May 2016 - Committers Survey

Introduction

This survey was created to get feedback about the first Apache OFBiz Community Day held on 21st March 2015.

The information gathered will be used to help us to improve future Community Days.

• It was conducted over the period 22nd - 28th March 2015. Details of the survey was posted on the mailing lists.
• A total of 16 responses were recorded and the details are recorded below.

Survey Catchment

Additional statistics were captured about the respondents country.

• The majority of respondents were from India

Response Frequency

The survey was open for a total of 1 week (22nd - 28th March 2015).

• The majority of responses were recorded during the first two days

Survey Questions

Question 1: Please tell us about yourself. Are you

Comments :

• The objective of this question was to find out the profile of the people participating in the Community Day.
• The question was phrased specifically to identify End Users and Contributors as the previous community survey indicated the community profile was largely integrator based. Attracting more contributors and End Users is a key goal for the project.
• Only one response was allowed.

Conclusions :

• The majority of respondents fell into the category of End User, Contributor and Integrator. This was expected based on the results of previous surveys showing a high integrator base.
• Five respondents classified themselves as Contributors Only. This is interesting because it indicates that people are willing to contribute to OFBiz even though their work may not be related to setting up OFBiz for other people. People in this category could also possibly be End Users also but the way the question was phrased didn't capture this.
• Out of our 16 respondents, 2 classed themselves as End Users only which highlights that we do have end users in community base that are active on the project.
• Out of the 16, 2 also classed themselves a possible future end users, contributors or integrators. This is positive because it shows that new people are still being attracted to project to investigate its use.

Question 2:  What version of Apache OFBiz do you run?

Comments :

• The objective of this question was to understand which versions of OFBiz our respondents were running.
• Only one response was allowed

Conclusions :

• The main version being used was the Trunk, followed by 14.12. This is interesting because these are unreleased versions that offer the most up to date functionality. This makes sense if this result is linked to integrators who are interested in providing the latest up to date solutions for clients.
• I would expect that people using OFBiz for their business would tend to remain on the stable releases e.g. 13.07 and 12.04
• It is still interesting to see that 2 people were running 11.04 or earlier. This means that we need to ensure that we keep upgrade paths open from these versions.

Question 3: During the Community Day, did you work

Comments :

• The objective of this question was to understand how much collaboration or group working occurred
• It was phrased specifically to separate group and remote colloboration
• Only one response was allowed

Conclusions :

• The majority of respondents worked together as part of a team in one place. The Community Day coincided with the HWM Bug Crush monthly event a result in this area was expected.
• An interesting result was the remote working with one or more community members. A Skype Group Chat was set up prior to the community day so I wonder if this was used for any remote working.

Question 4: During the OFBiz Community Day, what was the main thing you worked on?

Comments :

• The objective of this question was to find out which areas were worked on
• It could also be used to find out which were the most popular areas the community wanted to work on
• Only one response was allowed

Conclusions :

• The majority of respondents worked on fixing bugs. This is understandable as removing as many bugs from the system is a project priority
• People also pent time on improvements, new features or reviewing and testing patches
• It is surprising however that no work was done on documentation updates although this has been continually highlighted as an area where the project needs to focus and spend time on. Perhaps some guidance or collaborative work would work better for this area.

Question 5:  How much time did you spend working on OFBiz Community Day activities?

Comments :

• The objective of this question was to find out how much time was spent working on tasks during the Community Day
• Only one response was allowed

Conclusions :

• The majority of people (56%) spent 5 or more hours working on Community Day tasks.
  
  

Question 6:  Evaluate the following statements

Responses as a percentage:

Comments :

• The objective of this question was to find out whether the communications or preparations for the Community Day were adequate and whether more planning or organisation was required
• It was also a question that asked if the community wanted more structure for the community day and more collaboration
• One reponse was allowed for each statement

Conclusions :

• The majority of respondents thought that the Community Day details were well communicated. Details were published on theproject  mailing lists, Linked In Groups and Twitter.
• There was a mixed response around planning and organisation
  • 69% agreed that we need to have more planning and co-ordination
  • 62% agreed that community members should plan and manage their own work (yet 81% agreed that we to organise collaborative work)

• This is an unusual result because it seems to say that we want both a collaborativly planned and organised day yet at the same time be able to work independently (i.e not collaboratively)

Question 7:  Would you participate in future OFBiz Community Days?

Comments :

Conclusions :

Question 8:  How frequently would you like OFBiz Community Days to be held?

Comments :

Conclusions :

Question 9: Overall, how would you rate the OFBiz Community Day?

Comments :

Conclusions:

Final Comments

Thank you to everyone who completed the survey that enabled me to provide these results and details. I hope that these are useful to the community now and into the future as we continue to look and survey our community base.

Please feel to leave any comments or observations.