DCD Blogs/Lessons from the Field

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 Lessons from the Field

 Derek Alton / Strategic Partnerships / Mar 19, 2018

 25 minute read

Hello, world!, We are the Digital Collaboration Division for the Government of Canada and we are working to help reimagine the way people work together to solve civic problems. To do this, we are supporting the development of an open source digital workspace for collaboration and co-creation. To learn more about us, check THIS blog written by Chris Allison.

Our team is working hard this year to bring people along on our learning journey and so stay tuned for more blogs and vlogs coming out from our team in the coming months.

The Digital Collaboration Division is made up of lots of people working on different aspects of this project. This blog shares some of their stories and what they have been learning over the last year as we try to figure out how to do this work together.

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Derek Alton

GCcollab:

@Derek.Alton

Twitter:

@DerekAlton

Who are you and

what do you do?

My name is Derek

Alton and I work on the

strategic partnerships branch of the Digital Collaboration Division. My job is to reach out to key partners (both within and outside of government) to support experiments in digital collaboration and help share their stories. The hope is that by supporting and highlighting these trailblazers we can enable a growing shift in culture for how government solves problems. These experiments also serve as a testing ground for a new generation of digital tools to help with this work.

What is a highlight/special achievement from the last year?

The biggest highlight for me from the last year was seeing how many people are eager to explore this new way of thinking and working. There is often an assumption (one that I myself held when I came into government) that government is outdated and full of people locked in an old way of thinking that doesn’t fit with the times. This year I got to travel across the country and engage with people from many different levels of government and community organizations. I was constantly blown away by how many people get it and are eager to try new things. People who deeply believe that government has a key role to play in helping pull our society forward in the digital age we now live in. These are people not only with passion but also with ideas and energy to put the ideas into action.

What is a lesson from the last year?

Hands down, learning patience. Though there are lots of people eager to think and work in new ways, the system we are in was designed for a different time and a different paradigm. Therefore, to work differently in the system means to constantly be going against the grain. This stuff takes time and tool development can’t always keep up with idea generation (especially when you have a small team). Because I didn’t know how much time and energy everything would take, I tended to overestimate what I could do and spread myself too thin, this in turn undermined my ability to meet my goals.

What are you excited about for the coming year?

The Pathways project. I get to actively seek out inspiring groups of people trying to do things in new ways, support them and then help them tell their story. Through this we both get to test out a new suite of digital tools, like GCcollab, and also build up a repertoire of stories each with their own groups of trail blazers. This is how we shift culture.

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Sierra Duffey

GCcollab: @SDuff

Twitter: @s_duffey

Who are you and what do

you do?

Hi! I’m Sierra Duffey and I

work on the User Experience

and Content team. The thing

I love about my role is that I can make it what I want! I do a variety of tasks such as writing help content, reviewing and improving our users’ experiences, building communities on our tools, and creating great content to share with users. Right now my major role is leading our design system project.

What is a highlight/special achievement from the last year?

My biggest highlight from the last year was joining the team in September. I had a very casual interview, and my first day here went as smooth as possible! Also, right away I felt welcomed to the team and learned very quickly the order of things. The people you work with is so key to enjoying your job and career, so getting to know everyone and learn from them was definitely a highlight of my year that I’m hoping to continue into 2018.

What is a lesson from the last year?

One thing that I’ve been thinking a lot about since working here is my daily relationship with technology and how it improves or decreases my happiness, stress, and expectations. Technology isn’t inherently good or evil, but we do have to put a lot of thought into how we integrate it into our daily lives, and, as designers, how our biases and thought process influence our products right from the start.

This year is going to bring up a lot of unexpected and profound questions about technology and how it’s affecting our world. Technology isn’t just something for “techies” anymore, it is shaped and used by all of us, including governments, countries and citizens at all different levels of expertise. We’re going to have to ask some pretty deep questions about how our digital products and services are affecting people’s lives. In government we have a unique opportunity to set standards and ethical policies that have a real impact on citizens and, potentially, how we interact with other governments around the world.

