For decades I’ve had short or even regular conversations with people that were a form of coaching or training, but I could never really go beyond the friendly discussion. When I was an employee of Red Hat, it was both an ethical and a practical stance to take — even when I was a consultant at Red Hat, I was mindful of who my employer was and it wasn’t ever the person I was in a coaching or training discussion with.
So I am very excited to start offering customized coaching and training for Open Source strategy and practices. This coaching and training is offered in small packages as an easier way for you to go from discussion to action as we help make something useful for your Open Source efforts.
Coaching is a relatively straightforward way to help Open Source leaders with strategy and practices, such as solving difficult problems through private and honest conversations over time. As your coach, I begin learning about your Open Source community through your perspective, and use that understanding when doing further research and analysis in support of our conversations.
Training is focused on closing the typical skills gap for how to create and cultivate communities of Open Source practitioners. Your trainer begins with an analysis of your community absent your perspective, then brings this honest view into the specifics of training. These engagements range from just a few maintainers to an entire community.
Project assessing is a comprehensive process that includes elements of the analysis and planning of the coaching and training. However, an assessment results in a written report and presentation to walk through the report with the project community. Where coaching and training tend to focus on solving a few problems or making a few improvements, an assessment tries to identify and describe all the parts of the project needing coaching and training.