Open Data Sprints¶
About this site¶
At Austin’s Open Data Initiative, we work on projects for 1-3 months at a time. These project periods are called sprints.
This site contains the documentation that describes our sprints, the projects, and the work delivered.
Some cool things you can do:¶
- Search all sprint docs by using the search bar
- Jump to a document section by clicking in the table of contents
- Generate a PDF to read about the sprints the old-fashioned way
- Read the plans page-by-page by scrolling down and clicking ‘Next’
View this project on GitHub: https://github.com/cityofaustin/open-data-sprints
2.3 Sprint Summary¶
Jan 2017 - Mar 2017 |
- Open Data Web Content Memo
- Continuation of PIR Pilot Project
- Continuation of Training Materials Project
- Data Portal Refresh
- Continuation of Open Data Product Evaluations
- Data Quality
Open Data Web Content Memo¶
Sprint 2.3 | Jan 2017 - Mar 2017 |
Project Description Document¶
The purpose of this document is to describe a project by the Open Data Initiative. It explains the reason for the project and identifies key partners, documents, and succes criteria. Throughout the project period, progress reports and final reports may be added to the bottom of this document, so as to deliver a complete account of the project work performed from start to finish.
Problem Statement¶
About the problem:
Information about Austin’s Open Data Initiative is published online but the content can be hard to find, hard to understand, or published repeatedly in muliple places. Currently, the initiative’s core team does not have a list of locations where official open data information is published online. This makes it difficult for the core team to ensure official information about Austin’s Open Data Initiative is accessible, accurate, and up to date.
Why it matters:
The City’s Open Data Initiative attracts attention from all kinds of people and interests – members of the general public, City staff, community organizations, businesses, media, other government agencies, academia, and more – and it is important each be able to find useful, reliable information about the intiative. The core team needs a better understanding of where official open data information lives so it can allocate resources and do the work needed to deliver that information in a way that’s both efficient and effective.
The approach:
This project will develop an inventory of items currently published online about Austin’s Open Data Intitiative. The inventory will be analyzed to describe content locations, types, and owners. A brief literature review will identify examples and best practices for managing organizational web content, then a gap analysis will be performed to reveal differences between the literature findings and the inventory findings. A final memo will deliver options for changing how open data web content is managed and include recommendations for next steps.
Success criteria¶
We’ll know this project has been successfully completed when:
- A memo has been completed and published online to the City’s GitHub account.
Deliverables¶
- Data table containing the open data content inventory
- Literature review notes
- Memo document entitled Open Data Web Content Audit
- End of Project Report
Key users/customers¶
- City of Austin open data leadership
- City of Austin open data core team
Key dates¶
- Mar 17, 2017: Project due date (end of open data sprint)
Working documents¶
- content inventory in airtable
- project issue notes in github here
- task list in this scrum board on Trello
End of Project Report¶
[to be completed upon project end]
2.2 Sprint Summary¶
Aug 2016 - Nov 2016 |
Public Information Request (PIR) Pilot¶
Sprint 2.2 | Aug 2016 - Nov 2016 |
The purpose of this document is to describe a project facilitated by the City of Austin’s Open Data Initiative. It contains key contact information, the project scope and charter – which identifies the problem statement, key partners, documents, and success criteria – and links to working documents. Throughout the project, progress and final reports will be appended to provide a comprehensive account of the work and value delivered.
Project Scope and Charter¶
About the problem:
The City of Austin Open Data Liaisons and staff who work with formal public information requests (PIRs) should connect the demand expressed in PIRs to the proactive disclosure of open data. However, the degrees to which the open data portal is currently and could potentially be utilized to satisfy public information requests (PIRs) is currently unknown. Furthermore, data from the PIR system to 1) describe trends, 2) uncover gaps and overlaps with the open data portal, and 3) help the open data team recommend effective and efficient provisioning is not accessible.
Why it matters:
The increased supply of proactively published government data and information on the open data portal should decrease the need for formal PIRs and the accompanying processes. This should reduce the considerable time and cost committed by the City, while improving the customer experience in terms of accessibility, transparency, and self-service.
The approach:
In order to determine the return on effort for this initiative, we plan to:
- Understand the audiences (internal and external)
- Identify current obstacles (internal and external)
- Analyze current PIR data to prioritize proactive discloser
We’ll know this project has been successfully completed when we have:
- Determined new data sets to publish to the open data portal in order to reduce PIRs
- Determined current data sets on the open data portal to promote to and educate our audiences about in order to reduce PIRs
- Define process, metrics, and guidelines for Departments to use to identify data sets that should be proactively disclosed and promoted on the open data portal.
