Applying Agile Principles to Data Visualization Project Executive Office of Education IT July 28, 2016

Agenda ● Project genesis ● Data visualization story ● Agile project approach ● Visualization demo ● Lessons learned

Project Genesis How can we add value to some of EOE customers in a four-month project? CSD Manager Roundtable EOE IT & MASS IT CUSTOMERS School District Staff, ESE Staff, General Public 3

Data Visualization Story ● To bring a visualization to a published school district data set on ESE website ● To build a data set visualization by leveraging EOE IT and MassIT Data Office staff resources and technical tools ● To utilize the visualization as a prototype to market and analyze how the pros and cons of visualization for ESE data ● To enhance the user experience by complementing the static view of tables with a more dynamic approach 4

Project Approach ● Agile principles ● Focus on enhancing user experience ● Collaborative approach ● Team makes the decisions ● Requirements evolve and adapt and timeline is fixed ● Develop and complete incremental iterations ● Hybrid Methodology (Agile/Kanban ideas) ● Create user stories ● Set up biweekly Sprint meetings - all stakeholders ● Set up weekly Kanban style meeting – core group of stakeholders 5

Project Planning - Roadmap  Product owner (4) –EOE IT, MassIT  Scrum lead (1) – EOE  Weekly kanban style meeting - developers (2), subject matter expert (2), scrum lead  Sprint meeting – 2-week deliverables – full team SPRINT 2-Weeks PROJECT TIMELINE – FEBRUARY – APRIL 2016 – TEAM OF 9 BACKLOG SPRINT BACKLOG DELIVERABLE SCRUM Meeting (weekly) 6

Current Access to Data per Year 7

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Visualization Link ● MassIT Demo 9

Technology Utilized ● Visualization of already published data ● Utilization of Open source technology ● CartoDB (Web Mapping Platform) ● CartoCSS for map symbolization/styling ● CartoDB ’ s Application Programming Interface (API) to filter, get and manipulate the dataset on the front end and on the fly ● Socrata (Open Data Platform) ● Data Store ● Application Programming Interface (API) for Data Exchange ● Simple Data Filtering and Visualization Tools ● D3.js (Open Source Data Visualization Javascript Library) ● Languages: SQL, Javascript, HTML, CSS 10

Challenges & Risks ● Time & Effort ● Small slices of work allowed for continuous re-adjustment of scope and product delivery ● Prioritization ● Continuous meetings allowed re-assessment of work and barriers to ensure on-time product delivery ● Technical issues ● Browsers compatibility ● Data exchange mapping ● Continuity and stabilization of the project ● Set up a process for keeping the yearly data exchange up-to- date and expand static data presentation to up-to-date web- style visualizations 11

Lessons Learned ● Transparency and honesty at meetings led to viable outcome. ● Selection of appropriate technology ● Scope adjustment ● Time and resource adjustment ● Weekly meetings facilitated delivery process ● People felt heard ● Project would have benefitted from including ESE website end users and ESE data council group ● Project extension plan 12

Agile principles apply to any project size

Sponsors & Contributors ● Sponsor Mass IT ● Holly St. Clair ● Developer ● Sienna Svob ● User Perspective ● Jessica Martin  Sponsor EOE IT  Peggy Kraft  Wallace McKenzie  Stanley Wrobel  Developer  Brian Philpot  User Perspective  Ellen Supple  Project Lead  Elizabeth Lovece