Contributor Journey Optimization

[dellagustin-sap]

Description

Contributor Journey Optimization (CJO) is a method, currently under ideation and development, that describes how a project can be evaluated for the creation of concrete tasks for the adoption of InnerSource, specifically aiming to facilitate the journey of project stakeholders in becoming contributors, trusted committers and/or maintainers.

Results

• Miro Board - Contributor Journey Optimization (Idea Board)
• Planned: Creation of a new pattern
  • [Pattern Draft] Contributor journey optimization InnerSourcePatterns#787
• 2025-03-13 - Presentation on the InnerSource Gathering Berlin
  • Slides - https://dam.sap.com/mac/u/a/jtmWHNd?rc=10&doi=SAP1193221

Related Meetings

• ISPO Working Group Meeting - 2024 - 12 - 16
• https://gatherings.innersourcecommons.org/berlin-2025/

Related issues

• [Pattern Idea] Contributor Journey Optimization InnerSourcePatterns#786

Links and References

• Patches Welcome - Contributing To Apache Projects In A Nutshell, Slide 11 shows a "ladder" for contributor engagement, that is similar to the idea of a Contributor Journey in CJO. Shared by @MaineC as a follow up to the CJO presentation on the InnerSource Gathering Berlin.
• 2012-12-21 - The Apache Way - Slide 21 shows "The Chain of Merit", showing a "ladder" from User to Foundation Member. Shared by @MaineC as a follow up to the CJO presentation on the InnerSource Gathering Berlin.
• 2019-02-22 - An approach to community building from Apache Beam - Blog post. Shared by @MaineC as a follow up to the CJO presentation on the InnerSource Gathering Berlin.
• Shared by @Erioldoesdesign:
  • https://github.com/mozilla/open-leadership-training-series/blob/gh-pages/_articles/building-communities-of-contributors/bring-on-contributors-using-personas-and-pathways.md#pathways
  • https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPO1b7zg=/?moveToWidget=3458764537015570052&cot=14

[spier]

@dellagustin-sap the idea looks interesting. I understand it as reducing the barrier to entry i.e. making contributions as easy as possible.

I have access to the miro board linked above, and left some comments there.

Have you already checked if there open source community has already created documentation related to this problem space?

Further I am wondering if in InnerSource additional methods can be used that would be harder to implement in open source.

[rrrutledge]

@dellagustin-sap let us know how this is going (or if it is still something being worked on?

[dellagustin-sap]

@rrrutledge , I have not done much since I presented it in Dec 16, but I'm still working on it.
I will present it on the InnerSource Gathering in Berlin.

[spier]

@dellagustin-sap that Gathering is March 12th I believe.

I would love to help with this.

My experience is that people will contribute more easily to an existing pattern, rather than starting from zero.

Therefore my aim here would be to have a version of this pattern merged to the repo ahead of the Gathering.

Then we can give people something that they can disagree with, if you know what I mean :)

[dellagustin-sap]

@spier , that's also my goal, I want to have a v1 of my idea board completed and at least a merged initial pattern before the gathering.

[spier]

@dellagustin-sap I did a little experiment with ChatGPT about this:
https://gist.github.com/spier/724794bb1e18060c5b9fdce77a18a5dd

I do like the stage names that it made up. unaware/aware and supporter sound useful.

Also note the amazing examples of hallucination related to the existing patterns.
ChatGPT really invented pattern names (and even URLs) that should existing but don't :)

[rrrutledge]

That’s crazy - is ChatGPT just glorified pattern matching?

[spier]

That’s crazy - is ChatGPT just glorified pattern matching?

Hehe, I would argue it does a little bit more interesting stuff than this :) In this example I found ChatGPT to be a great brainstorming-buddy.

[jeffabailey]

Moved forward a bit, @dellagustin-sap will follow up on the PR.

The idea was presented to the Berlin Gathering.

[dellagustin-sap]

There will be also a community call on May 13th about Contributor Journey Optimization.

[dellagustin-sap]

At FOSS Backstage I had a chat with @Erioldoesdesign about CJO after their session (Open Design Guide).
Afterwards I got some nice references from them that have touch points with CJO:

• https://github.com/mozilla/open-leadership-training-series/blob/gh-pages/_articles/building-communities-of-contributors/bring-on-contributors-using-personas-and-pathways.md#pathways
• https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVPO1b7zg=/?moveToWidget=3458764537015570052&cot=14

Turns our someone is already using the term Contributor Journey, but that's no surprise.