The Foundations of FLOW Management

Last modified by Stefano Maffulli on 2023/02/17 01:53

Foundations of FLOW Management

Learning Outcomes: Participants will view the primary characteristics and needs of FLOW Foundations as typical of not-for-profit multi-organizational member-driven consortia generally. There is a broad pool of knowledge from which to adapt management and governance approaches that can strengthen FLOW initiatives in particular. Participants will become more familiar with the governance bylaws and cultures of selected best-of-breed FLOW foundations.

FLOW Governance Concepts

FLOW Perspectives within the Field of Project and Portfolio Management

"As projects have become increasingly international, some organizations have looked to the open source movement as a model for developing common global standards for project management. Like any global profession, project management faces a challenge of defining and maintaining standards that transcend national and organizational boundaries. The Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards (GAPPS) grew out of a desire among some organizations to create standards that are freely available and independent of proprietary standards. According to Dr. Lynn Crawford of the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, GAPPS is set to become “the Linux of project/program management competency development."  (NASA Academy, 2008. Global Project Management Standards) 

"The Manager" and "The Coordinator"

The mid-1900s concept of the "project manager" role was best expressed by Henri Fayol and by Paul Gaddis. Fayol mentioned tasks such as planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling (Fayol & Gray, 1949). And in a 1959 article “The Project Manager” in the Harvard Business Review, Gaddis established that: "A project is an organization unit dedicated to the attainment of a goal — generally the successful completion of a developmental product on time, within budget, and in conformance with predetermined performance specifications." On that premise he outlined the organizational functions of the project manager, the essential competencies associated with that role, and the strategic placement of the project manager strategically “in between” researchers and practitioners, enabling collaboration between “thinkers and doers” as he called them.

The leading edge of project management research today tends more to reflect the role described by Henry Mintzberg, which involves connecting, interchanging, representing, resolving, prioritizing, allocating, delegating, designing, authorizing and negotiating (Mintzberg, 2005). Accordingly, authors of the 2013 Oxford Handbook of Project Management describe project management as entering a “'third wave' of diversified analysis and interpretation following its early narrow technical and operational beginnings". In many ways, and certainly in the realm of Free/Libre/Open Works, the Project Manager is now a Coordinator.

Michael Petter has elegantly characterized "The Coordinator" role as follows: "A coordinator is not a superhero who can be everywhere and do everything for everyone. A coordinator is just another node in the network, not the whole network. A coordinator is there to grow local capacity and to give it a common purpose. A coordinator, unlike a CEO, can't order anyone to do anything. A coordinator’s tools are to understand, to assist, to share, to bind and when required, to lead. What they do can't be a secret to members: they must act openly, cooperatively and accountably. They must acquire an overview of the [initiative], and its issues, and share that with members to bind them to a common purpose. A coordinator with the respect of members, talent, good training and support will acquire the influence they need to coordinate planning and actions." (Petter, 2003) 

The leaders of a FLOW project, portfolio or foundation require the ability to coordinate amongst participants' diverse mindsets base within multiple autonomous organizations. The nature of this function is well described by Ed Hummel et.al., who observe that while “a firm's business model influences its attempt at building collaborative relationships … each participant in a collaboration must understand how the parties' business models mesh” (Hummel, Slowinski, Matthews, & Gilmont, 2010; Main points summarized here.)

Examples of Great FLOW Management

— How does someone become a participant in their projects?
— How are decisions arrived at?
— Does the license type seem to influence any aspect of governance?
— How does each address copyright ownership?
— How does each address patent non-aggression?
— What unwritten expectations should you keep in mind?

☏ Audio File (pending): Listen to a Discussion with  an Invited Authority on Intellectual Rights Compliance Management and Risk Identification

  • Janet Campbell, Director, Intellectual Property, Secretary and Legal Counsel, Eclipse Foundation. Janet is responsible for the review of intellectual property proposed for inclusion in Eclipse open source projects.  This review includes examining both the provenance of the intellectual property and license compatibility. She is author of the Eclipse Legal Process and maintains the document on an ongoing basis. She is also co-author of the Eclipse Guide to Legal Documents, which has benefitted from the work of several contributors over the years. In this session, Janet will discuss how the Eclipse Foundation manages contributions of source code to Eclipse projects and undertakes due diligence to reduce and mitigate risks due to parties involved in re-use or re-distribution. http://www.microdoc.com/eclipse-embedded-day-2009-video-managing-open-source-legal-issues-janet-campbell

☏ Audio File (pending): Listen to a Discussion with  an Invited Authority on Contract Considerations that Affect Participation in Free/Libre/Open Works

  • Amanda Brock is Director at the international technology law firm, Origin, www.origin.co.uk. Prior to joining Origin, she was General Counsel of Canonical for 5 years. She has an LLB (Hons) from the University of Glasgow, a Masters of Comparative Jurisprudence from New York University and an LLM in IP and IT law from Queen Mary, University of London. She is admitted as a solicitor in Scotland and England and Wales. She is author of "E:Business; The Practical Guide to the Laws", and was an editor of the Butterworth's publication Electronic Business Law, and contributed a chapter on commercial agreements in open source to Walden and Shentov, Free and Open Source Software: Policy, Law and Practise, published by Oxford University Press in 2013. Amanda has lectured extensively on IT and commercial law internationally. http://www.origin.co.uk/team/amanda-brock.php

☏ Audio File (pending): Listen to a Discussion with  an Invited Authority on "Best Practices in Organizing and running a FOSS Foundation")

  • Mark Radcliffe is a senior partner at DLA Piper who practices corporate securities and intellectual property law. He has worked with many software companies, in particular open source companies and is Chair of the Open Source Industry Group at the firm. He assisted Sun Microsystems in open sourcing the Solaris operating system and drafting the "Common Development and Distribution License" (CDDL). He has represented eBay, Accenture, Adobe, Palm, Sony, Siemens Venture Capital, and SugarCRM (the first venture backed open source applications company). On a pro bono basis, he serves as outside General Counsel for the Open Source Initiative and on the Legal Committee of the Apache Software Foundation. He was the Chair of Committee C for the Free Software Foundation in reviewing GPLv3 and was the lead drafter for Project Harmony. In 2012, he became outside general counsel of the Open Stack Foundation. http://www.openstack.org/foundation/staff
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