Open roadmaps for your open communities. Not a success story, but you may have one

As open source projects and communities grow, it becomes difficult to understand what’s going on inside. A public and up-to-date roadmap can encourage new contributors to join the project and guide the efforts of existing contributors, and also give confidence to adopters about the direction and sustainability of the projects. Is it easy to create a public roadmap? Probably. Is it easy to maintain it? Not exactly. Did we fail with it? Yes. Can you learn from those mistakes? Also yes.

Oleg will share the experiences of public roadmaps in the projects he has contributed to: Jenkins, WireMock, Gradle Build Tool, Keptn, OpenFeature, CDF, etc. He'll share the reasons and principles that have guided creation of *open* roadmaps, the challenges encountered, the techniques and technologies that could be used in your projects. We’ll talk about maintaining roadmaps, mistakes we made there and how we addressed them. In particular, Oleg will describe building a roadmap with help of GitHub Projects and modern features offered by the GitHub ecosystem. That could be the easiest way for new projects and communities, and can also be useful for established projects.

Transcript

1. Open Roadmaps for YOUR Open Communities Oleg Nenashev @oleg_nenashev * Not a success story, but you may have one
2. > whoami @oleg_nenashev oleg-nenashev Dr. Nenashev / Mr. Jenkins Developer tools hacker Community builder & DevRel consultant #RussiansAgainstPutin #StandWithUkraine Credits: The first version of the talk was done together with Mark Waite for cdCon 2021. Thanks to CloudBees for sponsoring time for the roadmap work in Jenkins
3. Slides: bit.ly/open-roadmaps-for-your-open-communities
4. 4 > whoami Oleg Nenashev “I am a beaver who builds and maintains the communities”
5. My Open [and not so] Communities 5 Time
7. Growth challenges • Isolated sub-communities • Lack of transparency • Perceived lack of focus • Perceived or real vendor lock-in 7
8. Growth challenges • Isolated sub-communities • Lack of transparency • Perceived lack of focus • Perceived or real vendor lock-in • Hard to get enough contributors behind big initiatives • Hard to join initiatives 8
9. Growth challenges • Isolated sub-communities • Lack of transparency • Perceived lack of focus • Perceived or real vendor lock-in • Hard to get enough contributors behind big initiatives • Hard to join initiatives • Not enough company contributors 9
10. Time to become more public about our plans? 10
11. Our Roadmap jenkins.io/project/roadmap 11 RELEASED PREVIEW CURRENT NEAR-TERM FUTURE
13. Stories where Our Roadmap helped • Contributor Onboarding Flow • Google Summer of Code and self-funded internships • Many Particular features • Some publicity 13
14. … and where it did not • Attracting company contributors • Advocacy and Outreach efforts • Community marketing • The roadmap itself • … anything else in longer term 14
15. Challenges we experienced 1. Bus factor 2. Inconsistencies 3. Stalled progress 4. Roadmap bloat 5. Off-roadmap initiatives 15 Source: impactplus.com/blog/7-cant-miss-ways-to-overcome-any-creative-roadblock
16. 16 github.com/jenkins-infra/jenkins.io/ commits/master/content/_data/roa dmap/roadmap.yml NOW: Jenkins Roadmap is stale and outdated * and this is nobody’s fault
19. What is roadmap? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_roadmap A technology roadmap is a flexible planning technique to support strategic and long-range planning, by matching short-term and long-term goals with specific technology solutions Keywords: • flexible planning • support strategic and long-range planning • matching short-term and long-term goals 19
20. Roadmaps take different forms 20
21. // Visual & Slides - CDF SIG Interoperability cd.foundation/blog/2021/01/19/cdf-sig-interoperability-2020-year-in-review 21
22. github.blog/2020-07-28-announcing-the-github-public-roadmap/ 22 // Dashboards
23. github.com/tektoncd/pipeline/blob/main/roadmap.md NOTE: Actual Roadmap is on GitHub Projects 23 //Just Text
