Work in the open
Open ways of working build public trust in government, encourage innovation, improve our services and make it easier for people to access government services and information. Working in the open means:
- Collaborating widely and using open development practices
- Sharing updates on your work with colleagues and the public
- Sharing source code and non-sensitive data when it’s safe to do so
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Use open development practices
Open practices are key to developing good government services. They promote trust and transparency between government and the public and encourage others to collaborate with us. To make your work more open:
- Collaborate inside and outside of government to find new ideas, improve your product and give back to the digital community
- Seek feedback from the public and use it to guide decisions about your service
- Share updates on your work with colleagues and the public, such as through a blog, open demos, an open backlog or a design history
- Be transparent about how you plan to deliver your service, what resources you’re using and what metrics you use to measure its performance
Share code and data
Publishing source code and non-sensitive data is an important part of working in the open. When done safely, it can encourage reuse, enable collaboration and reduce duplication. To share your information responsibly:
- Understand when code and data can’t be shared, such as when it includes personal or protected information
- Publish your source code using an accepted platform such as GitHub to create cleaner code and documentation and help identify bugs
- Share non-sensitive data in a way that’s consistent with our data management and open data policies, for example using the BC Data Catalogue
Alignment guide
The alignment guide is intended to be used with the supporting context of the related practice and resources. This guide provides examples of what the implementation of this practice may look like and defines a range of competence within the practice area.
1
Initial
Initial teams may not see value in working in the open, making them isolated from colleagues and the community.
Examples include:
- Refusing to collaborate with other government teams or take an interest in what they are doing
- Failing to document their work or share updates on their progress
- Keeping their information and data siloed from colleagues and hidden from the public
2
Developing
Developing teams understand why working in the open matters and are building their capacity to do it properly.
Examples include:
- Reshaping their team culture to be more open and transparent
- Building connections with other government teams and learning about ways to connect with the public about their work
- Understanding which of their data should (and should not) be shared and finding suitable ways of doing so
3
Delivering
Delivering teams proactively share code, data and updates on their work to build trust with colleagues and the public.
Examples include:
- Collaborating widely with the government digital community and sharing regular, meaningful updates on their progress
- Coding in the open and sharing their data by default, such as by using open repositories and publishing data to the BC Data Catalogue
4
Optimizing
Optimizing teams continually measure and iterate their ways of working to make them as open as possible.
Examples include:
- Creating comprehensive open documentation that shows how their product works and uses data at every layer of the technology stack
- Contributing to innovative documentation and transparency techniques such as interactive design histories that help them share their work efficiently and accessibly
5
Innovating
Innovating teams aim for complete transparency in their work and promote openness across the digital government community.
Examples include:
- Shifting government’s digital culture towards being more transparent and connected to the communities it serves
- Striving to make their product and processes radically transparent, such as by allowing real-time access to their data through open digital storage
Resources
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Open Data
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Communities of Practice
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GitHub
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rocket.chat
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Stack Overflow