- Release findings of this pilot, including recommended data sets for publication and/or promotion on the open data portal.
- Publish process, metrics, and guidelines for Departments to use to identify data sets that should be proactively disclosed and promoted on the open data portal.
- Law Department
- Department PIR SPOC
- Open Data Liaisons
- Open government and transparency advocates
- People wanting access to government information
- August 16, 2016: Sprint Kickoff
- September 30, 2016: Mid Sprint Progress Report
- November 21, 2016: End of Sprint Summary Report
Progress Reports¶
What’ve done since Aug, 16: - - -
What we’re going to do between now and the project end: - - -
End of Project Report¶
[end of project report template coming soon]
Open Data Training¶
Sprint 2.2 | Aug 2016 - Nov 2016 |
The purpose of this document is to describe a project facilitated by the City of Austin’s Open Data Initiative. It contains key contact information, the project scope and charter – which identifies the problem statement, key partners, documents, and success criteria – and links to working documents. Throughout the project, progress and final reports will be appended to provide a comprehensive account of the work and value delivered.
Team Contacts¶
Project coordinator:
Happiness Kisoso - happiness.kisoso@austintexas.gov
Team members:
Project Scope and Charter¶
The City of Austin’s Open Data Portal provides easy access to open data and information about the city’s government to encourage the use of public information which the Open Data Liaisons have published to spark innovation, promote public collaboration, increase government transparency, and inform decision making within many people groups including general city of Austin employees. With the absence and lack of updated City of Austin’s training materials and resources, Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees are experiencing a wide range of knowledge gaps when it comes to The City of Austin’s Open Data Portal. As a result, many are experiencing road blocks as they perform their necessary tasks and are turning to other tools to help them achieve their goals. Meanwhile general city of Austin employees are visiting the portal’s wiki <https://atxdataportal.wikispaces.com/> and are greeted with outdated training materials, leaving them unclear on how to use the portal.
Why it matters:
The purpose of this project sprint is to update training materials and provide open data training resources needed for the various levels of knowledge and skill existing amongst general city of Austin employees and Open Data Liaisons. Equipping Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees with the necessary tools will enable and empower them to further meet their goals and contribute to the city’s Open Data Initiative.
The approach:
We will use IBM Design Thinking Field Guide as guiding post throughout our project to define and understand the problem, observe and research users, analyze and identify users’ training and knowledge needs, strategize ways to fill training need gaps, develop training materials, and validate training materials with general city of Austin employees and Open Data Liaisons. We will also work with Socrata’s Education team to develop two virtual custom courses.
We’ll know this project has been successfully completed when:
- We have identified the users’ experience, knowledge gaps, and training needs and have met them by providing the essential tools:
- We have updated training materials and focused on the essential resources.
- We have developed a training platform containing training materials that are easy accessible and user friendly to general city of Austin employees and Open Data Liaisons.
- Identify Gaps using design thinking tools such as developing personas, journey map etc.
- Relay surfacing Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees questions, roadblocks, and concerns presented on the Training Needs survey to Socrata for answers.
- An updated online Workshop 101 to be used as a Starter Kit for new Open Data Laisions.
- Invite users to join Bloomfire User Group and Slack Channel to help diminish concerns and roadblocks.
- Determine our next steps
- Update training materials located on the wiki site
- Develop a library for Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees who will or are working with The City of Austin’s Open Data Portal.
- Provide Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees 2 custom courses of their topic of choosing developed by Socrata’s Education team.
- Develop training video for the topics which Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees have requested.
- Outreach to key Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees regarding available virtual training courses offered through Socrata using outlets such as Bloomfire.
- Open Data Liaisons are city employees that act as the link between the data and their department.
- Open Data Liaisons and general city of Austin employees are those who might come across or are curious about The city of Austin’s open data.
- September 13, 2016: Gather custom courses survey requests from Open Data Liaisons and General Users and relay back to the Socrata Education Team.
- September 30, 2016: Meet with key users and research solutions.
