Ubuntu Women
Picture Credit: Flickr - Library of CongressLibrary of Congress
The tricky part about change is converting enthusiasm into action. You have a vision of the future. You know the goals you need to accomplish. You are ready to put your plan into action. But how do you get people to actually sign up, and to complete the tasks you have identified?
Open source software communities are bottom-up communities. Their members like to choose the bugs to be fixed, and to champion specific features. Affecting change is exactly the same. It is important to harness the energy of your team members. Allow individuals to pick the tasks they are keen to address. Take advantage of the excitement that is available to you at any given moment to get different tasks completed. Help volunteers find tasks they want to work on. Remember to ask for help - newcomers love being asked to be a core part of their community.
List your tasks according to their complexity and time requirements. Proof reading a media kit might be time consuming, but does not require intimate technical knowledge. Booking a room for your next face-to-face meeting, on the other hand, takes less time, but requires a different kind of knowledge. Seeing progress is very motivating. Ask people to set deadlines of less than two weeks for each of their tasks.
People are now signing up for tasks and getting them done. Fantastic! Next month we look at evaluating progress.
Emma Jane Hogbin builds and supports on-line communities using open source software. She lives in rural Canada, and chronicles her adventures at www.emmajane.net.
