Course two - Check in

Let’s take a minute to pause before we move on to the next few lessons in this course.

Up to this point, the lessons in courses one and two may be seemed mostly relevant to your daily work. You’ve probably seen roadmaps and thought about metrics and project management before. The material has hopefully given you a new view on these familar aspects and markers you often encounter in your state’s projects.

The next few lessons, however, may contain concepts that are newer to you. Some may seem like details you don’t need to think too much about. But having a good understanding of these aspects of the development process will help you determine when and why the process isn’t working. You may not directly work on the things described in the next lessons, but knowing that they are markers of a healthy project will help you hone your view.

Artifacts of the job (20m, solo)

The final three lessons of course two concern vendor contracts, user testing, and software testing. These are things that states may not offer up and asking about them may not be a part of your regular work process. So let’s do a small exercise to frame them and provide discussion material for the group.

1. Take a minute to write out what you wish you knew about one of your state’s projects that you can’t necessarily tell from the materials they give you. Maybe you want to know that their next release will work as described or that they’ll be able to launch without a major failure.
2. Think about some common artifacts you get from your state about their products — maybe they give you their roadmaps, for example. then take a minute to write out things you wish you got from them – maybe you wish you knew more about their relationship with their vendor, so you wish you had more time to help them navigate the selection and contracting process.
3. Try to think about these wishes and artifacts independently of any time constraints you have on your work now.
4. Write all of these examples down and bring them to the group meeting to discuss.

Discuss in community (1h, group)

Meet to discuss your solo notes.

1. Check in. (5m timer) While people are arriving, check in with each-other. How is everyone doing? Take a moment to share something positive from the week, either at work or at home.
2. Centering. (3m timer) We jump from meeting-to-meeting and there’s nothing healthy about that. You will get more from the next hour if you’re here. A simple breathing exercise (breathe in on 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4) is a good way to clear your mind and body. There’s lots of resources online (4m20s) regarding simple centering exercises that you could investigate and use at the start of group conversation.
3. Focus. (1m timer) Take one minute to identify one or two insights from the solo activity you’d like to share.
4. Share out. (30m timer) As a group, first share out the examples and artifacts you found to be most interesting in your reflections. Then, go back around and take a minute or two each (round-robin) to share why those ideas triggered insight. This should take roughly 30 minutes total, and try and create space for everyone to share out.
5. Transformation. (15m timer) Were there themes that you saw emerge from your insights? Commonalities across projects? Identify what you saw as a group. Then (and more importantly), do you have any thoughts about your process with states, and how you might transform your process so as to improve outcomes? The note taker should try and capture the group’s thoughts regarding themes and process transformation for sharing back out to the group/community.