Open Leadership and Events/Working Open

Here at Mozilla, we talk a lot about working openly. The word “open” is even in our team name (Open Leadership & Events). But what does that mean and how does one go about doing that?

There are lots of resources and many ways you can get started on working openly (for example, these great posts by Open Matt). We thought it might be helpful to put together a guide to get you started. Feel free to make a copy of this document and make it your own!

Step 1 - DESIGN

To figure out what you’re doing and why, you can:

• Write a POP (Purpose-Outcomes-Process) to help you clarify your aims and plans for your work. (worksheet)
• Fill out an Open Canvas to define and share your project goals, community strategy, and needs for resources. (canvas)
• Write a vision to describe your project’s big idea in a super short form that you can share with everyone and anyone.

Step 2 - BUILD

To let people know how to join, you can:

• Create a short text document called a “README” file, to welcome newcomers to your project
• Create Personas and Pathways for your project, a tool to help you plan and test how you'll interact with new contributors.
• Write or choose a Code of Conduct, to establish guidelines for how members of your community interact with each other.
• Write Contributing Guidelines, a set of instructions that explain how new contributors can help out on your project.
• Add an open license to help others understand how they can reuse, remix, and share your work. (choose a license for code or content)

Step 3 - EMPOWER

To Invite people to collaborate, you can:

• Develop effective communications channels for your project.
• Make personal invitations. People are 4x more likely to contribute if they receive a personal invitation.
• Mentor new contributors to raise up new leaders in your project.

Step 4 - WORK OPEN

Collaborate & help others be open!

• Join an Open Leaders X cohort.
• Join us for MozFest.
• Share your work on Pulse.
• Keep up with the latest in open programming with our newsletter.
• Explore the Mozilla Wiki for previously developed working open resources.
• Share the open love! Send this list to others who might be interested. <3 Here’s a sample tweet to get you started:

Want to work more openly but not sure how to start? Check out this Working Open Checklist from @mozilla: https://mzl.la/work-open-checklist #WOLO #workingopen #openleaders

Have questions about where to begin? Drop us a line @MozOpenLeaders or leadopen@mozillafoundation.org.

LICENSE

This work by the Open Leadership & Events Team is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.