- October 2016: Invite Open Data Liaisons and General Users to take Socrata’s custom courses
- October 31, 2016: Finalize materials and test on key users
- Nov 21, 2016: Presentation: Close Out
- Trello
- Presentation
- Open Data Training and Resources website
- IBM Design Thinking Field Guide
- User Research: Training materials survey
- User Research: Custom course survey
- Bloomfire custom courses and available training outreach
- User Research Results
- Socrata Feedback Questions and Concerns
- Bloomfire training needs outreach
End of Project Report¶
[end of project report template coming soon]
Data Portal Categories¶
Sprint 2.2 | Aug 2016 - Nov 2016 |
The purpose of this document is to describe a project facilitated by the City of Austin’s Open Data Initiative. It contains key contact information, the project scope and charter – which identifies the problem statement, key partners, documents, and success criteria – and links to working documents. Throughout the project, progress and final reports will be appended to provide a comprehensive account of the work and value delivered.
Project Scope and Charter¶
About the problem:
The existing categories do not represent accurate grouping of datasets on the City of Austin Open Data Portal. Customers are unable to browse for similar datasets organized by specific interest, which hinders the ability to discover unknown datasets. There are no guidelines for open data publishers to determine the best categories for classifying datasets.
Why it matters:
Better category options will improve organized grouping of similar datasets to increase ease of use and comprehension. Customers will be able to browse datasets by categories to improve discoverability. Better consistency and guidelines will make it easier for publishing data.
The approach:
- Tell us about what this project will attempt and how it will deliver value here.
- Review previous work from Open Data Portal Redesign.
- Review existing data sets of each category and verify the relevance to the category.
- Consult with Socrata staff to include vendor perspective.
- Research user needs by using design thinking exercises to determine best categories. Research other city examples.
- Determine how categories affect the usability of the portal by browsing.
- Create draft of recommended category changes.
- Conduct survey of recommended category changes with open data community.
- Develop and publish Guidelines and instruction manual.
- Update categories and assign existing data sets to new categories
We’ll know this project has been successfully completed when:
- Customers are able to search and view more consistent datasets by categories.
- Improved navigation of open data and information about Austin city government.
- Developed a recommended category list.
- Consistent process of category assignment.
- Reduce the need for search words by comparing monthly Socrata analytics.
- The categories of the current open data portal have been revised to create better grouping.
- Baseline analytics of Austin open data portal.
- Publish findings of design thinking exercises.
- Final listing of categories that include better definitions.
- Final guidelines for categories.
- Implementation of new categories and data set reassignment, on Austin open data portal.
- Government Employee/Open Data (Owners)Liaison
- Business or Data Analyst.
- Researcher.
- Data Publisher.
- Data Consumer.
- Developers and Designers.
- Civic Advocate.
- Citizens.
- Businesses.
- Educational Institutes.
- September 30th, 2016: Completion of categories scope and charter.
- October 7th, 2016 : Complete dates and times for design approach exercises.
- October 14th, 2016: Review Socrata analytics and existing categories.
- October 21th, 2016: Conduct design thinking exercises.
- October 28th, 2016: Draft recommended categories.
- November 4th, 2016: Publish category survey on Bloomfire.
- November 18th, 2016: Finalize categories guidelines.
- November 25th, 2016: Publish recommendations to open data community.
- November 30th, 2016: Schedule implementation date with Socrata.
- Sunlight Foundation.
- Sorata analytics.
- www.optimalworkshop.com/optimalsort.
- www.userzoom.com/card-sorting.
- www.usabilitytools.com/us-suites.
- colaborate with Open Austin
Progress Reports¶
What’ve done since Aug, 16: - - -
What we’re going to do between now and the project end: - - -
End of Project Report¶
[end of project report template coming soon]
KPI Data Assessment¶
Sprint 2.2 | Aug 2016 - Nov 2016 |
The purpose of this document is to describe a project facilitated by the City of Austin’s Open Data Initiative. It contains key contact information, the project scope and charter – which identifies the problem statement, key partners, documents, and success criteria – and links to working documents. Throughout the project, progress and final reports will be appended to provide a comprehensive account of the work and value delivered.
Project Scope and Charter¶
About the problem:
Increased transparency, public collaboration, and data-driven decision making are key goals of Austin’s Open Data Initiative. As part of the initiative’s effort to pursue these goals, City Departments developed open data inventories last year – however, the information was often inconsistent, incomplete, or hard to understand. Furthermore, the inventory did not include information about how a department’s data assets relate (if at all) to Austin’s Key Performance Indicators. More information about department-level data is needed to understand the City’s open data strengths and opportunities.
Why it matters:
When we have more consistent inventories, information about each department’s open data resources will be easier to discover and use. When departments have this information, they can work more strategically to maintain their performance data. From the perspective of city performance, having more organized information about data sources would help the Performance Office assess measure reliability and improve how indicators are reported.
