You probably know that community metrics are important, but how do you come up with a plan and figure out what you want to measure? Most open source projects have a very diverse community infrastructure with code repositories, IRC, mailing lists, wikis and other content sites, forums, and more. Deciding where to focus and what to measure across these many technologies can be a challenge. What you measure can have a huge impact on behavior within the community, and you want to make sure that you are encouraging people to contribute in sane ways by measuring the activities that matter for your project. In this presentation, I'll talk about how you decide what to measure and give you examples of how I've done this at Puppet Labs and in other projects.

1. YOUR METRICS
STRATEGY
Dawn M. Foster
PhD
Student,
University
of
Greenwich
Director
of
Community,
Puppet
Labs
@geekygirldawn
dawn@dawnfoster.com
FLOSS
Community
Metrics
MeeEng
Brussels,
January
2015
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlk/5630885373/

2. DEFINING COMMUNITY
Includes all people
working with your project:
users, developers, vendors ...
Photo by marya

3. METRICS ARE USEFUL
Measure progress,
spot trends and
recognize contributors.
Photo by Marg

4. START WITH GOALS
What is
important for
your project?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/notemily/4765937286

5. WHY FOCUS ON GOALS?
Avoid a mess:
measure the right things,
encourage good behavior.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94255673@N00/2156221490

6. SET UP THE RIGHT
METRICS
Start with your goals
and find the right metrics.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paula_121/2235026707

7. MEASURE TOO MUCH
Help in the future when
goals have changed or
the unexpected happens.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rangerrick/6333917034

8. NOW WHAT?
Report regularly,
share with your community
and recognize contributions.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/5092218940

9. http://bitergia.dev.puppetlabs.com
PUPPET METRICS

10. http://bitergia.dev.puppetlabs.com
PUPPET METRICS

11. University of Greenwich,
Centre for Business Network Analysis
studying the Linux kernel community
TRANSITIONS

12. Dawn Foster
University of Greenwich, Puppet Labs
@geekygirldawn, dawn@dawnfoster.com
fastwonderblog.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tlk/5630885373/
THANK YOU