Lessons Learned - OneGC Alexa Proof of Concept Micro-mission

Micro-Mission Experience at TBS

What went well

This was my first micro-mission ever (4-week assignment) and it was a great learning experience.

TBS location made it ideal for me to try a different restaurant every day while working downtown Ottawa
I was able to learn about TBS, Alexa Skills, and other departments needs
I was able to share my knowledge and Alexa Skills experience with other participants and provide them technical support
I was glad to have had two weeks to ramp up on Alexa prior to hosting the 4 departments
I was happy to meet very motivated developers from 3 out of 4 departments on the 3rd week
GitHub was a nice platform to share code and host a wiki for developers and designers
The OpenGov WiFi was instrumental for the development and testing of Alexa Skills on the Amazon Echo device that was assigned to me (no proxy settings nor firewall issues)
It was the first time that I worked in the open (publicly-faced GitHub repositories). This was a great way to share our experience of Alexa Skills with everyone in the world.
I really like the fact that TBS sent out Tweets to tell the world about our event.
The meeting rooms used when hosting the event are well suited for a collaborative effort with the big TV screens and open WiFi.

What could have gone better

It would have been great to have a developer from the 4th department on the 3rd week
It would have been great to start our 2-week collaboration with all 4 departments in mid-July. But since it started later, I will probably miss the ending.
- The original plan was to start on the 2nd week of July. It got postponed to the 4th week.
- The good news is that we got to meet the developers on the 3rd week
  - Got to see their dataset, think about their use cases and provide a day-long Alexa Skills training
Alexa Skills has a lot of training material, code samples and tutorials scattered all over the web. I would have liked to see a well defined and structured course to cover all the key concepts for developing a voice assistant skill. There's an AWS Certification. But, there doesn't seem to be an Alexa Skills Certification from Amazon.
The furniture in the open space area is definitely not adequate for long periods of software development. The table and chair height were not adjustable and it caused shoulder and forearm pain.
For a good live debugging experience, 3rd party developer tools are needed for a good end-to-end software development experience. It would be great for Amazon to list these tools in their documentation and provide guidance for end-to-end software development and testing.
I would have like to download an Alexa desktop application directly from Amazon instead of relying on a 3rd party application.

What to do next time

Consider inviting local businesses, companies, provincial governments (e.g. Ontario), crown corporations (e.g. CBC) or departments to share their Alexa Skills experience with the participants.
Consider inviting or hiring consultants or companies to provide a structured training to participants.
Consider getting firm commitments from the supplier (e.g. Amazon) several weeks in advance.
Consider getting the developers from the different departments on a 4-week micro-mission with the goal of releasing an official Alexa Skills for their respective department.

What needs to be fixed to make it better

Book meeting rooms well ahead of the event
Have ergonomic furniture in open spaces
Consider inviting or hiring companies that can provide training.
Consider inviting or hiring companies that can help departments continue the development of their Alexa Skills well after the 2-week hackathon.
It would be awesome to have at least one developed Alexa Skills go through the submission process and become available for all Canadians using Amazon Echo devices or the Alexa app on their smartphone.