[Year 12 IPM] More info from a real virtual team

[Mark Kelly]

Another member of the OpenTTD.org virtual team has written to give his 
insights into working on a software project with people from all over 
the world.  Keep in mind that this team is made up of volunteers.

---

Darkvater wrote:

 >> What problems arise from working virtually rather than face to face?
 >> How do you get around these problems?
 >> What conflicts arise, and how are they handled?


 > The biggest problem we face from this virtual group is the lack of
 > control. You cannot demand things from any developer, calling to them
 > to fix this, or fix that, or else! This is also due to the voluntary
 > nature of the project.
 > Another source of conflict is, and has been the language barriers.
 > There have been some very heated and at times even angry discussion,
 > or let's say flamewars that turned out to be someone misinterpreting
 > the other person due to the lack of proper english skills.
 >
 >> What benefits are there to working virtually?

 > I do not think working virtually would have any benefits, only
 > drawbacks. You lose control, cannot confront people, they can simply
 > ignore you, etc. etc. all things that when working in a group are
 > unheard of. However for open source projects, especially smaller ones,
 > I think this is the only viable development option. With members all
 > over the world, just doing it for fun, in their free time it is
 > impossible to come together physically and discuss problems, roadmap,
 > etc.
 > There is only one advantage for working virtually: the biggest minds,
 > the most interested people can come together to work on the project.
 > This makes development very enthusiastic and sometimes some really
 > great people show up out of nothing with brilliant ideas, patches and
 > coding skills. I think achieving this, for open source without pay,
 > would be impossible physically. Development over the internet is the
 > only viable way imho.
 >
 >> What's your preferred communication method. Why?

 > Since we have developers from all over the world, in different time
 > zones we are only left with email, forums or IRC. We use irc for
 > instant communication and feedback. This is done in our public channel
 > where everyone can participate in the discussion. At times this is
 > annoying, yes but we believe in the open model. The more minds think
 > about a certain topic, the better ideas one can get. The forums over
 > at www.tt-forums.net are mainly used for long(er)-term developments,
 > ideas. Email is almost never used. About 90% of the communication thus
 > happens on IRC with the rest being split over the forums and some
 > private messages at times.
 >
 >> How are tasks allocated?

 > Things in OpenTTD are not exactly organized. Most of the time the
 > person that started a certain feature gets allocated all the bugs,
 > features, etc. related to that feature. Most of the time this works.
 > This does lead to specialization, which is not per se bad, just when
 > the said person leaves, the others have to rediscover that part of the
 > code again. I therefore try to press onto everybody to comment their
 > code appropriately so it is understandable without a deep internal
 > knowledge of the specific part.
 > When we are nearing a release, as we are now for 0.5 I usually make up
 > a list of bugs that ought to be fixed, and a list of features, before
 > I give the green light for the release. It is mostly up to the other
 > developers to pick items from the list, but I also assign (or better
 > said ask them if they would be interested in fixing it) some bugs to
 > developers.
 >
 >> Hope you can help. The IT kids in Victoria, Australia would
 >> appreciate it!

 > You are welcome, watch out for the fires! :)
 > Hope I made some sense, if you have further questions, don't hesitate 
to reply.
 >
 > Best regards,

-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria Australia
Phone +613 95780844  Fax +613 95789253
webmaster:   http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
IPM Mailing List Moderator
IPM notes:   http://vceit.com

The future in IT is the next 30 seconds -- long-term planning is an hour 
and a half.


-- 
Mark Kelly
Manager - Information Systems
McKinnon Secondary College
McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria Australia
Phone +613 95780844  Fax +613 95789253
webmaster:   http://www.mckinnonsc.vic.edu.au
IPM Mailing List Moderator
IPM notes:   http://vceit.com

The future in IT is the next 30 seconds -- long-term planning is an hour 
and a half.