Creating the Next Generation of Brigade Project Guidance [Brigade Congress 2019]

#1

This is a thread for notes and discussion about the Brigade Congress 2019 session:

Session: Creating the Next Generation of Brigade Project Guidance
Presented by: Tom Dooner (Code for America)

Thanks everyone for attending my session! See below for links to carry on the effort:

The canvas templates can be found here:

Also, the Google Drive folder to upload completed/work-in-progress canvases is here:
http://c4a.me/canvas-upload

There is also the #projects:project-canvases category in this Discourse for sharing and discussion.

Presentation:

Notes Document:

Introducing Brigade Project Canvases
2019 Brigade Congress
Introducing Brigade Project Canvases
#2

Tom, would you mind posting a link to the template canvases here?

#3

Sure thing @stevenabadie. I just updated the top post.

2 Likes
#4

As a non-attendee of this talk, I love the format and questions. We’ve never used a rigorous structure for our projects, but I think one would be super helpful. The one question I had after reviewing the slides is: @tdooner do you think making every project do this at the outset is a good idea, or would you say there’s a different “best” time to complete it?

A short follow up is: can you elaborate on the difference between the “Technology Project” canvas and the “Discovery Project” one? I’m thinking that I use the “Discovery” one when I’m not sure of a specific “Technology Project” that I’ve already outlined clearly-enough to start “writing code” on. Is that right? (I feel fairly clear that the “User Testing Canvas” is for when I’m wanting to discover how users find working with a specific tool, but if I’m mistaken about that I’d also love to learn.)

#5

Our thinking on this is that the format is likely flexible enough to fit in your process wherever makes sense (i.e. it is likely still helpful even for existing projects). That said, I do think that there are benefits to completing the Canvas early: it serves as documentation for new team members that come onboard, and also helps force some clarity of vision for the project team.

You got it. We were thinking that a Discovery project would be something like a “needs finding” process – working within the community to determine what some possible Technology projects might be.