Management Education About Free/Libre/Open Works (Methods, Processes and Governance)

Purpose

The purpose of this Working Group is to adapt, develop and disseminate learning resources to help project managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia gain an advanced understanding of strategies, processes and methods for the management, resourcing and governance of Free/Libre/Open Works (FLOW).  

These learning resources:

• Are concerned with the application of explicit free/libre/open arrangements relating to:
  – Software, specifications, diagrams, tables, documentation and any other copyrightable works
  – Data, ideas and designs that might otherwise be restricted through practices and under laws besides copyright. 
• Are structured upon the pluralist premise that there is intrinsic value in communicating the multiple points of view on issues and topics, taking into account the merging and differentiation of various concepts and motivations through time;
• Should be useful on their own, and as supplements to other professional and academic learning resources for managers of projects, portfolios, organizations or consortia.
• Are made available under the CC-by-sa v4 and the GNU-fdl v2 licenses to any organization or individual to use, re-brand, adapt, redistribute and independently host:
  – Those who prefer the CC-by-sa v4 can contribute dual-licensed content to the core and to their own instance, or add solely CC-by-sa licensed content to their own instance;
  – Those who prefer the GNU-fdl v2 can contribute dual-licensed content to the core, and to their own instance, or add solely GNU-fdl licensed content to their own instance;

The most widely used frameworks for learning and certification in the project management field — such as the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) and Projects in Controlled Environments v2 (PRINCE2)  — are currently focused upon projects under hierarchical management, exclusive organizational terms and "positivist" perspectives. Their governing bodies have also adopted strongly restrictive intellectual rights stances towards how their own PMBoK and PRINCE2 (read more) reference materials evolve and are disseminated. Both in their content and operations, they currently do not accommodate free/libre/open ethics, methods, processes, governance, HR management, strategy, security, law, financing or "constructivist" perspectives.

The OSI Board charters this Working Group to resolve this gap by extending and refining an existing sharable asset entitled the “Management Education Syllabus on the Methods, Processes, Resourcing and Governance of Free/Libre/Open Works”, and by facilitating the development of a global open market for service offerings based upon it, which meets the expectations and priorities of OSI supporters, and a global network of like-minded organizations and individuals.

Initial project proposal to OSI by Joseph Potvin, Nov. 7, 2013

Working Group Participants

• Working Group Coordinator: Joseph Potvin, jpotvin@opman.ca
• We are seeking expressions of interest from those who would like to participate in this project. Please contact Joseph at the email above.

OSI Representatives

• Working Group Sponsor: Mike Milinkovich, mike.milinkovich@eclipse.org
• OSI Outreach and Learning Committee Chair: Tony Wasserman, tonyw@acm.org
• OSI General Manager: Patrick Masson, masson@opensource.org

Participants

• Amanda Brock, amanda.brock@origin.co.uk

Resourcing (mailing list, virtual server, budget etc)

The goal of this working group is to extend and adapt an existing free/libre/open project management syllabus, to be hosted on the OSI site. The original is located here: http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/course-free-libre-open/wiki

The resulting syllabus will be published through opensource.org under (at least) a CC BY-SA license, and will be further developed through collaborative community processes.

Alignment to OSI Mission

The OSI has long played a role in community-building and education about how computer programs under free/libre/open source licenses, and the related business models can provide socio-economic and business advantages.

This working group exists to further develop and disseminate peer-reviewed course design and materials about minimizing business risk and maximizing business value through more informed free/libre/open source licensing and contracting.

Dates

• Initial project proposal to OSI by Joseph Potvin, Nov. 7, 2013;
• Nov 2013 through Jan 2014, preliminary work;
• Focused work under sponsor contract from late Jan through April 2014. Workplan summarized below.

Months 1 & 2

• Design and begin train-the-trainer workshops based on existing materials and prior contractor experience
• Complete podcasts based on existing materials
• Refine initial syllabus based on initial review and preferences.
  • (LV comment: does this imply we should split this two month section into a set of month 1 deliverables - OSI feedback, commentary - and separate month 2 deliverables - the refinement? Or is that simply months 3&4?)
  • OSI: outreach to other relevant organizations and companies, to ensure broad representation in the feedback
  • (LV comment: realistically, even if we start outreach immediately, it is unlikely we'll get useful feedback during the first 1-2 months. If that is not possible, when is the next good deadline for receiving that feedback?)
  • OSI: goals
  • (LV: this was originally “content orientation and parameters” - we may want to discuss?)
  • OSI: commentary on existing materials

Months 3 & 4

• Priority syllabus additions identified, researched and integrated.
• Example additions/issues are listed below under “Example Possible Changes”, but final prioritization will be discussed and agreed upon amongst participants.

Months 5 & 6

• Hold workshop based on syllabus with Project Management Professionals/Educators

Months 7 & 8

• Scope, research and integrate any new changes resulting from workshop held in previous milestone
  • (LV comment: I believe this statement accurately reflects the intent of the initial proposal, but let's discuss if not.)

Months 9 & 10

• Plan special free/libre/open issue of a PM journal
  • (LV comment: we may want to drill down for more detail here, or make it a separate proposal? Just seems a little underspecified at the moment.
  • LV comment: I removed months 11 and 12 from the initial proposal; we're happy to discuss next steps once this is done but it didn't seem appropriate for this charter/statement of work.)

Sustainability

• OSI staff responsibilities
• OSI infrastructure needs
• Ongoing participant community
• Ongoing budgeting/revenue
• Resources

Summary of Work Items

This list is possible changes that could be made to the syllabus, for example purposes only. An actual prioritized list of changes will be agreed to by the working group.

• Shorten the course to 2 or 3 days only
• More specific targetting to developers' decisions
• More gradual and structured entry to each topic
• Follow the expert-discussions with group discussion of highlights
• More situational examples for discussion
• When actual legal documents are used, provide more specific pointers for discussion
• Update the content (esp. current major court case references)
• Produce a course delivery guide (“train the trainer”)
• Expand content on financial, benefit/cost & accounting to support ROI analysis
• Produce instructional audio files from interviews for syllabus
• Create a short evocative name for this syllabus

Background Documents

• Initial project proposal to OSI by Joseph Potvin, Nov. 7, 2013
• Brief Questionnaire/Interview to Identify Priorities for Advancing “A Management Education Syllabus on the Methods, Processes, Resourcing and Governance of Free/Libre/Open Works” Working Group
• The Opman Company - Project Portfolio (project site: overview, activities, wiki)