Team Building in the Django Community: Strategies for Collaboration

Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming to listen to me. I know that this is a a talk about community, somehow a bit shifted from all the technical stuff. So we're gonna see another aspect of What the community is all about. And I want to talk about team building, the Django community strategies for collaboration. So this is me, I'm Sam Scalo. I'm the founder and CTO of a startup in Nigeria called Ashport. We 're into software development. We work mostly with Django, you know, back-end engineering and stuff. I'm also a board member of the Python Nigeria

Speaker 1: community. And out of my own passion for community building and development, I started something we call Python Abia. So I'm based in Abia State in Nigeria. So some of the things I'm gonna be sharing with you are some of the things we have used to build a thriving community of Python and Django develop back in IBS State. So opening thoughts, Django 's success has always relied on the collective effort of its contributors, and effective collaboration is the cornerstone of that success. By combining our skills, experiences, and perspectives, we can tackle complex challenges, innovate faster

Speaker 1: and build robust. high quality solutions. So part of what makes Django great is that it's open source and there's so many persons work on it. The contributors, everybody bringing so many ideas. And we're able to manage all of this together to have such a wonderful software that we are using today to build so many applications And if uh Django is able to survive as a result of teamwork and collaboration, then teamwork and collaboration is something we must look into seriously. as individuals because collaboration is at the center of every successful project The reasons for forming themes is to foster

Speaker 1: collaboration. However, getting people to collaborate requires more than just putting them into a theme. You will agree with me on this that it takes more than just being in a team to collaborate. So there are some factors that we're gonna look at that makes our team successful. um to collaborate better. So I like to think of collaboration in two perspectives, the social collaboration and then the technical collaboration. I look at the social uh as what makes people people And the technical is the skill that they possess. Everybody definitely brings one skill or the other to the table when we are trying to collaborate on a project or a software.

Speaker 1: uh projects actually. So on social collaboration we must realize that we are first humans before we become developers or managers or executives, whatever it is we do, you know, in our day-to-day job. So that human aspect of who we are is very, very important because most teams and communities at large fail not as a result of lack of technical expertise. but as a result of lack of social collaboration. So when people come together, irrespective of their skill set, they can't bond, they can't really form that cohesion that is needed. If the social collaboration aspect is not taken into serious consideration. So here are just

Speaker 1: what I think technical collaboration is about, is mainly bringing together skills to solve technical problems. Usually we're building a project, we're providing help with an existing project. I believe at some point each and every one of us have been involved. in one project or the other and we've also seen how personal experience of working in teams. So some of um what I'm going to discuss are strategies uh just some general stuff that you may have heard about and then I'm gonna show you how we use it in uh Python ABIA to build a Python and a Django community that's actually um thriving. So the strategies is there has to be diversity and inclusivity.

Speaker 1: If you take a look at me you see that I I I I I dressed with my Christmas clothes just for this occasion. Yeah, so that's um that's because it's a special occasion for me and I also wanted to put the diversity on the throne to where I wanted to to look at me as okay this guy is different right so that's that's that uh that's what I was going for. I hope I I did well on that. And now diversity brings together individuals with unique backgrounds. Okay, we could all have come from the same backgrounds. There has to be unique things that make us unique. Then there are skills and perspectives leading to more creative problem solving and better decision making. When I bring my own unique experience, my own unique background

Speaker 1: my own unique domain and then we all come together. I think it helps us to have something that actually has a global reach and not made for a particular sect of people. So we must actively work to create an inclusive environment that encourages participation from underrepresented groups. And this is something I know that the Django community is very much known for. And yeah, everyone has to feel welcome and heard if the community or even a team for a project, everyone has to feel heard and welcome for it too. Work, then communication and transparency cannot be uh overemphasized. Clear and open communication is vital

Speaker 1: for fostering collaboration. Encouraging team members to communicate regularly, share their ideas and provide constructive feedback can greatly enhance the effectiveness of our project. So if there is Communication breakdown, the project definitely breaks down, the team breaks down and the community breaks down So communication must be embraced through multiple communication channels these days. Of course, we are able to function together because we are working with the Discord as a communication channel. Uh uh if if if we have any problem with that, we might find ourselves a little bit disorganized in one way or the other. So that's the part of communication