24. // DYI Roadmap jenkins.io/project/roadmap 24 RELEASED PREVIEW CURRENT NEAR-TERM FUTURE
25. Defining target audience • End users • End user companies • Community Contributors • Downstream projects/communities • Vendors github.com/jenkinsci/jep/tree/master/jep/14 25
26. Setting guiding principles • Community-driven • Open and transparent process • Open data • No commitment on delivery github.com/jenkinsci/jep/tree/master/jep/14 26
27. Setting timeline • Dates/quarters are good for consumers • It’s rarely good for a community-driven project • NEVER commit on dates 27
28. Roadmap is NOT just about features! Roadmap is used by the community 28
29. + All Community Initiatives • Developer tools and services • Contributor onboarding and outreach programs • Open Governance • Community Events • Outreach Programs 29
31. Challenges we experienced 1. Bus factor 2. Inconsistencies 3. Stalled progress 4. Roadmap bloat 5. Off-roadmap initiatives 31 Source: impactplus.com/blog/7-cant-miss-ways-to-overcome-any-creative-roadblock
32. Bus factor It is not enough to have one champion of the roadmap “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”.gif 32 Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHZBMjnF6-4
33. Challenge: Roadmap Inconsistencies Solution(s) • Regular roadmap reviews • Regular status reviews at SIG meetings • Issue tracker as a source of truth 33
34. Challenge: Stalled progress Solution(s) • More publicity • SIGs leading initiatives • Outreach programs to facilitate roadmap • Ask for help • Removing things is okay Image source: https://eu.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2019/02/22/hamtramck-pothole -car-stuck/2948865002/ 34
35. Challenge: Roadmap Bloat Solution(s) • Categories • Filters • Policy on number of items per category Image source: https://www.thrillist.com/cars/nation/the-worst-interstate-systems-in-america-washingt on-dc-new-orleans-houston 35
36. Challenge: Roadmap Bloat Solution(s) • Categories • Filters • Policy on number of items per category 36
37. Challenge: Off-roadmap initiatives Solution(s) • Embrace initiatives • Include to the roadmap when possible • Invite initiatives to join SIGs and sub-projects Source: https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Truck-Offroad-Jeep-Simulator/ dp/B08VDLP9M9 37
38. What could one do in 2023? • K.I.S.S. • Bring the roadmap right into the issue tracker • Make issues the roadmap content • Avoid duplication • Avoid -as-code, use WYSIWIG Source: knowyourmeme.com/photos/ 2401265-wholesome-memes 38
39. The Octocat in the Room 39 Use your own project platform
40. 40 https://github.com/orgs/wiremock/projects/4/views/1
41. Default solution for GitHub ecosystem • Solves many issues by direct integration with GitHub • Good UX for small projects • Publicly visible w/o GitHub auth • GitHub Automation Capabilities 41 Projects
42. Limitations of GitHub Projects • Bad UX beyond 5 columns • No Mobile mode • Gets cluttered by labels & Co • GitHub QL does not support complex expressions GitHub Projects 2.0+ 42
43. Limitations of GitHub Projects • Tied to a single organization, no support for multiple orgs • No support for migrating repositories between orgs • “Roadmap View” is tied to dates and not advised for open source • [Even more lock-in]? GitHub Projects 2.0+ 43
44. NEW: GitHub “Roadmap View” 44 Dates or Iterations, but still time “commitments”
46. • Roadmaps coordinate effort • Roadmaps share vision • Roadmaps != schedules What we learned 46
47. Takeaways • Public roadmap may help • Keep it simple • Ensure sustainability of your community… and the roadmap • Consider your social coding platform by default 47
48. It’s [always] a great time to contribute ;) 48 jenkins.io/participate
49. Contacts: E-mail: o.v.nenashev@gmail.com GitHub: oleg-nenashev Twitter: @oleg_nenashev QUESTIONS?
50. Credits • All Jenkins contributors • Mark Waite, CloudBees ◦ For the original version we did together at cdCon 2021 • OpenMoji project ◦ https://openmoji.org/ • Online comics, all of them