About

The Open Source Software Needs Assessment is designed to provide a lightweight, self-serve needs assessment and strategic planning process for open source project teams. Internews is pleased to make the Open Source Software Needs Assessment available to the larger open source community for use in understanding the needs, pain points, opportunities, and strengths of open source tool teams. Tool teams who undergo the Open Source Software Needs Assessment should walk away with a robust plan to help guide priorities for the project team over approximately the next year. The plan is made available as a printable document at the end of the self-assessment. Outcomes from the assessment can be used to develop grant proposals and a clear rationale supporting the project’s need for various resources.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to complete the self-assessment.

For additional information, license, and credits, see more information about the Open Source Needs Assessment.

Source code for this tool is available at https://github.com/OpenInternet/open-source-assessment.

Assess

For each assessment area, "1" indicates low capacity and "5" indicates robust capacity.

Each score is progressive. For example, a project that scores itself "2" also has the features described in "1." A project at a "5" also has all of the features described in 1-4. If your project has some capabilities in a higher score but not all of the capabilities in the scores below it, use your best judgment to self-score. There will be an opportunity to provide your explanation for why you scored the project the way you did for each area.

It is in your best interest to score your project as accurately as possible, so that needs can be identified and then matched to appropriate resources. (i.e. -- if your project scores all 5's, it will be difficult to identify any area that could use more support.)

Code

Importance

Justification

Licenses & Copyright

Importance

Justification

Releases

Importance

Justification

Quality

Importance

Justification

Community

Importance

Justification

Diversity & Inclusion

Importance

Justification

Transparency & Consensus Building

Importance

Justification

Governance

Importance

Justification

User Friendliness

Importance

Justification

Open Source Sustainability

Importance

Justification

Strategize

Strategic Planning & SWOT Analysis:
(strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)

Answers to the following questions will help clarify the "big picture" for the project/tool team and assist in developing a capacity action plan that addresses the most urgent needs of the project. Talk through the questions for each section and note down your answers in the Notes box. For more open-ended questions, try to steer the conversation towards answers that will ultimately prove useful in designing your capacity action plan. (In other words, focus on the practicalities at stake.)

  1. What is the “strategic plan” for the project?
    1. What organizational or business model is the project operating under?
      1. Is the goal for the project to be self-sustaining as an openly developed project maintained largely by volunteers? If not:
        1. Which revenue models are available to build a revenue stream around the project?
        2. Are there alternatives (competitors) to the project? If so, are they FLOSS or commercial?
        3. Is the project potentially applicable to more than one industry?
    2. Does the project have a roadmap? Who is responsible for setting the vision and concrete direction of the project?
    3. What are the project’s goals with regards to:
      1. Technical capacity
      2. Product features
      3. Contributor community
      4. User experience
      5. Responsiveness to security issues
      6. Other goals
  2. What obstacles or challenges is the project currently facing? How do they interfere with the project’s goals as articulated in question 1?
  3. Are there obstacles or challenges the project anticipates facing in the next year? Describe.
  4. What are the project’s potential challenges (not an active challenge, but a situation that could easily create problems)?

    E.g. – Low “bus factor” is a vulnerability, since if one or more maintainers are out of commission for any reason, this would pose a huge challenge to the project.

  5. What are the greatest strengths of the project as it currently exists?
  6. What opportunities could the project capitalize on, given appropriate resources?
  7. Which of the project’s activities currently require the most person-hours (whether or not such time is actually devoted to the activity)?

    E.g. – Triaging bug reports and issue management might require a lot of time, but at present the project doesn’t have the resources to devote to it, so the queue continues to grow. Which activities of the project could benefit from more person-hours than are currently available for that activity? Could any of the project’s activities be made more efficient through automation or better tooling, if the time/resources were available?

  8. What is the most important issue that the project needs to address?
  9. What is the most urgent issue that the project needs to address?
  10. With more person-hours devoted to it, which one or two activities of the project would create the most positive impact over the next 6-12 months?

    Given the resources you already have at hand, plus any potential resources coming available to you through external support (e.g. – a grant you are about to receive, a Google Summer of Code student coming on)

  11. What are 3 action-steps the project can take in the next 6-12 months to meaningfully advance its strategic plan and address the key issues identified above?

Review

These are the areas that you marked as either Somewhat Important or Very Important. Please check a maximum of five of the areas that you'd like to explore in more detail.

Discuss

Talk through the questions for each section and note down your answers in the Notes box. For more open-ended questions, try to steer the conversation towards answers that will ultimately prove useful in designing your capacity action plan. (In other words, focus on the practicalities at stake.) After discussing all of the questions for a section, re-assess your self-scoring for this area.

Based on your conversation, do you want to revise your score? If so, go back to the "Assess" tab and update the score (and justification, if needed) for that area. It is in your interest to score each area as accurately as possible, so that you have a clear rationale for support in the areas where you most need help.

Submission finalized

Your submission has been locally stored in your browser. No data is sent to Internews or 3rd parties. Please download the submission for further safekeeping.