Speaker 1: and how it helps us be inclusive and focused on problem solving. Then if a team must work, then the shared goals and values must be established from the word goal. Everyone has to know. Because to build a cohesive team is essential to establish shared goals and values. By defining a clear vision and purpose for our projects, we can align our efforts and motivate team members. You can't really know how much uh goals motivate people until you bring them to him where they don't share the goals. of that team or somebody might say I don't really see myself in this. So he might have the skill, he might have, but because he's not sharing the same passion

Speaker 1: he can't thrive in that team. So these are some of the things we must uh take into consideration. Clearly communicating these goals and values allows everyone to understand their roles and contribution Sean, creating a sense of ownership and commitment within the team. You see, sometimes people get out of things because they feel they're not a part of it. People want to have a sense of ownership. in the team in the community they want to feel like this is our community not like this is their community so we're just a part of it So everybody has to have a sense of ownership, a sense of belonging. I think a sense of ownership is beyond the sense of belonging. It kind of like makes you a part of not just So that's so that's what shared goals and values

Speaker 1: does. And then documentation and mentorship. Documentation plays a critical role in promoting collaboration. Um if we're going to build projects together, if we're going to work as a team, we can't always be there to tell each other what to do. So well-documented codes, guidelines, and processes. Helping members understand project structure, standards, and best practices. The mentorship programs can pair experienced contributors with newcomers, providing guidance, support , and encouragement. Of course, um adopting agile methodologies and attractive development practices can significantly enhance collaboration. When projects are broken into manageable tasks, everybody knows what They're supposed to do works in progress, review progress regularly.

Speaker 1: Teams can adapt quickly, learn from each other, and course correct if needed. So of course there's need to always celebrate achievement and recognize contributions in a team and in the community. Acknowledging celebration achievement within the community is crucial for building theme morale and fostering collaboration. Celebrate milestones highlight success stories and express gratitude for the contribution made by all team members. So I wanted to Show you how this works into the Python ABIS story. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm from ABBA, ABIA state A small city in Nigeria occupied mostly by businesses, traders, and with little or no support for developers, especially Python developers.

Speaker 1: I would say I 'm the first Python developer. I didn't research, but I could I would I would call myself the first Python developer from that community because when When we started there was virtually nobody interested in Python. So some of the strategies are what helped us to build a thriving community of Python and Django developer. So the first step is providing support. So what we did, we had to invite everyone, include everyone. We started weekly meetups You know, training beginners every week for five months. We visited schools, printed flyers, encouraged people to come learn Python for free.

Speaker 1: And so we were trying to really move and uh incentivize people to pick up uh programming and begin to learn and then we started having some turn up it was a five-month intensive training for No people who were interested in learning Python. And then I talked about communication and transparency. Um it's not just enough to invite people, we ensure that there was room for communication So our weekly meetups, besides just being a training ground, it provided us the opportunity to have an open session. Where everyone could share their hopes, challenges.

Speaker 1: Okay. Um, you're learning Python. What do you want to get out of Python And we now began to let them know with Python you could become a web developer, you could become a machine learning engineer, you could build softwares. And so they were okay wow. Now I could now see what I can do with what I'm learning. So they were able to bring out their ideas of what they feel they wanted to do and they they're beginning to find the answers from Python and then from learning Python So communication was one thing that we seriously emphasized on. Most times uh when we do we kind of sit like in a round table and have everybody go around. Yeah, so just express yourself, say something.

Speaker 1: don't just hide in the crowd. So people started talking, okay, I think I've okay what are challenges you've started oh you started last week so what did you do on the weekend? So people were just sharing their and it helped us to monitor and they encourage them. to grow. If if you go back then, Python is is a very serious language, but it's like in fact we've started exporting talent from that community. Some people come to recruit developers right now. When we whipped up the interest , we knew that if interest is not turned into passion over time, it would go down. It will definitely drop. So we had to transform that interest into passion and that's where goals come in. That's where shared values come in.

