The InnerSource Angle: the billion-dollar use case for Stack Overflow

I was recently furloughed from Stack Overflow as an AE on the Talent business. While no one knows what the future holds, no sympathy is needed and I appreciate everything that Stack has done for me. I've always wanted to write a post like this from my time being a sales rep on the SO for teams team for a few reasons. While I never got the chance before and since I now have an abundance of time. It's a critical moment for Stack Overflow as it continues to ramp its growing SaaS business with Teams, and finding product-market fit has never been more important. With my involvement in the InnerSource Commons(you guys are awesome and look forward to being more involved in the future) and talking to countless fortune 100, fortune 500, and fortune 1000 companies. InnerSource is a trend that I introduced to Stack Overflow and while it's growing in practice. It allows Stack Overflow Enterprise a way to be implemented when multiple teams are working on the same projects at companies like Microsoft, Expensify, Bloomberg and maybe even your company as you read this.

While Open Source continues to take over the world. InnerSource is a term that was coined by Tim O'Reilly in 2000. It takes the lessons learned from developing open source software and applies them to the way companies develop software internally. As developers continue to become accustomed to working on open-source software, there is a strong desire to bring those practices back inside the firewall and apply them to software that companies may be reluctant to release. For companies building mostly closed source software, InnerSource can be a great model to help break down silos, encourage internal collaboration and accelerate new engineer on-boarding. Which can be achieved with Stack Overflow for Teams.

Any successful InnerSource project consists of three components that are a necessity and can't be accomplished with just 1 or 2. 1) Code repository - Github. 2) Chat tool for short term communication - Slack, MS Teams. 3) knowledge base - Stack Overflow. What you see above are from Github and Slacks enterprise pages respectively. While Slack had trouble attaining customers on an enterprise-level not too long ago, It appears that they are utilizing the InnerSource trend to implement Slack within enterprise organizations from the top down. And Github, they were acquired by Microsoft for 7.5 billion dollars as Microsoft is a huge purveyor of InnerSource itself and is also one of Stack Overflow's biggest customers.

While in the traditional sense of how engineering teams would operate in Waterfall or Agile. With the benefits of having a private instance of Stack Overflow. This can help define communities of developers for important components, frameworks, and platforms, so that these developers can each achieve their goals, for example, implementing a feature well while maintaining the quality of the involved components much like companies that try to achieve InnerSource.

Role of the Subject Matter Expert:

When multiple teams work on a single project. These teams can be dispersed in different locations, so if someone has a question the role of the SME(subject-matter expert) is vital. To put yourself in their shoes, you know a topic(Java, Python, C#) like the back of your hand and suddenly your colleagues come out of the woodwork to ask for an explanation on something that they don’t understand. Email messages pile up, you get slacks from people that eagerly wait for you to chime in, and you’re now expected by management to spend three hours of your day drafting up a Wiki on the topic. You also have to make sure that you update the Wiki every time something changes because, if the information becomes stale or doesn’t help someone solve their issue, here they come again asking for updates.

In all this can drastically overwhelm SME's and put a hamper on productivity. Even if you’ve been one place for your entire career, you can’t possibly know everyone there and what their expertise is. One question I always liked to ask is while I'm sure there are 2-3 SME's that you know of, what if there were 2-3 more SME's you didn't even know about?. Another thing to think about is new employees don’t know anyone and therefore have no one to ask! This slows their onboarding and affords them little contextual understanding of what’s happened prior to them joining. Companies that employ InnerSource not only need documentation to be memorialized but also make sure that SME's are easily discoverable. Which all can be achieved with a private instance of Stack Overflow.

While understanding the importance of what SME's bring to any project. To foster open collaboration within the enterprise one question must always be thought of in the eyes of the developer which is, what's in it for me?. If an engineer contributes knowledge that only they know how are they gonna get recognized for it. With Stack Overflow's reputation points, this allows current and new employees to be recognized for their knowledge while fostering a culture where teams can work seamlessly on internal projects.

Improve your developer culture:

Developers say repeatedly how important it is for them to work with other smart developers and to have the tools they need to do their jobs effectively. By implementing a platform that allows them to collaborate with and learn from one another, they’ll be thankful and more productive as a result. The long term effects of a positive development culture are improved morale, higher retention, and stronger candidates can’t be overstated.

Break down silos:

By providing one single platform where all of your technical employees can contribute their knowledge and search for information that pertains to their immediate interests and far beyond. It encourages your employees to work out loud by asking and answering questions for one another for all of the organization to see. While it may sound intimidating at first, the moment you get your first upvote or accepted answer and see that your work is impacting your peers, you’ll come back for more. Plus, it never hurts when your boss sees the work you've done and acknowledges you for it.

While these are only a few of the many ways of how an internal Stack Overflow Q&A can help encourage internal collaboration and foster a strong InnerSource culture. Not only should it be an integral part of the engineering tool kit but it also has the potential to make Stack Overflow a critical part of the internal developer workflow.