FAQ: How to Work Open at Mozilla

Frequently Asked Questions and helpful resources for when, why and how to work open at Mozilla.

Definitions

• What does "working in the open" mean at Mozilla?
• Why does Mozilla do it?
• How has it changed?

Open vs. Transparent

transparent 

Public, but not necessarily enabling participation.

passively transparent 

Not private; decisions aren’t actively hidden, but are difficult to locate. They may not even be documented. This is usually not done intentionally.

actively transparent 

Everything is written down, is easily searchable and is locatable by interested parties. This requires intentional, sustained effort.

open 

Public and participatory. This requires structuring efforts so that "outsiders" can meaningfully participate (and become "insiders" as appropriate).

Successes

• What are examples of how working open has made Mozilla successful?

Challenges

• What's hard about working open?
• What if I don't believe in the benefits?
• When there's a conflict between openness and business requirements, how should we navigate that?
• What are some examples of failures / areas we've done badly?

Strategies and Tactics

• How do you work open? What are some specific strategies, tactics and best practices?

Different approaches

• How do different parts of Mozilla take up working open differently? (e.g., design vs. communications vs. QA) What can we learn from each other?

Resources

• What resources are available for guidance and help?

• Clips on working open -- Mitchell Baker -- Keynote from MozCamp Berlin: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Contribute/Videos#Berlin_Keynote
• Minimum Viable Bureaucracy (video) https://mzl.la/minimum-viable-bureaucracy
• 7 Lessons From Mozilla (former Mozilla CEO John Lilly)
  • video: https://mzl.la/7-lessons-from-mozilla
  • article: https://www.cnet.com/culture/7-lessons-from-mozilla-on-community-building/
• 7 Recommendations from Mozillians on working open: http://openmatt.org/2013/10/10/7-recommendations/
• Tips for how to work in an open community (Gervase Markham) (video) http://mzl.la/18pwxmT
• How to work open -- by Mozilla's @OpenMatt http://openmatt.org/2011/04/06/how-to-work-open/
• Tips and Best Practises for Community Building https://wiki.mozilla.org/Contribute
• Mozilla Community Stewards newgroup: community-building@mozilla.org
• Why and how to work open, from a People team offsite. Rough notes from David Boswell & Dia: http://mzl.la/1fveQc8

Resources about the open web:

• Wikipedia definition for the open web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Web
• "What is the open web" by Tantek : http://tantek.com/2010/281/b1/what-is-the-open-web

Ways to Work Open at Mozilla:

• Hanging out in IRC / #peoplepeople IRC channel: irc://moznet/peoplepeople
• Join Grow Mozilla meetings: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Grow/Meetings
• Take part in discussions on public forums: https://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/
• Example of a public Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.governance/topics
• Posting on Yammer: https://www.yammer.com/mozilla.com/
• Blogging on about:community (or your own blog): https://blog.mozilla.org/community/
• Lightning Talk at Monday All Hands: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WeeklyUpdates
• Creating project wiki pages: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Capture_Mozilla