I was paired with @r_TlfPuogHW2i9hdoQY1tGww for Coaching practice week and we discussed 4 cases in 2 calls. I’m posting the points I took in the call.
Case 1
The coachee is a part of a small but growing community and would like to know how they can increase their numbers, enable these volunteers to make an impact and make their community visible in the local tech scene.
Ranjith as Coach asked questions to clarify the scenario and Sanyam replied:
- Ranjith: Size of the community
Sanyam: 4-5 people - Ranjith: Why to increase community?
Sanyam: More people from diversified backgrounds learn from each other. It promotes overall interaction & community health - Peer to peer work & Webinars
- Directing people to Mozilla’s project
- Collaborate with other communities (AR/VR experience with JS communities will)
- Hackathons/mini-sprint for add-ons, making themes.
- Find Meetup groups, get in touch with organizers and collaborate.
- Hackathons on Hackerrank or other sites and promote PWA, A-Frame etc. and gift swags.
- Get help from mentors
Sanyam as Coach
Ranjith asked: Hyderabad was an active community, but now is a small community (15-20).
How can we expand, and have teams that focus on functional areas?
Sanyam: Are they new people/veterans
Ranjith: 15 are newbies for on-ground volunteering. 5-6 people are in functional areas
Sanyam: What are the functional areas they’re in?
Ranjith: 4 are on Rust; 1 on testing; 1 on add-ons.
- You can have hackathons (Mini-sprints) promoting a particular project and improve participation.
- Filter bugs on basis good-first-bugs/ good-second-bugs/ contrib:welcome
- Find an overlap with other FOSS groups, have combined meet-ups. It should be equally benefiting to all the communities.
- How can we increase interconnections b/w community
- Have an introduction session.
- Have networking session where people can interact
- Have weekly webinars listing current community activities and promote good work of other contributors
- Make them feel appreciated in the community
- Seek help from veterans in the community and distribute work among all
- Observe other active FOSS communities, understand their working and objective.
- Attend local meetups and events and then try to collaborate
Case 2
The coachee is an existing member of a community who does activities as the opportunity comes (i.e new campaign, an invitation from schools) making the community stalled sometimes. The mentee wants to learn how he can step up to drive his community in a better direction.
Ranjith as Coach
- Formal/informal, make a list of project Mozilla has
- Make a list of events & projects in Mozilla
- Feedback form shared with communities know their interests.
- If they want to mentor, or want mentorship
- Promote Diversity. For example, people might prefer someone who speaks the same local language, or a girl might prefer a girl as a mentor
- Collaborate with other communities
Sanyam as Coach
Ranjith told that he spent more time in the library as a research student. Less time on the weekend. Hard on mobility.
How to be more available to the community? Many technical questions coming on personal messages.
- You define communication channels.
- Don’t be the sole leader; make more leaders
- Don’t try to do everything in the community, learn to delegate responsibilities.
- Let other make mistakes and learn.
- We are volunteers
- Define Contributor of the Month
- contributions should be recognized
- Speak in public
- Make them aware how to organize the events
- Everyone should get updates about an opportunity like local websites, social media, mailing list
- Weekly call or coffee meetups (on the location) about this activities
Case 3
The coachee is an active functional area contributor who has contributed to a couple of projects but this is the first time he’ll be involved in a community. He wants to learn how he can reach out to people inside and outside the community to grow and make quality contributors.
Ranjith as a coach
- Conduct hackathon online using HackerRank or HackerEarth and have a venue physically set-up in Delhi
- What are the tech they’re working on? Interact with them there.
- All this would ensure active functional community
- Horizontal participation and vertical participation (Inter-domain participation)
- Get in touch with mobilizer reps
Sanyam as Coach
- Find reps in your vicinity through Reps portal. Filter down on the functional area you’re involved with.
- You can also ask on Mozilla India Telegram group
- Set up a communication channel and start interacting with these folks.
- Ask about the current state of the community and future plans
- Set-up an event to meet & greet
- Spread the word on social media
- Outside the community, see on Meetup.com and get in touch with campus clubs already present.
Case 4
Being a new rep, the coachee wants to be more involved in being a leader in his community. His community had a lot of achievements before, but it all stalled as community members slowly became inactive due to organizational changes, community conflicts, and shifting priorities. He wants to learn how he can move forward as it feels like a big task to him that he isn’t even sure if he can do something about
Ranjith as Coach
- Take last data, about what earlier leaders did
- Learn good and bad things that led to this level.
- Take into consideration the personal commitments
- Take frequent reports from members though form/website
- See the big picture
- Local leaders will follow
- Plan informal events like Mozcoffee for regular events
- Form groups based on accessibility
- Collaborate with photography groups etc.
Sanyam as Coach
- Become a leader to create more leaders while you’re active in the community.
- Talk to the earlier leaders, know why the community get stalled
- Learn from their experience.
- Create an action plan.
- Don’t try to do everything in the community for too long and burn out.
- Learn to delegate responsibilities and encourage others to do more.
- Even if you leave (for personal commitments etc.) community shouldn’t be stalled
- Maintain list of community members and their contribution area
- Plan weekly online meetings to discuss contributions and promote people who have already contributed
Thanks @fayetandog for initiating 