Getting started

Understand the problem the open standard will solve: and why it is the right solution

Evaluate the benefits of the open standard: including who will benefit and how

Engage with others who share the same problem: to build a community that could benefit from the open standard

Identify the community of people and organisations: who will use or be affected by your open standard

Decide on early adopters: the people and organisations who will be the first to use the open standard and help to scope and develop it

Identify the type of open standard that will deliver the most benefits: or choose the features that might be combined from each

Plan to sustain the standard: and identify who can help with securing funding, resourcing development, creating guides, engaging in advocacy and more

Decide how to manage change with a governance process that makes it clear: who manages change, how change is managed and how often the open standard will be updated

Develop guides for sharing data: that focus on improving data quality and access to data

Research existing open standards: that can be built on, extended or adapted for your needs

Develop an open standards for data canvas: that provides a single view of the open standard: the problem, solution, community, resources, risks and impacts

Understand and map the ecosystem the standard will operate in: including the data infrastructure

Scoping and starting

Develop a theory of change: to clarify the aims and objectives of the open standard

Develop conceptual models or other diagrams: that visualise the concepts, flow of information, or scenarios for the open standard

Create stakeholder and empathy maps: of who will use or be affected by the open standard and how

Decide on core features: that are essential to successful use of the open standard

Decide on features that make the open standard interoperable: (works well with existing standards) by reusing existing formats, vocabularies, identifiers and more

Decide on features that make the open standard adaptable and extendable: so it can be used in a variety of real-world scenarios

Decide where the open standard will be used and what languages must be supported: for the technical documents, guides and other resources

Design tests for the open standard: that reflect the real-world scenarios that adopters will encounter when they use it

Design with the five Open Stand principles: so the open standard is developed fairly, transparently and cooperatively

Decide how to keep in touch with the standard’s community as the standard is developed:

Decide who owns intellectual property: on the open standard and contributions from others

Choose a development method and development partner: that suit the aims of the open standard and the needs of the stakeholders

Decide on an open license for the standard: choose a license that allows anyone to access, use and share the open standard

Decide on phases of work: in line with the chosen development method and governance process

Create a plan for the development: that outlines the scope, schedule, features and budget for the development stage

Get approval to begin development: from the standards owner, funder, or others with a responsibility for managing the standard

Development

Assemble a team: to develop the open standard and include a wide variety of people and organisations to design, test and review the open standard

Set up a development infrastructure: that supports transparency, sharing, automated testing, tracking changes, reporting errors and providing contributions

Develop the open standard: by drafting guidance, creating data, or creating formats — activities will depend on the type of open standard or core features selected

Test the open standard: to make sure it works in a variety of real-world scenarios that adopters are likely to encounter

Test resources and tools developed with the open standard: including test data, tools for validation, tools for publishing, tools for analysis, and code libraries

Test integration with other standards: for example shared vocabularies, use of identifiers and more

Automate and share testing: to make sure testing is rigorously applied and give others the opportunity to provide feedback

Create guides and resources for different audiences: to make the open standard easier to adopt and use

Share progress and activity with the standard’s community: to encourage early feedback and review of the open standard

Track issues reported during development: to ensure they are resolved and to help improve testing of the open standard

Produce a working version of the open standard: in human-readable and machine-readable formats

Produce translations of the open standard, guides and resources: including website content if multiple languages are supported

Record and share early adopter experiences: to help others use and share the open standard

Adoption and launch

Organise a launch event: to promote the open standard to a wide audience

Share a stable version of the open standard and resources: to make it easy to find, share and use

Update the stakeholder map: to include new groups of people and organisations who can support, use or be affected by the open standard

Promote stories that demonstrate the benefits of the open standard: with the media, in academia, on blogs, through podcasts, tool demonstrations and more

Share the journey of developing your open standard: with other standards communities to find allies

Provide tutorial and training sessions: to guide developers and adopters through implementing or using the open standard

Set up a technical helpdesk: to field questions, provide support, training and outreach for the open standard

Set up an engagement and advocacy team: to work with organisations and policy groups to improve support for the open standard

Set up a forum online or offline: where anyone interested in the open standard can ask questions and find others who are implementing or using the the open standard

Encourage the development of tools that support adopters of the standard: including use of data, guidance or models

Track direct uses of the open standard: including sharing or using data and guidance as part of the standard’s adoption statistics

Track indirect uses of the open standard: including development of tools and integration into products and services as part of the standard’s adoption statistics

Track mentions of the open standard: in the media, social media, in research and other avenues as part of the standard’s communication and media statistics

Collect case studies and other research about the standard: and how it is used in real-world scenarios

Update the ecosystem map: to understand what’s changed in the data infrastructure since the open standard was launched

Review

Determine the review schedule: in line with the standard’s governance

Decide on an open, collaborative review process: and share with the standard’s community

Decide who will perform the review: and make the final decision to do nothing, update or retire the open standard

Prioritise what to review: from feature requests, error reports and other feedback

Perform the review: by considering how well the open standard was adopted, how easy it was to adopt, the impact the standard has made, how interoperable the standard is, what errors were reported, what changes were requested and what resources are available to support change

Decide on next steps: do nothing, update or retire the open standard

Share documentation of the review: including who was involved, what was considered and why, and the impact of proposed changes

Track the impact of proposed changes to the open standard: on a variety of people and organisations including adopters, developers, policy and more

Gain consensus in the standard’s community: for proposed changes

Announce the decision to the community: through press releases, in forums, through blog posts, on notice boards and other channels

Update or retire

Determine if updates include breaking or other changes: that will require a major version release and communicate this clearly to adopters

Determine if updates include minor changes: and communicate this clearly to adopters

Determine the next version number: of the open standard and any affected resources

Determine if translations should be updated: to take into account any new versions

Review test suites and test data: to determine which are affected by proposed changes

Review tools and code libraries: that use the open standard to determine which are affected by proposed changes

Announce changes in good time: by sharing a list of changes with adopters and developers so they have time to plan for new versions

Circulate decisions to retire: to the community and on available channels if necessary

Transfer intellectual property: to the community or other organisations to continue maintenance of the standard if necessary

Close the standard's website and forum: to prevent new updates and preserve their contents where possible

Archive content to websites: like Internet Archive or repositories like Github if domains are to be shut down