Speaker 1: That's where people have to see themselves in what they're they have to see, you know, where this is going to take them. They have to see a clear path. of no if I do this for two three four years yeah this is what I'm gonna do. So uh what we did was We we organized um some events. We did something we call data science weekend. Um we even did a python day and not we invited some speakers, had some people. Nectar picked over Twitter, speak remotely. And so when people they got a lot of you know passion from listening to all these people who have been uh you know doing Python and be doing so well within so they feel okay wow so this is really something

Speaker 1: that will really get me to what I want to because one of the basic problems that people have is the John just want to learn something that is not going to be able to meet their needs. So they they they want to see how this is going to solve real problems for them. Okay, take care of them, help them make a living. And so seeing The testimonies of other persons who have been doing this was really a great help and it helped them to, you know, turn those interests into a passion. By helping them set their own personal goals of what they're going to achieve. Some of them had goals of okay, I'm gonna be uh a machine learning engineer. Okay, in five years I want to learn this and I want to be able to, you know get a remote job and start to do stuff.

Speaker 1: So um and then we had to graduate into mentorship. As we continued on this process Some people began to it's just like every week somebody new is joining. So there are new people who need to learn And there are some older people who have been learning for some time. So we have to create a mentorship opportunity both within and from without the community that we are building. And one of the things we tried to do was to ensure that's one of the photos on PyCon Nigeria 2019 We had to ensure and sponsor some of the people from the community say you have to attend. It was held at Aboja, so many miles away from

Speaker 1: Abia State. So and that was a picture we took with uh Marlin. Marlin was a uh chairperson for PyCon Africa at the time. I don't know about now. So and they're getting to meet some of these persons. Uh they were so excited. So it's really whipped up more of and they got to meet network and have some more people And they had people they could look up to as mentors who are doing very well and not just only me. Okay? So because at the point it was just like, oh, everybody looking at Sam. Oh, Sam 's is doing so great. He's writing Python. I needed to let them also find sometimes uh we wanted to organize the jungle girls, but at the time they said jungle girls was no longer you know some being organized.

Speaker 1: So really felt so bad because we wanted to see how we could also push in girls into the comedy but um good enough there were girls who were picking up the interest on learning Python. Then I had to we had to advance into building projects. The first project we tried to build as a community was um a Python library we actually called Akara Ike You know, we really gave it an abian name. So akaraike simply means password. Okay, that's password, yeah So it's vertically uh a library that you could use to generate passwords um if you want your password or just any kind of keys.

Speaker 1: You want it to be uh uppercase, lowercase, numbers, special character. So you could actually choose as you specify in the parameter is is on a Um is on the PyPy so you just did pip install acaric and then it's open sourced on GitHub. I I think I should have left the GitHub a link so present you could shake it. Maybe I'll drop it on the Discord channel later on and then see. So we we working on this project actually gave some of them a feel And give them some practical experience to do something that is out there that people, you know, are gonna use. And yeah When we put it out in the larger Nigerian community, people were like, oh wow, Abia , you guys are doing so great.

Speaker 1: And people started using it. I don't know if there's a way to check how many persons are actually using your library, but I think that would have been good, but I th I I know personal eyes to use it um over the years. And then we try to uh do an open source um web application we called get a doc. It was gonna be and an open source uh platform where people could uh you know go get a doctor, get consultation from a doctor who can be the doctor. So we plan to do this as both a mobile application and a web application. The back end is powered by Django. It's also open source on GitHub. I think I just put something like the GitHub repo there And

Speaker 1: one of the things we also did with this project was we participated in Hactober 1st. Sponsored I think by DigitalOcean. So it was an open fair open source season. So we we got members of the communities and other people who were interested in contributing to that project. and then we began to work on that. So building project gave them an experience of what You know, it was going to be like if they actually began to build and buy and from there so many of them graduated into working on their own personal projects. and doing other things, some even were able to

