---
title: Why is this so hard! Conveying the business value of open source
weight: 3
tags:
  - open source
  - business
---

{{% button href="https://youtu.be/JZ9LQR_j0Rk" style="warning" icon="video" %}}Watch talk on YouTube{{% /button %}}

Bob a Program Manager at Google and Kubernetes steering committee member with a bunch of contributor and maintainer experience.
The value should be rated even higher than the pure business value.

## Baseline

* A large chunk of CNCF contributors and maintainers (95%) are company affiliated
* Most (50%) of the people contributed in professional personal time (and 30 only on work time)
* Explaining business value can be very complex
* Base question: What does this contribute to the business

## Data enablement

* Problem: Insufficient data (data collection is often an afterthought)
* Example used: Random CNCF selection
  * 50% of issues are labeled consistently
  * 17% of projects label PRs
  * 58% of projects use milestones
* Labels provide: Context, Prioritization, Scope, State
* Milestones enable: Filtering outside date range
* Sample queries:
  * How many features have been in milestone XY?
  * How many bugs have been fixed in this version?
  * What have I/my team worked on over time?

### Triage

* Many projects don't triage b/C
  * Auth (No Role that can only edit labels+milestones)
  * Thought of as overhead
  * Project is too small
* Tools:
  * Actions/Pipelines for auto-label, copy label sync labels
  * Prow: The label system for Kubernetes projects
* People with high project, but low code knowledge can triage -> Make them feel recognized

### Conclusions

* Consistent labels & milestones are critical for state analysis
* Data is the evidence needed in messaging for leadership
* Recruiting triage-specific people and using automations streamlines the process

## Communication

### Personas

* OSS enthusiast: Knows the ecosystem and project with a knack for discussions and deep dives
* Maintainer;: A enthusiast that is tired, under pressure and most of the time a one-man show that would prefer doing technical stuff
* CXO: Focus on resources, health, ROI
* Product manager: Get the best project, user-friendly
* Leads: Employees should meet KPIs, with slightly better tech understanding
* End user: How can tools/features help me

### Growth limits

* Main questions:
  * What is this project/feature
  * Where is the roadmap
  * What parts of the project are at risk?
* Problem: Wording

### Ways of surfacing information

* Regular project reports/blog posts
* Roadmap on website
* Project boards -> GitHub's feature for this is apparently pretty nice

### Questions by leadership

* What are we getting out? (How fast are bugs getting fixed)
* What is the criticality of the project?
* How much time is spent on maintenance?

## Conclusion

* There is significant unrealized value in open source
