Preparing your Organization for Open Source – Part II – Adventure
Now that the players are on board, it’s time to go ahead. At this point it’s a good idea to toss any heavy baggage, pack lite and keep all eyes and ears open.
Travel light
- Drop Windows, MSSQL, Oracle, etc. Start off with a clean slate.
- Virtualize the Infrastructure.
Stay Open
- Make sure to keep in contact with the Open Source Development community. Get IM account IDs.
- Have a Sandbox environment outside of the internal network which mirrors the development environment. Give developers in the community access to help with issues.
- Contribute by submitting bugs, enhancement requests, documentation, patches, and plugins. Participate in the software’s direction.
Be inspired
Open Source Software grows and changes fast. The good apps get a lot of add ons, enhancements, modules and mash-ups. There are many important ideas out there in the OSS community. What benefits one organization will most likely benefit another. Take the opportunity to let those, and others improve your organization.
Preparing your Organization for Open Source – Part I – Passion
When Prometheus stole fire from Zeus to help the beloved mortals he fashioned out of clay, Zeus punished him by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day.
If Prometheus would have taken that raw passion, done better planning in identifying the needs of the stakeholders (there are always more than meets the eye) and infected them with the same passion would the Board, I mean Zeus, repeatedly attempt to kill his enthusiasm for innovative technology?
Leaders need vision. Passion is the fuel that sustains vision. The BIG mistake that I’ve learned when bringing the fire of Open Source applications to an Enterprise Organization is that ALL of the STAKEHOLDERS HAVE NEEDS. Not just C-Level leadership. Not just IT. Not just end users. Not just department sponsors.
For example, here are just a few additional players and things to consider:
Open Source Software is typically supported by an international community, and core developers which tend to form consulting groups. A lot of them can’t accept payment the same way commercial software vendors and consultants can. Accounts Payable has preferred methods of paying vendors. Legal has specific types of contracts and agreements which may need alteration. What training resources are available and how do they prefer to work. Is there supporting documentation or tech writers if not? The list goes on. . .
There is a complicated web – a string of relationships that all need to be prepared for Open Source.
Before a solution can be presented with confidence and certainty all of these factors must be considered. Then and only than will all of the parties involved see how this new way of doing business will not only save money and increase productivity but BRING THE FIRE OF INNOVATION INTO THE RUT THAT CAN BE THE SAME OLD SAME OLD.
Open Source and the Magic LAMP 
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