What are you excited about for the coming year?

The big thing on my mind right now is our new design system that we’re just starting to build. For one, it’s giving me a chance to practice design skills in a very practical way and I still can’t believe I’m leading such a fun project! The design system is key to getting our tools right, and making them beautiful as well as functional. Now that we’re getting bigger and bolder and trying to tackle more philosophical questions about digital + government, it’s essential for us to have a solid guide for designing new products and features. If we don’t have to constantly ask questions about how our products look or how our code should be structured, then we have more time to think about why we’re creating the products in the first place.

If you want to learn more about what a design system is and why we’re building it, you can read my blog post.

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Nick Pietrantonio

GCcollab:

@nicholas.pietrantonio

Who are you and what do

you do?

I’m Nick Pietrantonio and I’m

a developer for the Digital

Collaboration Division. I do a bunch of things such as: building new features, bug fixes, interface design, graphic design and usability testing. In tech speak I am what is called a front end developer. This means I work on the part of the GCtools that you as users see and work with. I’m interested in all aspects of web / software development with a particular fascination for design.

What is a highlight/special achievement from the last year?

This year I had the pleasure of visiting the east coast with Derek Alton, where we accepted the silver award for Innovative Management for the GCTools. We spent time in Moncton, Fredericton, Halifax and Charlottetown meeting with representatives from government, academia and the community. It was a great chance to have discussions and get valuable feedback from current and potential users. We met lots of wonderful people and experienced lots of east coast hospitality.

What is a lesson from the last year?

This year I was able to speak to various users about how we can improve our platform and how to improve the accessibility of our tools. We observed users with screen readers, learned how to use screen readers ourselves and did tons of research to make the tools user-friendly for users with assistive technologies. On top of that I got to geek out and dabble in a ton of new technologies that I didn’t have the chance to explore before! Some examples include: Python Django framework which helps speed up the process of coding applications, and ReactJS that helps provide templates for interfaces.

What are you excited about for the coming year?

I’m excited to find new ways to help public servants do their work and through that improve Canadians experience of government. I think a key part of this will be talking directly to more users and involving them more directly in the design process. I am also really excited for working on the major design problems with this awesome team!

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Chris Allison

GCcollab:

@Christopher.Allison

Twitter:

@ToferC

Who are you and what

do you do?

I’m Chris Allison and I lead

the Digital Collaboration Division at the Treasury Board Secretariat and act as the business lead and product manager for the GCTools. I also champion new ways to use technology to improve our work processes, promoting the use of Open Source Software as a way to work more effectively and support the development of an enterprise framework for governing and using technology effectively.

What is a highlight/special achievement from the last year?

The highlight of last year for me has been a broader understanding of what GCcollab could mean for the Government of Canada. It started as a way to work better with partners and build relationships. In 2017 we were able to shift the perspective to “How can we use an open and accessible collaborative workspace to re-imagine how we work with partners and citizens side by side.” Exactly where this takes us remains to be seen, but the potential to use open source tools to really change the way we work together is already amazing.

What is a lesson from the last year?

Change and getting the right amount of communication are hard. Even on an agile team that’s used to being on the edge, there can be a lot of uncertainty around new technology, new processes and changes to the team from new people joining and old friends departing. If there’s one thing I really learned in 2017, it’s that I really can’t communicate enough and need to make sure the ideas in my head are informed by the whole team and clear and understandable to everyone.

What are you excited about for the coming year?

So much! Working in partnership with the Netherlands (and others!) on a re-build of the core collaboration platform. A whole-of-government design system. The launch of GCmessage as a Government-wide instant messaging and team chat platform. A single sign-on solution and the integration of GCcollab and GCconnex into a single platform. Spending another year with this amazing team.

