Transition goals

Background

Over the last few years, ONRR has partnered with 18F to design and build the Natural Resources Revenue Data (NRRD, formerly USEITI) website. After a couple years of development in partnership, it’s time for 18F to leave the keys to NRRD entirely in ONRR’s hands. 18F & ONRR have engaged in one final, six-month engagement ending March 31, 2018, with an explicit focus on transitioning ownership of the site to ONRR, including to the 3 new employees 18F is helping ONRR hire.

The vision

By April 2018, the ONRR team fully owns the management and development of the NRRD site, and is fully empowered to and capable of maintaining the site so that it continues to meet user needs in an iterative, open, and human-centered manner.

What does success look like?

It is June 2018. The NRRD team (Jennifer, Ryan, Chris, Shannon & Jeff) is still planning sprints, holding daily standups, and demo-ing their work to a wider group of stakeholders. Judy, Nathan, and Ralph fully understand what work is going on (because they attend demo) and can speak to its value. Several significant things about the site have changed in response to observed user needs and team priorities. Each small set of changes has been launched iteratively, and there are plans to launch the next set of changes in the coming weeks. All data is up-to-date, and everyone on the team can speak to how data is updated and verified.

What might failure look like?

In response to early, limited user research and stakeholder-driven product visioning, it was decided to fully redesign and re-architect the site. The team is now working on getting CMS credentials and building a project plan for the new site, which is expected to launch by mid-2019.

Key scenarios

All names are purely illustrative, not indicative of which person will necessarily own that task.

Priority	Scenario	Success criteria	Status
1	Chris, a member of the ONRR team, needs to update the content to reflect a policy change at ONRR. He’s able to update the copy, get the appropriate reviews from team members, and publish the change quickly.	At least one member of the ONRR team can successfully change content without 18F’s help.	Done
		At least two members of the ONRR team can review and merge PRs without 18F’s help.	Done
		At least one member of the ONRR team fully owns and manages the Federalist instance.	Done
		The site release process is documented.	Done
1	Ryan, a member of the ONRR team, needs to expand a dataset. When he goes to design the visualization, he’s able to draw on existing styles and reference past learnings. This helps him feel confident that his design work is coherent with the rest of the site, and avoids known pitfalls.	The site has a minimal style guide.	Done
		The ONRR team has an export of all shared Google Docs.	Will do at end of project
1	Jennifer, a member of the ONRR team, needs to add 2018 disbursements data. She’s able to quickly follow the process for updating and validating that data. This makes the process quick and painless, and builds trust with ONRR stakeholders who need the data updated promptly.	Instructions for running the site, running tests, and updating data are clearly documented.	Done
		At least one member of the ONRR team can update datasets without 18F’s help.	Done
2	A significant usability issue comes up in research. In response, the team is able to record the problem, prioritize it, and fix it before the next release.	The ONRR team has successfully run an agile development sprint without 18F’s help.	Done
		The ONRR team has successfully triaged, scoped, and squashed bugs without 18F’s help.	Done
2	A senior stakeholder proposes adding a new data visualization to the site. Before agreeing to develop a visualization, the team evaluates whether it maps to existing goals, and if so, scopes the minimum amount of development work needed to test the value of that visualization. After prototyping it, the team conducts user research to validate whether it serves user needs, and refines the feature based on that research.	The ONRR team has successfully run a research sprint without 18F’s help.	In progress
		The ONRR team has successfully navigated the path from stakeholder request to clearly scoped and prioritized feature without 18F’s help.	In progress
		The ONRR team has successfully contributed to new feature development or site restructuring without 18F’s help.	In progress
		The ONRR team has successfully formed and tested a clear hypothesis without 18F’s help.	In progress
3	Zelda is a team member who will be joining the project from another part of ONRR. Existing team members are able to give her all the access she needs to manage the content. She’s then able to walk through the instructions for running the site and learn how to contribute to the project.	The site is transferred to DOI’s Github organization (rather than 18F’s).	In progress
		ONRR team members are members of DOI’s Github organization (rather than 18F’s).	Done
		Circle CI & Hound credentials are transferred to ONRR.	Done

What does this mean for our work during the transition period (October 2017—March 2018)?

• 18F staff will work to shift steadily toward coaching roles, and will avoid doing independent work that does not advance the transition work.
• We will prioritize ONRR staff doing the hands-on work of maintaining and developing the site.
• We’ll have biweekly roles check-in meetings to be explicit about what responsibilities we’ll be focusing on transitioning to ONRR over the subsequent two weeks.
• We’ll share weekly transition updates about roles, trainings, and successes with the broader stakeholder team.