In this presentation, Billy Griffin, dives into how lessons from open source can help anyone become a better product manager, whether or not your code base is OSS. Main takeaways: - Are there more opportunities to learn when our mistakes are public? - There’s an enormous community of people interested in working on open source software. How do you get them to work on your product? - How do you prioritize issues that come in every day alongside the work you’ve already committed to?

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How to Manage Open Source Product
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8. Billy Griffin
TONIGHT’S SPEAKER

9. Product in the Open
Billy Griffin, Product Manager
GitHub Desktop

10. Agenda
● A bit about me
● GitHub Desktop: How we got to now
● Open source - unpacking common preconceptions and
our experience with each of them
● How does the product manager role stay the same or
differ as a result?
● Questions!

11. Me!

12. Goals
● You'll be better able to make informed decisions about
whether open sourcing a product is the right choice
● You'll better understand what product management looks
like when working in an open source project

13. Disclaimer
● Views constantly evolving; credibility limited - talk to me in
a year and I will disagree with many things in this talk

14. GitHub Desktop & how we got to now

15. GitHub for Mac (June 2011)

16. GitHub for Windows (June 2012)

17. Separate apps with different features

18. Unifying GitHub Desktop - August 2015
Windows Mac
Still two code bases

19. So now what?
+
Open Source

20. And...how has it worked?

21. Open Source
Perception & Reality

22. What is open source?
Community-run project (anything goes!)
vs.
Open source project (No, I do not want your PR)

23. Open source slows you down
vs.
Open source unlocks potential energy
from community contributors

24. Open source slows you down
vs.
Open source unlocks potential energy
from community contributors

25. Wut? How can they both be true?!

26. Open source slows you down
3 developers, < 1 year to new GitHub Desktop
THEN we open sourced the app
Small team + defined scope + few distractions =
faster initial pace of development

27. Open source unlocks potential energy
from community contributors
24 pull requests merged in last 30 days from
more than 10 community contributors
Not a panacea though, lots of hand-holding.

28. So who does that extra work? (It is extra
work, make no mistake)

29. Everyone chips in
● First responder for issue triage
● Pull request reviews for community
contributions on engineering team
● Documentation on whomever sees areas to
improve it

30. Our core team

31. Public issue tracker acts as
documentation and reduces burden
vs.
It just adds more work for the team

32. Public issue tracker as documentation
reduces burden
Yes, and no.
● Overall volume likely higher
● Quicker to answer with previous issues
● Probably a net benefit for users

33. Find and interact with great people
vs.
Deal with frustrating and harmful
interactions

34. Find and interact with great people
● Meet people you never would otherwise
● Potentially hire from your community
contributors - fewer unknowns.
● Diversity requires intentionality

35. Deal with frustrating and harmful
interactions
Me

36. What about product
management
specifically?

37. Public roadmap & external accountability

38. Prioritization

39. Metrics alongside features

40. User research
● Get out of the office!
● Reach out to users
where they are
● Your issue tracker is
useful but not
representative

41. Coordination with marketing/PR
● Most people aren’t
following your repo.
You can still “launch”
even though you’re
working in the open.

42. Reframe features as problems
● Most people aren’t
following your repo.
You can still “launch”
even though you’re
working in the open.

43. Support your team
● You’re in a position to
help offload emotional
labor from your team
● But...it still can be
taxing so #self-care

44. Create an inclusive environment to
encourage participation

45. Questions?

46. www.productschool.com
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