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Sébastien Lemay

GCcollab:

@Sebastien.Lemay

Twitter:

@smellems

Who are you and what do you

do?

My name is Sebastien Lemay! I am a free software user and advocate. I am an application developer (mainly web), systems administrator (more and more in the cloud) and database administrator. I am currently on assignment with Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS), in the Digital Collaboration Team (GCTools). In addition to organizing the 2017 GCTools Programming Marathon, I am involved in the development of the GCTools and the implementation of strategies for the adoption of open standards and the use and publication of open source software by the GC.

What is a highlight/special achievement from the last year?

The main task of my assignment at TBS was to organize the GCTools Hackathon! We have booked the entire ISED Services Lab, which has a capacity to accommodate 80 people, with the aim of filling it. In collaboration with the organizers, we planned all the details, approvals, workshops, promotion, website, GCconnex and GCcollab groups, team training, food, tables, gaffer tape, sound and Wi-Fi. Although we had a lot of registrations, I was very nervous the first day, wondering if people were coming. Fortunately, about 70 were there to learn how to participate in the development of the GCTools and add or propose new features. A web accessibility discussion group formed naturally in a corner, and there were tests with screen readers and other tools. I had never organized such a big event (or small ones for that matter). It was an intoxicating experience, outside my comfort zone, which also allowed me to meet many interesting people.

What is a lesson from the last year?

At the beginning of my research on programming marathons and how to organize them, I found a guide that was very useful and that I referred to several times. One of the things I discovered in this guide is that a programming marathon is not necessarily a competition, but rather an opportunity to bring the community (users and developers of the GCTools) together and provide the time and space for participants to work on issues that interest them and/or learn something new.

What are you excited about for the coming year?

In late 2017, TBS posted (on GitHub) a draft white paper, Open First, to inspire the new Enterprise Architecture Review Board (EARB) in setting baselines for open standards and open source software. These standards would influence procurement, as well as the development of a digital strategy, to promote the adoption of open standards and the use of open source software. I hope 2018 will be the year we see news that the GC is adopting open standards, strongly encouraging departments to use open source software, and releasing as much code as possible under open source software licenses.

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Joy Moskovic

GCcollab:

@Joy.Moskovic

Twitter:

@Joymosk

Who are you and what do you

do?

My name is Joy Moskovic and I am currently on assignment with the Information and Privacy Policy Division in Treasury Board but spent seven of the past eight years working on Communications and Community Engagement with the Digital Collaboration Division. This meant I promoted usage and uptake of the GCTools, communicate new features and issues, set up learning sessions, offered strategic advice and guidance and helped connect users to the GCTools communities.

What is a highlight/special achievement from the last year?

It was exciting coming back after a year away and to see how much the team had grown, filled with new people, skills, and knowledge. What stands out from the past year, ironically, because I am actually quite introverted, was whenever I got a chance to connect with people face-to-face, hear their stories and help them explore how GCTools could enable and improve their work. Really seeing the tangible connections, you realize the impact our work is having on others. We are just scratching the surface with this and it is exciting to see where we are going next.

What is a lesson from the last year?

The biggest lesson from last year is how much we still have to learn. We are starting to get into things that didn’t even exist a couple years ago. Exploring how we can better use AI, UX design, data and open source approaches to enhance our work. With each of these comes a steep learning curve but also a new horizon of possibilities.

What are you excited about for the coming year?

Even though I am currently on secondment with another team, I will still be a very active user! The GCTools are a part of me, and stepping back gives me the perspective of a user and how the GCTools meet (or sometimes don’t meet) specific business needs. I will be keeping a close eye on my Digital Collaboration Division family. I am excited to see how we integrate the GCTools more deeply into how public servants do their work and the resulting culture change this will enable. With the growing focus on UX design and using data, I am looking forward to seeing the tools evolve to become more intuitive and user friendly. 2018 is going to be a big year for the GCTools and the Digital Collaboration Division!