DUCK ALIGNMENT ACADEMY

You'll read about all of those things-and more!-on this site. And in Program Management for Open Source Projects... Welcome to the Duck Alignment Academy. Here you'll learn about program management in open source communities. Open source communities might make software, but they're made of people. The more people who are involved, the more unpredictable the operation. Program managers help get the ducks in a row. They don't make top down decisions. Instead, they give structure to the norms and policies of the community... Program management is fundamentally the act of communicating and collaborating across different functions. Where project management focuses on a distinct output, program management focuses on delivering outcomes. Of course, lines are often blurry in open source. What we commonly call a "project" is really a "program". And each release is a project in itself. So program managers, particularly in open source communities, tend to do a lot of project management, too.