Dialing the Right Mix: Open Source Principles and Collaboration

This should come as no surprise: Open source principles are great guidelines for conducting successful collaboration sessions. What wasn’t as obvious to me was that the different principles are more important in different collaboration situations. Imagine the concepts of trust, openness, transparency, and release early, release often as ingredients in a mix, controlled by a row of dials. The environment determines how much you need to 'dial up' or 'dial down' each characteristic.

I recently started a graduate program where I realized the dynamics around collaboration are different than they are at work. In school groups, certain principles needed more attention—and others not so much.

In the business world, a team is often assembled based on talents and skill sets. There is a leader or leaders a team answers to who can make decisions if consensus can’t be met. Teams also work towards a common goal. Sometimes it might not feel like it, but at the very least everyone wants the company to succeed...