#civictech

 Nov 4-8, 2019

Monday

The team was a bit slow to reconvene on Monday after a weekend together at CANUX. We did a NextGENTravel team-wide retrospective on last week’s Design Sprint. 

Our working style also incorporates agile sprint planning.

The first two weeks

We spent the first two weeks with our partners getting oriented, and doing free-form discovery; talking with folks, reading documents, reviewing previous research, trying to understand the problem space and organizational context, and getting situated.

We didn’t plan formal sprints; instead we created one Trello board for each week and added tasks as they emerged.

Halfway through this time, I learned about Sprint 0 from Cohort 2 #CodeForCanada PM fellow Siobhan.

Have you had any luck with Sprint 0? Is it useful?

Instead of Sprint 0, we used Sprint 1 to learn how to sprint as a team. We filled and prioritized the backlog, planned the sprint, updated and provided visibility throughout, and reviewed the sprint and did a retrospective together, continuously checking in with one another.

Although we did include substantial tasks, we were kind to ourselves if things were left incomplete.

Sprint planning schedule

Since then, we’ve been on a bi-weekly sprint schedule. The sprint schedule goes as follows:

[Ongoing] Gather activities for the backlog

[Sprint Day 1 - Monday] Sprint planning meeting

[Daily] Standup at 9:45am

[Sprint Day 10 - Friday] Sprint retro

How do you organize your sprint planning meeting, daily standup, and sprint retro meeting? When do you schedule them? What format works best for your team?

Sprint planning tools

We use Trello to build the backlog and tee-up the sprint tasks. This has a simple and straightforward Kanban format – backlog, todo, doing, done.

We tried a couple other Kanban mediums – colourful sticky notes & sharpies and writing on a whiteboard.

Although these are great for in-office visibility, ultimately Trello is our source-of-truth because it enables remote work and is accessible on mobile.

What tools or software do you use for sprint planning and tracking?

Maintaining and prioritizing the backlog

Since we’re still in discovery, our backlog tasks have been exploratory and high-level. For example, “map the policy landscape” or “build a framework to prioritize problems”.

I often refer to these as “choose-your-own-adventure” activities. In almost all cases, the person who proposed the activity was accountable for ensuring it got done. They had the best idea of how to approach the activity – whether it was individual research, a sticky-note workshop with the team, or setting up stakeholder interviews. But the approach became more visible as new information was uncovered.

Because these were mostly led by individuals, there hasn’t been much backlog maintenance or prioritization thus far.

At the beginning of a project, how do you balance your team’s excitement for individual initiatives and investigation, and prioritizing a backlog?

Looking forward

Change is inevitable. As our project progresses, we’ll reassess what works and what doesn’t, and adapt from there.

As we move into experimentation, our activities will become more concrete in scope and tasks. Our tasks will likely have to be estimated and the backlog groomed; priorities clearly communicated to ensure the team is aligned and moving in the same direction.

From board meetings to infinity mapping, as Code for Canada fellows, we’ve just firehosed through our first week at the National Energy Board--soon to be the Canadian Energy Regulator.   

We’ve found new ways of thinking and talking about energy data. Starting with pipeline cleaners as pipeline rhumbas to gamefully engaging board members as human libraries while we assumed roles of the public--farmer, student, scientist, and more. Historically, we have viewed energy regulation as a legal experience filled with lawyers, hearings, and community groups advocating for their rights within a legal process. But many others, like the aforementioned roles, would benefit from meaningfully engaging with this information on the environment, land rights, and renewable energy that only this Board has access to.  

What will this digital transformation look like? We have a plethora of ideas, but we don’t know yet. Right now we are embracing the gray area of discovery, learning from our mistakes, being mindful about our scope of work, and slowly growing our digital government skills. As we discover and navigate what’s possible in this blue sky, while refusing to let folks rain on our parade, or rather, Calgary Stampede, we’ll soon find out. We invite you to come along for the (horse) ride!

Lequanne, on behalf of the fellows

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Des réunions du conseil à la cartographie à l’infini, en tant que boursiers du Code pour le Canada, nous venons tout juste de briller dans notre première semaine à l’Office national de l’énergie - qui sera bientôt l’organisme canadien de réglementation de l’énergie.

Nous avons trouvé de nouvelles façons de penser et de parler des données énergétiques. Commençons par les nettoyeurs de pipelines en tant que rhumbas de pipeline, puis les membres du conseil d’administration en tant que bibliothèques humaines, tandis que nous assumons les rôles d’agriculteur public - étudiant, scientifique, etc. Historiquement, nous avons considéré la réglementation de l'énergie comme une expérience juridique remplie d'avocats, d'audiences et de groupes communautaires défendant leurs droits dans le cadre d'une procédure judiciaire. Mais beaucoup d’autres, à l’instar des rôles susmentionnés, gagneraient à s’intéresser de manière significative à ces informations sur l’environnement, les droits fonciers et les énergies renouvelables, auxquelles seul ce Conseil a accès.

À quoi ressemblera cette transformation numérique? Nous avons une pléthore d’idées, mais nous ne le savons pas encore. Pour le moment, nous abordons la zone grise de la découverte, tirons les leçons de nos erreurs, sommes conscients de notre champ de travail et développons lentement nos compétences en matière de gouvernement numérique. Au fur et à mesure que nous découvrons et naviguons dans ce ciel bleu, tout en refusant de laisser les gens pleuvoir sur notre défilé, ou plutôt dans le Stampede de Calgary, nous le saurons bientôt. Nous vous invitons à venir faire un tour à cheval!

Lequanne, au nom des boursiers

Another four day week here in the office of Public Services and Procurement Canada working on NextGEN Travel! 

The team is really looking at this problem through a *design thinking* lens, and before the Code for Canada fellows showed up, the extended team had already done a lot of work to empathize and understand government travel needs. 

VIDEO | AUDIO | RECAP | ARCHIVE | PERMALINK On May 8, 2026, BetaNYC hosted a BetaBagels conversation with its 13th cohort of Civic Innovation Fellows, Ayela Janjua and Jillian Melough. The session traced the Fellows’ journey from the College of Staten Island to organizing digital and data literacy events across New York City, including BetaNYC’s inaugural Mapping for Equity events on Staten…

The media talks about Smart Cities like they are a sci-fi future.  

We are building them right now.  

The future is autonomous flying taxis.  

The present is smart waste bins that tell sanitation trucks when they are full, saving 30% on fuel and route time.  

The future is self-aware infrastructure.  

The present is smart streetlights that dim when roads are empty and communicate air quality metrics back to a centralized municipal dashboard.  

ICity Tek provides the ruggedized IoT sensors, LPWAN connectivity, and data platforms that municipalities use to solve real-world urban problems today.  

Smart cities start with smart pragmatism.  

B Smart, 24 mars 2026 | L’intelligence artificielle s’impose désormais dans les politiques locales.