Collaborator Interviews

Collaborator Interviews are used to sift through a large number of assistance offers to select and pursue most strategically important and promising options. This requires a 5 minute questionnaire/checklist via a video interview with the potential collaborator, followed by further due diligence.

The Community Manager is responsible for holding these interviews, and moving forward on potential leads. The Documentation Director works with the Community Manager to assure proper documentation according to Open Source Hardware Development and Documentation Standards which are currently being developed with assistance from OSHWA.

Interview

Introduction: we are interviewing you to assess how we can work together. We are carrying on with an absolutely transparent process to make this the most collaborative open source hardware development project in the world. Are you ok with this being video taped for purposes of posting on our YouTube channel for global collaboration?

Prior to the interview, the person submits:

• Work Samples
• Starts a Wiki Page with Their Name Collaboration Interview as the title
• Provides contact info- email and Skype, name, resume

Then for the interview:

• What are you interested in developing with OSE?
• How are you interested in doing that?
• Are interested in remote development or can you make it on site? Our minimum is from 3 days Development Visits to 1 month long Dedicated Project Visits.
• We see that your interests are_______. (We make an offer based on our current priorities that we deem relevant. We also ask if the person has other suggestions if this does not work for them)
• We request a Project Proposal Brief as in Proposal_Template. this template is a rigorous, mission-critical approach - so the collaborator is requested to include as much of the information as possible - noting that the baseline minimum is (1) Clear Deliverables and Timeline; (2) Requirements from Us (any resources, tools, compensation, supporting materials)

After Interview:

• Upon receiving a successful project proposal brief, we may choose to pursue the agreement with a memo of understanding or a contract.

Notes

This process is highly creative and emergent, and the Community Manager needs to be able to think on their feet, understand the OSE project deeply, and be clear about strategic sequencing and Critical Path. The Community Manager is a role with high responsibility - and it is a core upper management role at OSE.