Working open

FAQ: How to Work Open at Mozilla

Frequently Asked Questions and helpful resources for when, why and how to work open at Mozilla. Got a question? Please add it below! This is a work in progress we're going to tackle together at the 2013 Mozilla Summit.

Definition

• What does "working in the open" mean at Mozilla?
• Why does Mozilla do it?
• How has it changed?

Successes

• What are examples of how working open has made Mozilla successful?

Challenges

• What's hard about working open?
• What if I don't believe in the benefits?
• When there's a conflict between openness and business requirements, how should we navigate that?
• What are some examples of failures / areas we've done badly?

Strategies and Tactics

• How do you work open? What are some specific strategies, tactics and best practices?

Different approaches

• How do different parts of Mozilla take up working open differently? (e.g., design vs. communications vs. QA) What can we learn from each other?

Resources

• What resources are available for guidance and help?

Helpful resources for working open at Mozilla

• Clips on working open -- Mitchell Baker -- Keynote from MozCamp Berlin: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Contribute/Videos#Berlin_Keynote
• Minimum Viable Bureaucracy (video) https://air.mozilla.org/minimum-viable-bureaucracy/
• 7 Lessons From Mozilla (former Mozilla CEO John Lilly)
  • video: https://air.mozilla.org/7-lessons-from-mozilla/
  • article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10151555-16.html
• Tips for how to work in an open community (Gervase Markham) (video) http://mzl.la/18pwxmT
• How to work open -- by Mozilla's @OpenMatt http://openmatt.org/2011/04/06/how-to-work-open/
• Tips and Best Practises for Community Building https://wiki.mozilla.org/Contribute
• Mozilla Community Stewards newgroup: community-building@mozilla.org
• Why and how to work open, from a People team offsite. Rough notes from David Boswell & Dia: http://mzl.la/1fveQc8

Resources about the open web:

• Wikipedia definition for the open web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Web
• "What is the open web" by Tantek : http://tantek.com/2010/281/b1/what-is-the-open-web

Ways to Work Open at Mozilla:

• Hanging out in IRC / #peoplepeople IRC channel: irc://moznet/peoplepeople
• Join Grow Mozilla meetings: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Grow/Meetings
• Take part in discussions on public forums: https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
• Example of a public Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.governance/topics
• Posting on Yammer: https://www.yammer.com/mozilla.com/
• Blogging on about:community (or your own blog): https://blog.mozilla.org/community/
• Lightning Talk at Monday All Hands: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WeeklyUpdates
• Creating project wiki pages: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Capture_Mozilla