Speaker 1: get a startup and start doing something great from that. So I talked about celebrating wins. So this was one of the members of the community after he he got his t-shirt for participating in High Tova Fest with our uh get a dog so he he went on twitter he said today I picked up the package as a proceed of my competition to open source sponsored by doing the 20 version of Hydrofair And then you mentioned a few names. So we we we we provide opportunities to celebrate every win, no matter how little celebrate wins to but how little celebrate people's contribution no matter how little this is how we keep people interested

Speaker 1: is how we keep people motivated in the team and what I'm saying applies both to the team and to the community as large. So I'm just kind of like Bringing everything together. You just have to now use your mind and know where you have to channel what I'm saying. So, but I'm looking at the community because the Python ABI is more like a community as large And uh uh we when people began to educate their interest, some wanted to go into web development. Now we'll have to separate them, okay? Start learning Django. This one I want to go into AI so we have some people begin to coach them on machine learning and stuff. And uh so we be we we encourage them to do stuff, to try stuff, and just celebrate whatever you do.

Speaker 1: Some of them got jobs, they celebrated some of them, you know, and Some so we just have to find a way to celebrate. Sometimes during at the end of the year, we do an end of end of the year and those just celebrate and they try to encourage everybody and keep their hope alive. But of course um All of this has not been possible without one or two challenges here and there. If you if you know uh where uh talked about there's problems of power, you know. Uh sometimes people there is no power to I'm talking about electrical power, so in case you were wondering. So um so you you have to

Speaker 1: run on generators sometimes members of community will just okay let's buy fuel let's complete brute and then we do this and There is also the challenge of people not having their own laptop. Like people have interest to learn But they don't have they can't even afford it. So sometimes we try to pair them, okay, two persons or use and some of them are students actually and then um There's also this this challenge of you know lack of interest which we experience at the initial stage. um by incentivizing people, you know, some of the events that we do. We make t-shirts give

Speaker 1: give out. So Wow, people like okay, some just came to wear the t-shirt, you know, so just take some pictures and feel cool. And from there they say, okay, so this thing could be nice. Let me sit down and see how it works And some of these, there are several, these are just a few I could think of out of the top of my head. But we've been able to walk around some of these things. and we hope to be able to overcome some of these challenges with generally everyone's help and I know we'll do a lot more. So, thanks for listening to me. Um, I'm Samskarlo. You can connect with me. I'm Sam 's Carlo everywhere actually. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok.

Speaker 1: I'm the only Sams Carlo in the whole world. So that's so uh thank you so much, you can email me samscarlotyahoo. com. Thank you for listening to me

Speaker 2: Thank you, Sams. That was a really great talk. So we've got an opportunity for questions now. Um feel free to go up to the mics or I think there can be a runner mic. Yes, there is indeed. If you can't get to them, we'll go for mic over here. Thank you.

Speaker 3: Sams, thank you for the talk. You mentioned two things that I'm interested in how they play together. So you mentioned agility and you mentioned sort of mentioned shared values. So I'm interested to know as new people join your community. how you evaluate those values or if those values are handed down to new people.

Speaker 1: Okay. Okay, so so what we do is um the the The values we talked about. There is the community standard that we know introduce to them and say, okay, if you're gonna be a part of this community We practically just adopted one from the Python websites. Okay, so this is how the community works. So this is what you would do so people knew from day one this is the values and then um in terms of shared goals most people who even joined on uh just came okay let's see what's going on here and so they sat down and we started telling them about python and what the beautiful things how you could work with Django work

Speaker 1: with uh AI models and all of that so We kind of help them to shape goals in the goal aspect, but in the values they come to meet the values of the community. This is what we stand for. This is what we believe. We actually and practically want to better the community, affect life, and make people see how they can be more than what they are right now. So that's basically what we do. Thank you.

Speaker 2: Great, thank you. Over here?

Speaker 4: Thank you, Salms.

Speaker 1: Thank you.

