Date: February 25, 2021
This document outlines how we prioritize the work on COVID Alert. As COVID Alert is one tool of many to slow the spread of COVID-19, this product needs to respond to the changing landscape of the pandemic. This framework provides alignment across those working on it on how we prioritize what we work on next.
A product backlog is a tool used in agile development to track and evaluate new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome.
- Flexible and ever-changing: as we learn new insights, the priority and order of the items in the backlog may change.
- Needs-based: Items in this backlog are based on the needs of public health and people using the app.
- Defined by priority level, not timelines: We release features when they’re ready - no sooner, no later.
This backlog is reassessed on a regular basis, and we can provide updates on this in a two week cadence. This cadence aligns with the sprint schedule of the team.
Governance of the Exposure Notification service is shared across several bodies, managed jointly by Health Canada and the Canadian Digital Service:
| Governing Body | Role | Cadence |
| PHAC Executive Medical Advisors |
What: Principal medical consultant to COVID Alert and conduit to Special Advisory Council. |
As needed |
| Special Advisory Committee (SAC) | Who: Pan-Canadian Public Health Network (PHN) co-chairs include representatives from several Government of Canada departments, as well as members of the Public Health Network Council and the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health. Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, and Dr. Saqib Shahab, Chief Medical Health Officer, Saskatchewan co-chair the committee. What: Advise the Conference of FPT Deputy Ministers of Health on the coordination, public health policy, and technical content related to the COVID-19 outbreak. |
Weekly |
| Federal/Provincial/Territory (FPT) Public Health Working Group | Who: Working group comprised of representatives from all Provincial and Territorial COVID Alert teams (includes public health and digital delivery representatives) What: Responsible for ensuring optimal experience of the COVID Alert app and service in their respective jurisdictions. Working Group activity includes service updates (pending features/bugs), Province and Territory public health input and feedback, sharing of best practices |
Twice-monthly calls Monthly newsletter Monthly Demos |
| Advisory Council | The Government has named the COVID-19 Exposure Notification App Advisory Council that will ensure the app meets the highest standards in public health outcomes, technology, and privacy. The Council includes people with various expertise and perspectives including health, privacy, data governance, science, and innovation. Council members also reflect Canada's cultural diversity. |
Council, biweekly Co-chair, weekly |
From the very onset of this service, we have used this process and decision framework to make any and all decisions on features, changes, bug fixes and infrastructure changes to the app.
All of these phases are a collaborative effort between Health Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Digital Service. We also seek guidance from external partners like provinces and territories, Advisory council etc throughout as well.
| Phases ↓ | Details |
| 1. Initial Flag | An outcome or need is flagged to the team through one of the governance channels or user research insights. |
| 2. Decision process | The outcome or need is put through the decision process outlined below. Features are prioritized and either moved to the backlog or the parking lot for future investigation. |
| 3. Research & propose solutions | Once a feature has moved into the high priority list, the team works together to understand how a need or outcome might be met, and assess the impact. In this step, we consult users of the service, research findings, privacy and policy, public health, developers, comms and the support team to understand the best way to address the need or outcome, and understand potential impacts that this change may have. |
| 4. Implement & test | Once we understand how we might solve this, the team designs and implements the solution. Once a proposed solution is implemented, it moves through cycles of user testing and technical testing/quality assurance. |
| 5. Release | Once a feature has been successfully implemented and passed testing, the feature is released. |
| Comms & Guidance | Throughout all of these steps, there is constant collaboration, alignment and communication between Health Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Digital Service, as well as many other partners including provinces and territories, the advisory council etc. This collaboration takes into consideration how we communicate this to the public, what the impacts of these changes are, and how this aligns to public health guidance. |
Any time we add a new feature to the app, it is triaged, prioritized and analyzed. Below is a detailed outline of how backlog items make their way through this process, and ultimately how it is decided what is implemented into the app.
All of these decisions are a collaborative effort between Health Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Digital Service.
Requests for features or changes to the app come in through one of the many channels into the team. These channels include:
- Public health needs & guidance (via SAC, FPT)
- Support & feedback channels
- User research findings & insights
- Apple & Google updates
- Technical/design open source channels
When features come in through any of these channels, we’re always focused on the desired outcome. Once we understand the desired outcome, the team then prioritizes it against current and ongoing work. Research and healthcare needs steer the product and service decisions.
Once the desired outcome is understood, the team then prioritizes the backlog item against current and upcoming work, using 4 main criteria:
- Public health: Is this a public health priority?
- User need: Do we have proof users need this / are we solving the right problem?
- Urgency: Is this a fix that needs to happen right away?
- In debt: Do we need to do this to keep the product running smoothly?
Once an item is prioritized, it either gets worked on right away (urgent fixes) or is put into the backlog for the team to work on. Once an item reaches high priority, the item is analyzed for feasibility, viability, impact and user need.
** Note: if the backlog item doesn’t meet any of these criteria, it will likely not move forward beyond this stage. It will be moved into the “parking lot” until the team has a clear understanding of the desired outcome that aligns with the product strategy.
When conducting an analysis of a backlog item, we look at it from a few different lenses:
- Uptake: How might this impact trust, accessibility, availability, awareness or understanding of the service?
- Functionality: How might this impact the core functionality of the service, including guidance and detection?
- Impact and size: What is the scope of this change, and who needs to be involved?
While analyzing features, we work with both internal teams at HC, PHAC and CDS, as well as external stakeholders such as provinces and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
Once the feature has been analyzed, we decide whether the team should move forward with a feature, and how to proceed. If a decision cannot be reached on whether something should move forward or not, we consult others such as the Advisory Council, PCO, and OPC.