Building the Drupal Core Strong with The Values

“You don’t get to control everything that happens to you, but how you *respond* is a matter of choice.”

That response is based on our values. Call it a belief your parents or society pushed you to pursue or something that you learned with life. Our values condition our responses. 

But how different are the values that we follow in our personal life from the values that build organizations or for that matter a community?

When it comes to the craft of building Drupal and the community we, as a part, need to recognize the art of building software and website, first. 

We share some common values both at OpenSense Labs and at Drupal Community. Let’s talk about these core values and practices that support us. 

“The Drupal Values and Principles describe the culture and behaviors expected of members of the Drupal community to uphold.”

The Road to Software Needs to be Strong

In order to build and later maintain a community, it is important that the core values are strong. When building a website or a software it is important we have certain written or unwritten codes of values that we abide by. 

Ensuring the community has the best of what is being offered is done by building a product that doesn’t exclude anyone. This ensures that the features we add are accessible by everyone. 

A clear communication in the community is also important to ensure that the people using that software understand the process of it.  

Impacting the digital landscape that the Drupal community has, we cannot afford to be careless.

Evan Bottcher, ThoughtWorks, explains some core values and practices to build a software. The diagram below is a part of it.  

Each of the eight core practices (in the outer circle) support one or more of those core values. These practices are the actions as an organization and community we need to perform, and it depends a lot on the methods or approaches that we apply. 

Core Values To Build a Software:

1. Ensuring Quality with Fast Feedback: Quality is not the sole responsibility of the QA. Follow whatever method, if the person building the software doesn’t take the responsibility for the product, nothing will work. 
   
   It is important that as a software agency we value being able to find out whether a change has been successful in moments not days. The lesser the time we take, the better it is. 
    
2. Repeatability: Confidence and predictability comes from eliminating the tasks that introduce weird inconsistencies. We also want to spend time on activities that are more important than troubleshooting something that should have just worked.
    
3. Simple and Elegant: Softwares that contain complexity than what is needed are of no use. Sounds rude? Well, it is the truth. 
   
   What use will it be if people outside the organization can not work on it? 
   
   This also brings with it the idea to future-proof the content. While we build for what we need now, and not what we think might be coming there should be enough scope to meet the future requirements. 
    
4. Clean Code: Talking of making the software future proof means people outside the immediate team can work on it. This requires the code to be clean, which allows the third developer to make relevant changes. 

Values That Build Drupal and Organizations

• Making Impact

With a community as large as Drupal’ the circumference to affect the number of people increases. But this just doesn’t restrict to people who are working on the core, issues, credits, or documentation. This includes those as well who interact with a Drupal-powered website. 

This is where the idea to impact the lives of people makes more sense. The Article 26 Backpack for Syrian refugees a platform to helps Syrian Refugees secure and share their educational credentials. 

Similarly, as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility, we are open to helping Non profits from a web development and digital strategy perspective. If you are or know a non-profit looking to get a website overhaul or planning digital transformation, please get in touch at [email protected]. 

We derive meaning from our contributions when our work creates more value for others than it does for us.

• United We Stand, Divided We Fall

The community ensures the environment remains as transparent as possible, with decisions being collaborative and not authoritative. The community elections are important and equally transparent where everyone can contribute. 

Asking questions or sharing ideas can be difficult, especially if the questions or ideas are not fully formed or if the individual is new to the community. Drupal groups and forums are the places where people can openly ask questions and put their thoughts among the community members. 

At OpenSense Labs, we are also committed to maintaining a transparent environment which includes not only discussing organizational goals but individual goals as well. This enables every member to participate, learn, and grow. Creating an environment where individual goals are taken care of ensures that the team grows. Not only in numbers but with their output as well. 

We also value the behavior of feedback. The product, after all, belongs to all and not just to a few. This brings in the sense of ownership which helps grow us manifold. We learned this from the Drupal community. Each feature people work relentlessly to improve the state of Drupal. 

Teamwork can empower every contributor. Throughout the history of the Drupal community, many individual contributors have made a significant impact on the project. Helping one person get involved could be game-changing for the Drupal project.

• Give Respect and Get Respect

Every person is important. For the organization and the community. Just as the community our team is equally diverse. This requires building an environment that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. Not because it is the right thing to do but because it is essential to the health and success of the project. 

Prioritizing accessibility and internationalization is an important part of this commitment.

• Work Hard, Party Harder

Working is good, but be sure to have fun. It is important to feel empowered and help others but it is equally important to enjoy and share the company of those you work most of the time with. 

We believe in the concept of work hard and party harder. 

Our values and principles need to be robust as well as flexible to ensure we don’t end up being too rigid. This, of course, involves discussing them regularly with the team and community. 

Check out Drupal Values and Principles