Toronto Civic Tech Proposal: Toronto Budget Project - HenrikBechmann/CivicTechTO-TorontoBudget GitHub Wiki

#Toronto Civic Tech Proposal: Toronto Budget Project

Document created by Henrik Bechmann, Sunday July 26, 2015.

Contents

Background

On July 21 at the first regular Toronto Civic Tech meeting I (Henrik) proposed a project to help make the Toronto Budget process more accessible to the people of Toronto. In aid of this I offered my research into A Better Taxonomy for the Toronto Budget. Since then many more resources have come to light.

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to provide a basis for creating a concrete project plan for this project. I will provide edit rights to Civic Tech members who wish to participate.

All content below should for the moment be considered draft material, available for comment or revision.

Mission

The mission of this project is to provide a concrete assist to the Toronto Budget process which will make it easier for Toronto citizens to contribute.

Mandate

As pointed out in the BetterBudgetTo paper (page 3 under “participation”), Toronto City Council specifically requested City officers to report back to the Budget Committee on “a comprehensive community consultation process for priority setting for both spending and investment for the multi-year 2016, 2017 and 2018 budgets” (reference, see item 2). This provides an opportunity for a Civic Tech project (and partners) to contribute.

Status

I believe this project requires two things to move forward:

A workgroup, consisting of knowledgeable and motivated individuals who can collectively represent the interests of the budget stakeholders, and who collectively can marshal sufficient resources to achieve a concrete result. These are the people who would self-organize into a production team.

A project focus and plan that clearly articulates the purpose and development plans for the project

Workgroup

People who are committed to this project, assuming sufficient resources are made available (I believe we probably need at least five):

Members

  • Henrik Bechmann
  • Asher Zafar
  • Matthew Gray
  • Curtis McCord
  • Ryan Bigge
  • Andrew Do

Design Tools

Here are some of the design tools that could be used to provide an initial focus:

  • Business analysis, to provide background information on the budget process, its actors, and some suggestions for requirements. Much of this has been done with the BetterBudgetTo paper
  • Impact mapping, to develop progressive focus on target audiences and features.
  • Design Studio or some other persona-based approach to provide further detail into user interactions

As that develops,

  • Behaviour Driven Development can offer breakouts of Stories and Scenarios suitable for detailed project management
  • and if the project is the foundation for something complex, Domain Driven Design for a highly clarified core that can be leveraged for future expansion.

Some Relevant Questions

  1. What specific problems are there to solve with regard to accessibility of budget information, in a “human-centred” way—i.e., perhaps develop a persona and their specific issue

  2. Are there well-executed/effective solutions out there to these problems?

  3. If not, what problem may be high-impact/feasible for us to observe? To eventually develop a solution for?

(thanks to Asher for these)

Resources

  • A more accessible taxonomy for City of Toronto Budget Summaries, February 26, 2015. Henrik Bechmann; link
  • New Report: Putting the public back in public budgeting, May 29, 2015, by BetterBudgetTo; link
  • Towards a more visionary, participatory, and accessible budget process for the City of Toronto A consultation paper, Feb 14 2014, by BetterBudgetTo; link
  • Civic tech tools for better city budgets (slide deck), June 16, 2015, Matthew Gray & Asher Zafar; link

Third parties

Project Focus Options

See separate wiki page for this.

Tasks

review local budget explainer material, and usage of material in public consultations

Examples:

  • City of Toronto material
  • toronto star budget explainers

Appendix A: BDD stories

INVEST:

  • Independent
  • Negotiable
  • Valuable
  • Estimable
  • Small
  • Testable