When people hear the acronym KPI (Key Performance Indicator), they almost instinctively think of business dashboards, targets, and performance metrics. But in a volunteer-driven open source community like Joomla, the real issue is not that we don’t have KPIs. It’s that we may be measuring the wrong ones.
Because in a community, KPIs should not just measure output. They should measure health.
Mention KPI in almost any business meeting and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about: Key Performance Indicators. They are the numbers that appear on charts and dashboards, measuring growth, productivity, customer satisfaction, or whatever else an organisation believes defines success. Those measurements are valuable because businesses need to understand whether they are achieving their goals.
Volunteer communities, however, are not businesses.
For a project like Joomla, success isn't measured by quarterly growth or shareholder value. It isn't even measured by the number of downloads, pull requests, or support tickets closed. Those figures tell us something, but they don't tell us everything. The real strength of Joomla has always been its people. Every release, every documentation update, every translation, every support forum answer, every event, and every line of code exists because someone chose to spend their own time helping others.
That's why I believe Joomla needs its own definition of KPI.
Keep People Involved
People rarely remain active in a volunteer community simply because there is work to be done. They stay because they feel that they belong, that their voice is heard, and that their contribution makes a difference. Keeping people involved means more than assigning tasks. It means inviting people into discussions, asking for their opinions, encouraging them to share ideas, and making sure they understand that their efforts are genuinely valued. A first-time volunteer can easily become tomorrow's team leader if they are given the opportunity to grow.
Keep People Informed
Few things discourage volunteers more quickly than feeling disconnected from what is happening around them. People do not expect to be involved in every decision, but they do expect to understand where the project is heading and why certain choices have been made. Good communication is about much more than publishing meeting minutes or posting announcements. It is about creating a sense of shared purpose so that everyone feels they are travelling in the same direction. An informed volunteer is far more likely to remain an engaged volunteer.
Keep People Interested
Volunteering should never feel like a job where you simply clock in, complete a task, and clock out again. One of the great strengths of open source is that there is always something new to learn, another problem to solve, or a fresh idea to explore. Communities flourish when they encourage curiosity and creativity instead of allowing processes and bureaucracy to become barriers. When people remain interested, they continue to discover new ways in which they can contribute.
Keep People Inspired
If there is one part of this alternative definition of KPI that matters most, I believe it is inspiration. People may volunteer for a short time because they feel a sense of responsibility, but they continue volunteering for years because something inspires them to do so. Inspiration comes from seeing what others have achieved, celebrating successes together, recognising effort, sharing stories, and reminding ourselves why Joomla exists in the first place. Enthusiasm has a remarkable ability to spread throughout a community, just as negativity can. The more we inspire each other, the stronger the project becomes.
The KPI That Really Matters
KPIs absolutely have a place in an open source project. Any healthy community should look for indicators that tell it how well it is doing. The problem is not that we measure KPIs; the problem is that we are often measuring the wrong ones.
Downloads, commits, event attendance, and website traffic are all easy to count. They can tell us something about activity, but they tell us very little about the long-term health of the community. They cannot measure whether someone felt welcomed, whether a first-time contributor is likely to return, whether volunteers feel valued, or whether people are excited about the future of the project.
If we really want to understand the health of Joomla, then perhaps our KPIs should be different. We should ask ourselves whether we are keeping people involved, keeping people informed, keeping people interested, and keeping people inspired. Those are the indicators that determine whether today's contributors are still here next year, and whether new people choose to join them.
Every welcoming conversation, every clear update, every word of encouragement, every thank you, every blog post, every presentation, every forum reply, and every supportive review on a pull request contributes to those KPIs.
Because the health of a community isn't measured by what it produces today. It's measured by whether people still want to be part of it tomorrow.
Perhaps we've had the right acronym all along.
We've just been measuring the wrong KPI.
Keep People Involved.
Keep People Informed.
Keep People Interested.
Keep People Inspired.
