---
title: Grow Your FOSS Project with this One Weird Trick
osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2022/program/proposals/888
beginning: '2022-11-05T13:25:00.000-07:00'
end: '2022-11-05T13:55:00.000-07:00'
resources:
  internet_archive_identifier: SeaGL2022-Deb_Nicholson-Grow_Your_FOSS_Project_with_this_One_Weird_Trick
presenters:
- name: Deb Nicholson
  affiliation: SeaGL
  osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/users/32
  gravatar_id: ad818bec4900cb3354d2aa536a7bf207
  biography: Deb Nicholson is a free software policy expert and a passionate community
    advocate. She is the General Manager at the Open Source Initiative which stewards
    the Open Source Definition and works to raise awareness and adoption of open source
    software. She is also a founding organizer of the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference,
    an annual event dedicated to surfacing new voices and welcoming new people to
    the free software community. She lives with her husband and her lucky black cat
    in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
---

The best and most reliable way to grow an open source project is to get really, really good at delegating. Maybe you don't think delegating is for you? New delegators might be tempted to delegate without documenting or without providing context. Or worse to give away the things that new folks can't or don't want to do. These behaviors lead to poor outcomes and can even leave projects unwilling to delegate again.

This talk covers why you want to take the time to learn to delegate well, how to set up your delegees for success and when to start thinking about delegating. Build a bigger, better, happier open source project with this one weird trick!
