Scaling InnerSource

How can I scale InnerSource?

This mind map collects the practices organisations use to grow InnerSource beyond a first project, from the program office and governance to metrics, awareness, and rewards, with links to the InnerSource patterns behind each one. Click a node to expand or collapse it, and drag or scroll to move around the map.

The full outline

The same map as a list, fully expanded.

InnerSource Program Office
- Executive Sponsorship
  - Pattern: Review Committee
  - Pattern: Start as an Experiment
- Dedicated Staffing
  - Pattern: Dedicated Community Leader
- InnerSource Program as an InnerSource Project (lead by example)
Governance of InnerSource Programs
- Company leadership support
- Unblock policy constraints
  - Pattern: Contracted Contributor
  - Pattern: InnerSource License
- SBOMs for InnerSource projects
  - Applying OpenChain and SBOMs for InnerSource
- Accelerated contributions
- Systems
  - Book: Managing InnerSource Projects, chapters Infrastructure and Tooling
  - Pattern: Service vs. Library
- Roadmap
  - Pattern: Transparent Cross-Team Decision Making using RFCs
- Open source principles to fund open source variants of InnerSource
- Technology budget available to support InnerSource
- Repeatable SLAs
  - Pattern: Explicit Governance Levels
- Software/system upgrades
  - Pattern: Standard Release Process
Metrics
- Monitoring scale
  - Pattern: Repository Activity Score
- Usage
- SLAs
- Readiness
  - Pattern: Maturity Model
- Contributions
- Accelerated time to market
- Dev time saved
  - Pattern: Cross-Team Project Valuation
- Developer satisfaction/happiness
- Learning & development / People strategy
Research
- Better team/company efficiency
  - Pattern: Common Requirements
- Physical/digital artifacts
  - Pattern: Extensions for Sustainable Growth
Project Governance
- Open Source Pathways to Fund Open Source variants of InnerSource
- Time/money budget available to support
  - Pattern: 30 Day Warranty
  - Pattern: Contracted Contributor
- Response SLAs
- Security/version upgrades
  - Pattern: Core Team
- Pattern: Open source readiness
- Treasurers to manage project success
- Integration of related resources into agile, developer curricula
- Project discovery/governance
- Pattern: Project maturity
- Reduce arbitrary uniqueness
- Project alignment
- Project value (product association)
- Process
  - Accelerated Contributions
  - Sprints
  - Roadmap
  - Decision Making
    - Pattern: Transparent Cross-Team Decision Making using RFCs
Awareness & Education
- Leader/team gamification
  - Pattern: Showcase success stories
- Presence on internal events
  - Hackathon
  - All-hands
  - Leadership meetings
  - Presentations
- Leadership verbal support
- Presence on (internal) Enterprise Search
- Awareness on what is InnerSource
- External case studies
- Communities of Practice
  - Pattern: Dedicated Community Leader
  - Pattern: Document your Guiding Principles
- Stakeholder comms
- Education on how to InnerSource
  - Integrated in related resources (e.g. Agile, Developer Curriculum)
- Project Discoverability
  - Pattern: Portal
    - Project Maturity
    - Project Health
    - Pattern: Group Support
    - Project Value (Product Associations)
  - Communities
    - Community Growth
    - Community Engagement
  - Labeling repos for searchability
  - IDE plugin
- Value
  - Gaining knowledge
  - Reducing time to market / cost of development
    - Software/Content Reuse
      - Pattern: Cross-Team Project Valuation
    - Product/brand alignment
  - Improve developer/employee experience
    - Adopting InnerSource to Maximize Developer Experience
  - Enhance communications
    - Pattern: Communication Tooling
  - Learning & development / People strategy
  - Anecdotes
- Reduce duplication
- Project Value
  - Project Adoption
    - Reduce arbitrary uniqueness
- Engage internal project community
  - Pattern: Prepare for open source
  - Advertise Projects
  - Recruit Contributors
  - Showcase Projects
  - Engage internal experts
- Leadership as what a InnerSource project is
- Projects for Internal Enterprise search
- Advisory board for InnerSource
- Praise and Recognition
  - Pattern: Praise Participants
Rewards
- Money
- Career/involvement boost
  - Pattern: Trusted Committer
- More Projects Reuse
- Career/review level
- Social Recognition
  - Pattern: Praise Participants
- Money
- Better team/company efficiency
- Physical/digital artifacts
- Time-bounded opportunities
  - Pattern: Gig Marketplace
Templates
- README
- CONTRIBUTING
  - Pattern: Standard Base Documentation
- New GitHub Projects
- InnerSource License
  - Pattern: InnerSource License
- User and Developer Documentatione
- Contractor Agreements InnerSource terms
- User Experience (contribution path clea from the UI or other user facing resources)
Engage external community
- Patterns
- Case Studies
- Sponsorship
- Present at events