The approach:
This project involves three main activities. First, we will develop a working list of questions we’d like to be able to answer about each department’s open data assets. Second, we will design and deploy a survey to collect the information needed to answer those questions. Third, we will publish our progress and findings publicly so anyone interested can access the results and create their own analyses.
We’ll know this project has been successfully completed when:
- We can measure how many of the City’s Key Performance Indicators can be sourced from raw, structured data
- We have published our findings publicly and in dataset format
- We have completed our project deliverables, including progress and final reports
- Survey to be used by departments to complete the KPI Data Assessment
- Assessment status dashboard, published online for public access
- Survey results in dataset format
- A list of next and later action items to inform the next project iteration
- 30 Day Progress Report, due Sep 30, 2016
- End of Project Report, due Nov 14, 2016
- Open Data Liaisons
- Non-technical users interested in learning about Austin’s open data
- Civic hackers interested in discovering open data
- Open government and transparency advocates
- City leaders working closely with performance metrics
- Aug 16, 2016 - Project kickoff
- Sep 23, 2016 - Project scope amended
- Sep 30, 2016 - 30 Day Progress Report due
- Oct ?, 2016 - Assessment Period Begins
- Oct ?, 2016 - Assessment Period Ends
- Nov 14, 2016 - End of project sprint period
- Performance indicator spreadsheet
- List of things to work on next and later
- Project issues and to do items on GitHub
- Website code for survey dashboard and more project to do items on GitHub
- Diagram showing survey template questions and answers
- Diagram of KPI measure reporting process
Sep 23, 2016:
The scope is being modified to focus more on the KPI Data Assessment activity. Integration of the assessment results into the open data plans documents will be postponed to a later sprint, likely as part of a broader open data plans improvement project.
Summary of changes:
- modified problem statement to exclude plan-focused activities
- in success criteria, replaced publishing open data plans with publishing the KPI data assessment findings
- removed plan-related items from deliverables
- change project title from Open Data Plans Reboot to KPI Data Assessment
Progress Reports¶
What’ve done since Aug, 16: - Held team meetings to develop survey for understanding where information for KPIs comes from - Started writing code for website that will host survey links and department progress reports - Connected with Performance Office and received dataset of all measures from ePerf system - Modified project scope and charter to reflect focus on KPI data and discovering open data opportunities
What we’re going to do between now and the project end: - User testing for surveys - Deploy surveys and collect responses - Publish data so it can be analyzed by folks who are interested - Perform preliminary analysis of data and present Nov 21
End of Project Report¶
[coming soon]
Open Data Product Evaluations¶
Sprint 2.2 | Aug 2016 - Nov 2016 |
The purpose of this document is to describe a project facilitated by the City of Austin’s Open Data Initiative. It contains key contact information, the project scope and charter – which identifies the problem statement, key partners, documents, and success criteria – and links to working documents. Throughout the project, progress and final reports will be appended to provide a comprehensive account of the work and value delivered.
Team Contacts¶
Project coordinator:
Marbenn Cayetano - marbenn.cayetano@austintexas.gov
Team members:
Project Scope and Charter¶
About the problem:
The City does not have documented core user needs and accompanying guidelines for assessing open data products.
Why it matters:
As the City of Austin’s Open Data Initiative has evolved, the current product offerings have limitations or lack features sufficient for our growing needs. As the market matures, there are new tools and solutions that may provide value to the initiative. By creating requirements, we can create an objective and repeatable evaluation process.
The approach:
- Ideation session
- User profiles
- Prepare draft evaluation criteria
- Explore ways to access and use the evaluation criteria/tool
We’ll know this project has been successfully completed when:
- Determine user/system needs
- Determine collection method
- Determine instructions, guidelines, and disclaimers for usage
- Publish user/system needs
- Publish collection method
- Publish instructions, guidelines, and disclaimers for usage
- City staff with need to use current and potential Open Data and information management tools (specific end users determined through Ideation sessions)
- Aug 16, 2016: Starting line.
- Sept 30, 2016: Mid
- Oct 3, 2016: Ideation session 1 of 2.
- Oct 20, 2016: Ideation session 2 of 2.
- Oct 28, 2016: Ideation session 3 (continuation by team)
- Nov 14, 2016: End of sprint period.
Progress Reports¶
What’ve done since Aug, 16: - - -
What we’re going to do between now and the project end: - - -
End of Project Report¶
[end of project report template coming soon]