Sprint Cycle 2018-21

Overview:

The challenge system development cycle leading up to the Wavumbuzi Rwanda 2021 iteration spanned from May 2020 - March 2021, following the Kenya 2020 Challenge and the subsequent insourcing and onboarding process between January 2020 and April 2020. The development cycle was broken down into several sprints (each focusing on a specific functional area of the system.

Transition to In-House Development Team

An in-house development team was established in Rwanda following a multi-stage organization and project onboarding process. Realm was contracted on a retainer basis to complete technical onboarding. Detailed technical documentation was also captured as part of the onboarding process, which is important for efficient system maintenance and preserving institutional knowledge.

Minutes: Realm Handover Workshop

Efficient Multi-Instance Code Base Configuration

The underlying code base inherited from Sea Monster was not configured for the efficient deployment of multi-country and multi-year iterations, which prohibited efficient scalability. As such, the following adjustments were implemented:

• Several steps in the deployment process which previously required manual reconfiguration for each new instance were automated.

• Several fixed (hard-coded) elements in the code base were recoded to form “white label” variables, which could be easily reconfigured for new countries and new iterations.

• Ionic (the underlying framework for the code) was upgraded to improve security and offer access to the latest version of the framework (required for updated support and features)

• Removing lameco bundle & tables

Immediate returns were seen with the seamless deployment of the Rwanda 2021 iteration.

Improved Teacher and Learner UX

Insights from the Kenya 2020 iteration of the challenge indicated that changes to the learner and teacher registration experiences would result in improved conversions rates and more accurate tracking of user engagement. As such, the following adjustments were implemented:

Learner Portal

• Portal was configured to handle pre-registration (previously handled by third party forms)

• Tutorials on first entry were added to automate learner onboarding

• New popup notification triggers were added to improve user flow and story

• The collection point for secondary data was relocated to limit progression hurdles

• Additional automated emails/SMSs were added to prompt learner engagement

Teacher Portal

• All of the above changes to the learner portal were also applied to the teacher portal

• In addition, new functionality was also built to facilitate virtual teacher training

Key System Integrations

Without integrations between the challenge platform, selected CRM system, reporting system and key communication tools, significant manual work was required to align data across the respective systems, increasing the risk of data contamination. To reduce this risk, and increase the efficiency of data control, the following integrations were configured:

HANDOVER

Kanban Board (JIRA)

The Kanban board was cleaned up a/o 08 October 2021. There are some items awaiting Peace and Ruti's input, but otherwise it is fully up to date.

The Wavumbuzi Project was exported from the XELT Atlassian account by Peace Alliance on 13 October 2021 and transferred to a new AGGP Atlassian account.

• Confluence Export

• JIRA Export

The new AGGP Atlassian account can be accessed using the below links:

• AGGP JIRA Wavumbuzi Project

• AGGP Confluence Pages

Items Selected for Development

This is the suggested course of action for 5 October to 5 November as Kat (interim Product Owner) is onboarded and begins her research/scoping exercise:

• First 9 tickets relate to the most higher priority bugs (up to WT-134). Additional bugs further down, but less of a priority.

• Next, documented in WT-1118, WT-1119, WT-1120, WT-1121 looks at the set down and setup of Kenya and Rwanda respectively.

• Then, I suggest focus shifts to system handover items (including shift to AGGP Atlassian account)

• Thereafter (WT-310 through to WT-378) I suggest a focus on system maintenance, which should require no design input.

• From WT-1046 through to WT-1016, I suggest attention then shifts back to lower priority bugs.

• Finally, from WT-1047 through to WT-1123, I suggest moving on to scoping the items we discussed during Rwanda week (documented below)

A key consideration here is that with the desire to limit any major new feature development before Kat has had a chance to scope longer-term changes for the system, it is likely that Kenya 4 next year will be very similar in format to Rwanda 2 this year, with only time for minor changes likely to be possible in the new year before Kenya 4 (following the completion of Kat's scoping on 10 December).

JIRA Backlog

All other ideas, thoughts, inspirations, lessons and musings sit in the JIRA backlog in broad feature sections (Epics), which should be considered in the next scoping/sprint planning exercise for future development priorities.

Key Constraints

Here is a list of key constraints to consider for the 6 months between Nov 2021 to May 2022 to guide thinking on priority setting:

• 30 Sep 2021: Rwanda 2 Registration Live

• 17 Oct 2021: Kenya 3 Gameplay Ends

• 25 Oct 2021: Rwanda 2 Gameplay Live

• 05 Dec 2021: Rwanda 2 Gameplay Ends

• Mid Mar 2022: Kenya 4 Registration Live

• End Apr 2022: Kenya 4 Challenge Live

Key Improvement Areas

Below is a list of features/improvements identified during the Rwanda Summit which is recommended for consideration in the scoping of future development priorities. These all sit in JIRA as tickets for scoping.

• WT-1105 = Shifting to a single sign-on system (registration only required once and data carried across challenges)

• WT-1106 = Reconfiguration of badges in alignment with new quest structure

• WT-1107 = Front-end configurations to handle multiple competitions (ability to have year-round content as well as 6-week challenge)

• WT-1122 = Shifting to a single iteration (country-agnostic) system (with ability to contextualise for country challenge iterations)

• WT-1108 = Upgrade of current servers to handle growing user base

• WT-885 = Reviewing and upgrading report functionality on super admin and teacher portal (to ensure accurate, live data is displayed)

• WT-218 = Setting up a country agnostic demo (which can be shared with external stakeholders)

• WT-1123 = Amend API to shift from Google Data Studio to Power BI (TBC by M&E team)

• WT-952 = Automation of regular system audits to identify bad behaviour (currently done manually)

• WT-14 = Improvement of the school points formula

• WT-984 = Expand the scope of the current GTM API (to improve operational reporting capabilities)

• WT-1111 = Expand the scope of the current Hubspot API (to improve operational reporting/tracking capabilities)