Product framing

Teams from 18F and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue drafted this new product framing document during January and February, 2018. This has been further revised by ONRR in September 2019 to reflect user research findings.

Problem statement

The people of the United States of America collectively own federal lands, waters, and the minerals beneath them. Those lands are administered by U.S. government agencies. The federal government is also the trustee for natural resource revenue from Native American and Alaska Native lands.

Transparency about how these resources are managed is crucial to public discourse and government accountability. However, data about public resources is underutilized because it’s often difficult to find, lacks contextual information, or is presented in ways that aren't readily accessible or understandable to users.

Because natural resources data can require specialized knowledge to interpret and understand, the public relies on intermediaries, such as NGOs, journalists, and elected representatives to contextualize, interpret, and communicate its meaning and implications. It’s critical these intermediaries are well informed with reliable and properly contextualized data.

Our vision

We are informing policy debates and raising public awareness by building the definitive source of timely and useful data about how the government manages federal energy and mineral resources, revenue, and disbursements.

Key scenarios

For more about what we know about our users from user research see our user types.

Question answerers

1. A congressional staffer needs specific, accurate data on oil royalties and disbursements because they need to provide support for a proposed bill. They’re able to quickly and easily find data about how much oil was produced on federal land in their state, how much royalty revenue was generated, and how much their state got.
2. An external liaison for ONRR frequently fields questions from the public and congress for things that could be answered on the site, such as how much money the Gulf of Mexico generated from GOMESA. They look in databases for the answer to the question first, but use the site to verify the answer or for things to which they can point the question asker on the site.
3. A BLM economist uses our site to look up how much calendar year and monthly royalties and sales volume companies had to project future revenues and determine fair market values.

Domain learners

4. A new county commissioner in a western state with significant oil and gas production on federal land ran for office largely on a platform of government transparency and accountability and wants to know how extractive revenues from federal land are disbursed at the state and county level. Using the site, they are able to find out how much was disbursed to their county and state each month, which allows them to hold the state accountable, advocate for their constituents, and inform public debate about extractive industry in their county.
5. A tribal leader is concerned about the layers of bureaucracy involved in tribal land governance and is working with the federal government to simplify the process for land-use authorization. They are able to find information on the tribal leasing process to inform their efforts.
6. An intergovernmental affairs analyst in the Office of the Secretary routinely pulls data to inform their interactions with Interior stakeholders. They have only one week to generate a GOMESA disbursements data trend analysis to present to Gulf state elected officials. They are able to find detailed, up-to-date GOMESA raw data to use as the basis of the analysis.
7. A public affairs officer from an oil company uses our website to get numbers to use in press releases about their company’s extractive activities and to do comparisons against other companies. They know the numbers are good to use because they come from a government site.

Agenda supporters

8. An analyst for an NGO is concerned about how public energy resources are used. They want to determine how much federal gas is vented and flared and whether the government is collecting revenues for that production. The analyst can easily find data that they trust for gas production on federal lands and how the gas produced was used. They also want to be able to pinpoint specific companies that have high flaring and venting volumes, so they can be held accountable.

Storytellers

9. A student of public policy at a major university is writing an academic paper focusing on how public land management balances recreation, energy production, and conservation priorities. They are able to locate federal production volumes and locations on the NRRD site and are able to use that data to inform their points in the article about federal government land-use policy.
10. A journalist at a major regional news outlet is writing a story about policy claims about energy production on public land. They’re able to find data about production trends and land use for extractive activities both at the national and state level and how those numbers tie to policy, which helps them back up their story with accurate numbers that haven’t been influenced by personal or political objectives.

Product Goals

Goal	Outcome	Relevant scenarios
Users know that the data is accurate.	Users don’t spread misinformation.	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Documentation makes the scope and source of the data clear.	Users understand the scope and source of the data.	1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10
Data can be broken out by geography (state, county).	Users can understand what’s going on for the locations they care about.	1, 4, 6, 9, 10
Information about the context of the data and leasing process is available to help users understand the data.	Users can learn about how the government manages energy and mineral resources and tie that knowledge to the data.	4, 5, 8, 9, 10
Data can be broken out by commodity.	Users can understand what’s going on for the commodities they care about.	1, 4, 7, 8
Production data is available.	Users understand how much energy and mineral production occurs on public lands.	1, 4, 9, 10
Disbursements data is available.	Local governments can determine if the money they received was properly distributed by federal and state governments.	1, 2, 4, 6
Company level data is available.	Users can hold individual companies accountable.	3, 7, 8
Monthly data is available.	Users can understand what is going on in the short-term.	3, 4, 6
Users can spot and understand trends in the data.	Users can understand what is going on over time.	6, 10
Users can find a specific number.	Users can tie data to the things that are important to them.	1, 2
GOMESA data is available.	Gulf state representatives can forecast budget allocations based in part on GOMESA disbursements to their state.	2, 6
Revenue data is available.	Users can determine if the public is receiving a fair return from energy and mineral extraction on U.S. lands and waters.	1, 3
Data can be broken out by revenue type.	Users can understand what phase of the production process revenue comes from.	1, 3
Lease or well level data is available.*	Individuals and groups who live near leased federal and Native American lands can see what is being produced where and how much revenue is generated to evaluate the impact on their local economy and environment.	8, 10
Peopledon’t contact DORC, FOIA, or analysts at other agencies to pull numbers that are available on the site.	Users are able to quickly find needed data. The government is able to use resources more efficiently.	2, 6
Sales data is available.*	Users can find sales volumes and values, which they can use to understand trends and make projections.	3
Users can pull numbers without having to download data sets.	Users can quickly find numbers for a report or publication.	1
Users can easily share numbers they’ve found on the site.	Users can easily spread the information to others and act as liaisons.	2
Users can easily verify numbers against other sources.	Users trust the data.	2
Venting and flaring data is available.*	Users can identify where waste occurs.	8
Calendar year data is available.	Users don’t have to figure out what our fiscal year is.	3
We properly label and explain the scope of the data, including the date range.	Users understand the date range for the data they’re viewing.
Users can download the data.	Users can manipulate the data themselves for use in charts and reports or to combine with other data.	6