Speaker 4: You raised the point about diversity and S here in Edinburgh, you're an example of bringing diversity into this community because most people here are from not very far away from here. What does diversity look like in your communities? Because there are also lots of different religions and cultural ethnic backgrounds there as well, aren't there? So

Speaker 1: Okay, uh diversity in that area um comes basically comes basically in the aspect of underrepresented group and what I will mean is sometimes as a result of age okay there's some people who feel okay at this age I can't really do uh program I can't go into tech. So we we we try to let them know you have sometimes we do a special program for such people If you listen earlier, I talked about how we wanted to bring girls into the community by doing a Django girl, but then we learned It was no longer possible to hold it, so it was really disappointed. They'll have to look for other means

Speaker 1: to do that So uh it's basically balancing some of the gender and the helping people irrespective of where you're coming from. We don't is basically uh more of one religion and just it's a small community So there isn't much in terms of religion or but we have to balance with gender, age, and um yeah, I think that's that's that. That's that

Speaker 2: Great, thank you. Have we got anybody else who may be up? Perfect. Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Hi, thanks for a very nice talk. Um I've did something similar uh a bit uh but not such on such a large scale, and one of the biggest problems I've um seen is the churn churn churn rate of people so a lot of people are interested a lot of people are coming but somewhere around eighty ninety percent are fall off as soon as you start facing the problem that you really need to do something and not just hang around. And uh yeah you've mentioned that um you've tried to motivate people like with some celebrating uh even small wins which is A great way of doing that. Maybe you've seen other ways how to actually try to empower and inspire

Speaker 5: people for really like keeping all that because this problem I think is Probably one of the biggest ones.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Just like I said, um interests must be transformed into passion. When people come at first, they are interested. They just said that, okay, what's going on here? Oh, this sounds cool. Oh, all these people are nicely dressed. Wow, the food is good. So they said that's just interest If it doesn't go beyond that, if you don't, if if it doesn't give birth to passion, passion is personal, self-motivation. So it's gonna die down at the end of the day. So one of the ways you are going to help them to turn their interest into passion is to make sure they set a personal goal for themselves. Part of what they are doing. So they're gonna say, okay, this thing I'm doing, I'm going to build a website.

Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna build a website, and then if they also see how building a website helps. People celebrate them more, help people recognize them more, help people say, okay, wow. You will be surprised how much people value appreciation. Wow, oh you did great. Oh, you did that. Wow, that's so cool That that keeps people motivated. Okay. So but if you don't do some of this, uh give them some of these emotional vitamins, I would like to call it. So they'll they'll just the whole thing dies there. I think this is some of the things we tried Um prod call it walked. Okay.

Speaker 2: That's great. Yeah, we can take I think one other question.

Speaker 6: Uh first what? Uh thanks Sav for an amazing talk. That's great. You mentioned some really hard challenges during your talk. And I'm sorry now if you mentioned this at the beginning because I came in a little bit late. But have you found that other organizations in like the region are recognizing the work that you've been doing there? And if are there ways that you can find some kind of supports in the region or elsewhere? Is there anything that we can do here? To help solve some of these challenges.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I I'm seriously hoping there is something you could do too because we've not really been able to have any sort of support um so when people usually think of tech they think of big cities like Abuja Lagos so nobody's thinking of ABBA in Abia State So most times our voices are not heard as much as um we would like for it to be heard. And it's most of what we have done, I will tell you most times I've had to you know, from my own personal pocket, try to, you know, help the people and then some of the members of the committee who understood the vision were trying to have helped. So other than that, I mentioned people not having laptop. I wish I could buy laptops for people, but I I

Speaker 1: I I I'm not that so both sometimes we just pair them up. See what you can do. We even try the Sometimes seeing if we can help people lease laptops, maybe rent it for one hour during the training, but when they go back home, what do they do? So I think some of these things affect passion at the end of the day. If you come for a community meetup like everybody's walking and you're looking at them, we've had some people drop because of that actually. So I'm seriously hoping there are some help I can get and it will help us a lot. Thank you so much for that.

Speaker 2: Great, thank you. Um San if there's any links uh for like calls to action that people can do, I'm sure if you drop them in the Discord under this talk, people will be really interested to engage