on IRC and other, more specialized mailing lists like help here but more are needed. On the other hand is the technical structure with the builddeamons, the security build queue, policy etc a indication of technical excellence from which others could learn a lot. (c: holistic small groups Big groups which manage to form smaller, more personal groups which manage to meet both peoples technical and even personal needs help to stabilize the whole group. These groups should be building blocks of the greater group, they are the handy, hence easier to maintain and living entities of a limited number of people, where everyone knows everybody, and a destinct common interest is the uniting force. While in the bigger group the individual is likely to get lost, here he should not. As an important point of entry to newcomers, these groups are growing and splitting up to keep below the critical mass for anonymity (and loosing people again, due to that). They are an improtant instrument for self-organisation. In debian there are lots of these small groups: listmaster, ftpmaster, security team, all the different ports, local debian user groups, debian-med, debian desktop, irc-channels etc. Not all have the openness to accept newcomers, some are to big, and non of them is aware of the task that it is doing beyond the technical one. Here lies a great potential for debian to become aware of its small groups, and activly use them for self orgainisation, fun, education, talent discovery, and getting technical work done. Need orientated advocacy The active, outward growth of a group is important to its quantitativ gain. While there are special Debian advocates (people speaking at conferences, manning booths...) there is also the rest which is well hidden in the crowd can be just as active. Statistics indicate that the point in time to close a buisness deal, make a proposal, offer a service is critical to the success off the operation. And the best thing a hidden advocate can do is to wait for the right time and be well prepared to make the offer at exactly that time in a smooth, easy-to-accept-form when the other person/partner NEEDS the thing. Constant nagging seems to be counterproductive. Debian users/developers do advocate their favourit distribution, of cause. They might need to learn to spot the right time and the best way. beeing enthusiastic helps to appear authentic (see above) and honest. Should debian become more aware of this helpfull, active advocacy we could have drastic increases in market and mind share. It helps to focus on the key-people at work (or where ever), but grassroot revolutions in LUGs (turning them into DUGs) have proven to be highly effectiv, too. Loving relationships Things like the general tone of conduct in groups, the ability to form friendly personal realtionships, the respect for each other as well as the number of occasions where friendly(!) jokes and laughter occure in groups are an indication for how good individuals feel in these groups. And in groups where one feels at home and at ease it is much more likely for people to stay and to thrive. In debian i the general tone of conduct in the mailinglists is very mixed. It is far better then in certain other porjects, where a very much "down upon others" attitude generate a very defensive and fearfull atmosphere. Still there are people (B.R., C.S.) whoes CapsLock key seems to be stuck and who seem to have unlimited creativity to find new personal insults for everone and their dog. Positiv examples do exist. Within the Hurd port there seems to be a much more positv spirit, perhaps due to the absence of verbal abuse and a friendly, caring leadership. Comparing the clientele of the negaive exampel above and the debian community and the hurd community in particular, there seems to be a significant difference in general happyness, which in turn is attractive to outsiders and has stabilizing effects on the whole. inspiring meetings At meetings of people who usually meet only virtually, there is a much increased bandwidth, which includes all of a sudden also non-verbal language. This is a valueabel opportunity to exchange and create new ideas and reach decisions but also to sozialize and get to know people in a new way. For the individual however it is often most important to be in some way inspired - about the common goal, new concepts, ideas... This inspiration serves as motivation for the time alone. Debian conferences, dinners with other debain developers, DUG (Debian user group) meetings etc are a great way to be inspired. It is important to find the right balance between beer drinking, philosophizing and talks. It is also important to make the meeting a positiv experience by avoiding frustration, low quality (of beer, talks, accommodation, moderation, acustics) etc. It helps to make the meeting an inspiring one, if relevant topics (things, which are not just interesting, but one feels a certain urgency and importantce about) are addressed. It would be good for debian if all developers could come to some inspiring meeting at least once a year. As an example: I have been to two debian conferences, in bordeaux and in toronto. I (and others i talked to) felt that bordeaux was better. For me personally that was due to the talks, which left something to be desired with regard to public speaking, but also missing "philosophic" topics like software patents (bordeaux), radically new ones (for me) (hurd talk in bordeaux) and more good personal interaction.
