## Title

Overcome Acquisition-based Silos (Developer Level)

## Patlet

TBD

## Problem

Inefficient/Duplicative development across teams because they are siloed

## Context

Acquisition(s) resulting in multiple cultural perspectives. Developer is aware and InnerSource program environment is available to them. Post-acquisition, so this won't account for code decisions that were made around acquisition.

## Forces  

- Different processes in place
- Used to different tools and reluctant to change.
- Competing middle managers
- Rigid timelines
- Politics and egos
- Bi-directional fear/Lack of trust
- Fear of losing one's job
- Fear of loss of control of domain or code
- Fear of loss of identity
- Pandora's box/unknowns tied to opening up code

## Sketch (optional)

## Solution

**For net-new acquisition**

Make the acquired teams feel secure in the new environment by

1. Establish a neutral (well-respected) governance committee _across both companies_ that selects from the different options across these silos to converge and integrate. (_validated_).

2. Come up with rational rules for managing code redundancy as a result of acquisition (_validated_)

 - Joint effort between two teams to bring new software into existing platforms. (_validated_)
 - If allowable/controllable, initial software selection not tied to job security. (_not validated_)
 - Same ground rules as above for determining tooling platforms. (_validated_)

3. Giving developers and middle management good on-boarding training and mentoring with InnerSourcing as part of it. (_not validated_)

 - Clear guidance on how to bring their software onto existing platform. (_not validated_)
 - Definition of roles including Contributor and Trusted Committer. (_not validated_)

4. Make it clear that there are career advancement opportunities that come along with actively participating as well as with being a Trusted Committer. (_validated_)

5. Give them time to get comfortable with the new environment - a generous, realistic grace period for ramping on new company procedures/processes. Not uncommon for this period to be up to a year but there must be a mutually agreed-to deadline. Being "fully integrated" requires a certain level of representation among Trusted Committers from both companies. (_validated_)

6. Minimum commitment for face to face engagement between the two teams.

 - can be representative team from acquiring company meet with team.
 - potential Trusted committers from acquired company can meet with parent company.

## Resulting Context

- Silos are broken and teams working together
- This pattern does not address potential cultural issues due to the acquisition.  

## Rationale (optional)

## Known Instances (optional)

Partially validated. Validated means this has been seen to work in similar scenarios but not in the exact context of this pattern.

## Status

* Initial
* Old Status: Unproven (not reviewed)
* Old Status: Pattern Idea - Draft In Progress

## Author

David Marcucci, Nicholas Stahl, Padma Sudarsan, Ryan Bellmore, Erin Bank
