PyData London 2024

Open Source Leadership: What to Give Away and What to Bring In
06-15, 15:00–15:40 (Europe/London), Salisbury

Most leaders have loads of work they could give away while community-driven projects have plenty of tasks they could consider bringing in, so how do you figure out what to keep and what to give away?


Leaders at large organizations are encouraged to "give away all their legos" also known as giving parts of your job away every few months in order to scale. Smaller open source organizations also need to grow -- but in a different way and at a different pace. Sometimes you are giving your legos away and sometimes you are moving tasks that were previously volunteer activities and bringing them into the scope of things that paid staff or contractors handle.

Most leaders have loads of work they could give away and most community-driven projects have plenty of tasks they could consider bringing in, so how do you figure out which tasks belong in each category at your organization? This talk covers those decisions from the perspective of a large project with a small but growing staff. Once you've decided, you’ll need a plan for effectively transitioning those responsibilities. Attendees will learn about common pitfalls and best strategies for reallocating the work of sustaining an open source project to the right place at the right time.


Prior Knowledge Expected

No previous knowledge expected

Deb Nicholson is a free software policy expert and a passionate community advocate. She is the Executive Director at the Python Software Foundation which serves as the non-profit steward of the Python programming language. She has previously served the open source ecosystem through her work at the Open Source Initiative, Software Freedom Conservancy, and the Open Invention Network. She lives with her husband and her lucky black cat in Cambridge, Massachusetts.