8 Tried and Tested Tips to Building a Successful Open Source Community

Building an open source community can be a challenge, but building a successful open source community? That’s something on an entirely different level. It’s relatively easy to get those first few, founding people together especially when they all need something from the project, but as time passes and more challenges start to appear, it gets harder to achieve greater project success.

Success may be somewhat relative here, but we can all probably agree that a certain number of contributions and contributors is indicative of a successful community; as well as a high level and quality of interaction and participation among community members; and of course, the achievement of the software development goals.

A successful community doesn’t just happen, it’s something you have to work on day in and day out. It’s hard work to be sure, but not that complicated. Jono Bacon, community strategy consultant and writer of the book “The Art of Community” and Jessica Deen, cloud developer advocate for Microsoft have laid out the core, simple steps to building a successful community:

1. Have a very clear vision of what kind of community you want to build, and be concrete about what goals you want to achieve. This will make it easier for you to determine where you need to go, what steps you need to take, what you’ve already accomplished and what still needs to be done. Make sure your core mission is clear and explicit, as this will also be the main reason why people contribute to your project.
2. Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you want your community to grow you should make it as easy as possible for people to get information and get on board. Eliminate incredibly complicated processes. People shouldn’t have to go through an obstacle course just to find your documentation or get help.
3. Find an effective way to incentivize people. This can vary from project to project, so what works for one may not always work for you. Start by knowing your target group and what they want. For example, if you’re targeting developers, you’ll want to offer something of value to them. Developers often want to grow their skillset and build connections, experience and reputation, so you’ll need to determine how to incentivize along those lines.
4. Communicate with your community. Be responsive, be transparent, be open and approachable. This helps you to connect better with the community, to better cater to their needs and in return, the community become more involved and invested with the project.
5. Be authentic. People can tell when you’re not really genuine about your intentions for the project; and when you aren’t genuine people become less invested.
6. Be intentional, don’t wing it. Have a plan and a definite timeline and follow through.
7. Measure your progress. Track what’s being accomplished, always ask questions, collect data and monitor your progress.
8. Lastly, have passion. Be passionate about your project, your mission and your community. Without passion, all the work you’re doing will simply be just that: work. You won’t be inspired or motivated to really achieve anything with your project and you won’t really care if it’s simple or easy to contribute to. Any incentives will also seem meaningless if you’re not really passionate about what you’re doing.

There may be multiple approaches to building successful communities, but following these core steps and learning how they can be applied to your specific open source project is a solid start.