Collaboration in the open source community in this HBR article.
Generally, I agree with most of the article, however I think they are leaving out a few critical factors about the type people that make the Linux system work.
The type of people participating is a big factor in terms of any open source solution working. I think ignoring the people factor has been preventing these Collaboration/Knowledge types of organizations from becoming the norm. Since many people must take jobs to survive and not because they are passionate in their work…we keep trying to force something to be that just cannot be sustained in all environments and for any length of time.
The Toyota TPS or Kaizen/Six Sigma/Lean methodologies attempt to make people act in a way (through process) that mirrors the normal operating state for the majority of contributors of open source projects.
Of course incentives play a large part, but only certain types of people will respond to any one type of incentive. I am not sure if the comparison to TPS is fair due to the differences in incentives and the fact that open source participates are self selecting, passionate, and self serving in the results of their work.
What do you think? Have you ever head of the cellular organizational structure?
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