*Not currently available on the site.

What we are not trying to do

We won’t try to...	Because...
Tell people what’s important about it, e.g.: Argue for specific policy Show data in ways that tell stories supporting specific policy goals	It’s our job to present the data in such a way as to inform public debate and policy decisions, not to define them. The data and context should be an accurate accounting of activities, not priorities.
We won’t provide data that could expose PII (Personally Identifiable Information) or violate trade secrets or trust responsibilities, e.g.: Granular price data Revenue data for individual leases Payment details Detailed tribal disbursements	Our work needs to comply with federal law in every way. Exposing data that could be used to personally identify individuals, expose trade secrets, or undermine trust responsibility may violate federal law and risks the integrity of the product and the DOI as a whole.
Explain how to go through the leasing and reporting process to companies.	Our product reports production and revenue data for extractive activity on federal land, but it is not meant to be a guidebook for navigating the process of bidding and leasing federal land for the purpose of production. Other agencies (viz. BLM and BOEM) manage the bidding and leasing process for extractive activity on federal lands and waters and are in a better position to describe and support that process for interested parties.
Go beyond energy and minerals revenue (e.g. grazing revenue; Forest Service revenue)	It is risky to dilute the focus of the NRRD site beyond extractives because: It becomes increasingly difficult for users to understand and navigate the content We have limited or no access to data outside of ONRR

Risks

Description	How we might mitigate	Criticality
It is challenging for users to discern the scope of the site and what data they can find.	Make sure everything on the site contributes toward the product vision Figure out how all the pieces fit together and design the structure of the site holistically Be willing to add and remove content as needed to ensure the site accomplishes the product vision	High
Our work on NRRD relies heavily on fundamental support from the specific individuals currently in leadership positions at DOI. If that leadership were to change, it’s unclear if that support will remain.	Continue evangelizing the value of what we’re doing to DOI leadership Identify new opportunities to share successes within the org Show DOI leaders how this work is part of ONRR’s core mission	High
A significant portion of the technical team members are term-limited, and the prospect of hiring new permanent, remote team members is unlikely.	Continue to train and pair with permanent ONRR team members to build their technical skills and confidence Devise a long-term plan for ad-hoc technical support (contractors, etc) Keep the scope of the site small but high-value, to minimize maintenance needs while demonstrating value to the org. Continue to drive home the value of NRRD to help build support for funding and staff. Build the site to be sustainable and maintainable with minimal technical resources.	High
Lack of IT support for in-house technology expertise, open source development, and agile/iterative processes.	Make sure our team is involved in other IT projects that affect our work (e.g. data governance) Continue building alliances and relationships across silos Continue to seek creative compromises with IT	Medium
ONRR team being pulled in several directions/having a lot of other responsibilities beyond NRRD.	Taking on onrr.gov will take a lot of our resources. Team could also be pulled away to support FACA committees and other special projects.	Medium
Silos at ONRR make collaboration challenging, and could reduce support for the project.	Find small, low-risk opportunities to collaborate and build trust, and build upon those (e.g. trainings/brown bags, joint user research, etc) Advocate to leadership for more collaboration opportunities across parts of the org We get our data from multiple groups and have to duplicate efforts to work with separate groups.	Medium
Difficulties obtaining data from other parts of DOI or outside DOI.	Identify what outside data we rely on now, and are likely to in the future, and where we get that data, to assess risk and decide how we strengthen those sources Prioritize what external data we need to achieve our vision in the first place If the DOI data integration effort comes to fruition, that may help Build alliances with other Bureaus	Medium
Unmitigated technical debt can become overwhelming and unnecessarily drive team priorities unless managed as we go along.	Explicitly identify high-risk dependencies and debt, and prioritize mitigation accordingly Reduce complexity wherever possible Upgrade our hardware and software within ONRR more generally so we have a more modern environment to work with Stay up to date on current technologies Invest a substantial amount of development time mitigating technical debt	Medium
User-centered design is challenging when it’s difficult to find users to participate in research when government legal requirements create barriers.	Constant cold emailing potential participants. Finding groups where our potential users congregate to partner with.	Medium
Department priorities sometimes conflict with researched user needs, which affect design decisions.	Outreach and education about user-centered design. Outreach and education about user-centered design. Find creative ways to design for both.	Medium