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Over the course of the past couple years 18F has been working with the FEC to redesign the user experience on fec.gov. The project is nearing a point where the beta site will become the primary landing site for users as a much of the key functionality will be available on the new site.
However, there will still be work left to be done and 18F will need to transition the work back to the FEC. A critical component of this transition is ensuring that the FEC is in a position to continue the work 18F has started in delivering a user centered experience using open source technologies.
This lasting change is only achievable a small step at a time. In the following diagrams 🔴
Currently, there is a Product Owner team made of folks from the FEC that serve as the primary contact to the 18F product teams. This is a vital aspect of successful 18F engagements as they serve as the SMEs of the FEC and ensure decisive responses to questions the 18F product teams may have.
This single point of contact is crucial in an interagency collaboration. However, when transitioning back to the FEC, we look for this to change as we would want to reduce the layers between the product team and stakeholders.
The vision is to transform the product owner team into a core team that is fully entrenched with the product team itself.
This core team would consist of:
Product : Responsible for defining the strategic vision of the product as well as driving the tactical execution in delivering those products to market.
Design : Working to develop an intimate understanding of users needs and fleshing out the content and designs required to ensure the product meets those needs.
Technical Lead : As the FEC may have both internal developers as well as contracted developers; this role serves to provide technical oversight to the team.
The following role description have been developed so that the FEC can evaluate which roles can be filled from folks already at the agency as opposed to those that should be filled externally.
Product Placeholder Design Placeholder(s) Technical Lead Placeholder
Once the core team is identified, 18F will provide structured training to those folks in the various processes and skills needed to fulfill those roles. In addition, those folks would also shadow the product teams for 2-3 sprints to see how those processes and skills are applied; and slowly take over some of the activities.
After shadowing the 18F product teams, the core team members will then become the primary leaders of the team. Product prioritization, user research, usability testing and synthesis would be owned by the core team members. The 18F folks that were serving in those roles would continue to be members of the team but now assume more of a support role for the core members. The 18F developers would be taking their cue from the core team members.
Once the 18F product teams ramp down at the end of the engagement, the core team will then be leading a team comprised entirely of FEC folks and contractors. During the first few <> there should be an available set of 18F folks that the core team could consult with as they execute on the projects.