Setting your InnerSource journey up for failure

Companies worldwide have started InnerSource programs to increase innovation and quality and cut time to market and costs. But many fail to recognize that above all else, InnerSource is a cultural transformation initiative, and it's difficult to get people to change their behavior. Join in to hear a panel of experts discuss the critical aspects of change management required for true success.

Companies across the globe are setting up InnerSource programs, which leverage open source development principles and practices within the boundaries of the organization. InnerSource aims to increase transparency and collaboration within a corporate setting, which has been shown to increase software reuse and development velocity and improve a company’s innovation capacity and efficiency. Companies know how to enable engineers to share code and can provide them with the rules of engagement for effective InnerSource engagement and communication. So why are many companies struggling to make InnerSource a success? What many companies get wrong about InnerSource is that above all else, InnerSource is a cultural transformation initiative—a change in company culture is required to make InnerSource a success. Developers and managers will not shift their behavior unless they understand what’s in it for them. In this insightful discussion, a panel of experts explain why so many InnerSource initiatives fall flat in this regard and offer a number of suggestions to answer questions such as: This panel brings together experts who have extensive experience and expertise in setting up InnerSource programs in a variety of companies across the globe: Erin Bank, senior director of the InnerSource program at CA Technologies; Guy Martin, open source community strategist at Autodesk; Daniel Izquierdo, chief data officer at Bitergia; Jim Jagielski, director of the Apache Foundation; Georg Gruetter, social coding evangelist at Robert Bosch GmbH; and Klaas-Jan Stol, a lecturer in software engineering at University College Cork. Join in as they share their insights and experience related to InnerSource failures and discuss effective and realistic incentives for InnerSource stakeholders, ways to measure and communicate value, and the cultural change management practices that are needed to succeed.