UXA2022 Day 1; Liz Adcock - Enterprise Service Design for Government: De-risking the design and delivery of digital services

The proliferation of digital transformation in governments in recent years has been fuelled by the increase in demand for better citizen-centric digital products and services and the ability to access new technologies and innovations to boost efficiency and productivity. How can Government move at pace with the demand? How can Government Departments and Agencies make the steps towards more efficient and seamless delivery of digital transformation and change to produce value for internal business operation and external citizen value? And how an agile approach can de-risk the delivery.

Transcript

1. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. www.captionslive.com.au | captionslive@outlook.com | 0447 904 255 UX Australia UX Australia 2022 – Hybrid Conference Thursday, 25 August 2022 Captioned by: Kasey Allen & Carmel Downes
2. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 50 welcoming Liz to the stage. Welcome! (APPLAUSE) LIZ ADCOCK: Let's see if my lapel works. STEVE BATY: No. LIZ ADCOCK: I talk really loudly but if my mic is not working ... I - I am turned on here. Thank you for that welcome. Secondly - thank you, this will only take a moment. >> We can hear you online just fine. It's perfect. LIZ ADCOCK: Here we go, I just need to stand in front of the pedestal. (AUDIO ISSUES) LIZ ADCOCK: Good morning and welcome. Thanks for that really lovely warm welcome. I think my fondest memory as a young designer is actually coming to these events and really getting inspired, seeing the approaches, seeing the different methods you were all using and being a part of this great community. Secondly, I'd like to thank Steve for a really lovely acknowledgement of country at the start of the day. I recognise that the acknowledgement has already been done but I would like to pay my respects to people of the Kulin Nation and to all elders. My name's Liz and I work at ThinkPlace. I'm the general manager there of the digital practice and ThinkPlace are a strategic design consultancy and we focus on creating positive change... (AUDIO ISSUES)
3. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 51 ..we were there to not just roll out Agile ... so what is enterprise service design and how does that differ with your normal service design. I really appreciate Jennifer going through kind of the - and grounding us in the basics of - the basic principles of service design and she had this one up as well and had the definition which is service design from an end group is just the organisation of the activities which is props, process of people to one, directly improve the experience of the employee and there by indirectly the customer's experience. I have a little problem with that one in the fact that it actually doesn't work in the Government context. Here is a little interest, put your hand up for those who have worked in Government before, or are working in Government? Great, a lot of you, I actually know some people that are here from services NSW which I really love and I will be sharing some insights from Victor Dominello who I really love. The problem with the internal organisation of the government is it is structured around silos. It is a problem that economists not just within Government but in industry too. These silos don't directly align to the services that deliver to citizens and so this is a real problem here in that if you are in this one area in the department or in an organisation how are you supposed to deliver at a whole because the operations of a service span snot just our finance and customer experience but your logistics, operations et cetera, whatever it might be within the business and we know that just by Zooming out and mapping out props, processes, people, the customer journey experience and the business processes it is not going to let you have that successful service, how do you guarantee, how do you know that is going to be successful? I really love Victor Dominello. I think I follow him more than any other social media person ever. It is kinda dorky. I kinda crush with him as a Government inspiration. This is a tweet where he says Government must continually
4. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 52 evolve service delivery to reflect the changing world we live in. I couldn't agree more. What do we need to do to evolve that service delivery. What do we need to do to design in that complex system and by a main complex system I don't mean technology but the relationships and interactions that make it complex. At ThinkPlace we have a way of designing within a complex system. We are looking at those relationships, those independent parts, those relationships between and how they work and it is a really unpredictable kind of landscape that you are in and they comprise sometimes of many different parts. These can be a mix of individuals, companies, organisations, piece of last few years, technology and more and while these parts are independent, their relationships between them with lodge numbers of nonlinear interactive elements, complex systems are unpredictable. At the same time they unfold over time so they have got something called emergence where sometimes, you know, you can't see things coming, you can't plan for it. So you can call it dynamic, even organic. I really love the new and design squiggle to articulate a complex - designing in that complexity. We have this - this is actually a picture of our ThinkPlace cafe wall. I like to call that squiggle inside that messy middle because when you are attacking a problem, when you are deep into your researches, process mapping, how do you know how to navigate between that mess, that squiggle? This is where I like to add the lens of the strategy level and the project level. Why both these, I guess, lenses, it's because all departments, even organisations, have a strategy, have a purpose, a vision, a drive and all projects - and there's many projects usually, not just one - have their direction, what they need to do, different research patterns, different teams, different deliveries and so how do you actually get to that design innovation. At ThinkPlace I like the designers to do a bit of this exercise where
5. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 53 we are really understanding the relationships, that complexity of those interactive parts and what makes them connect and this is where we do this zooming in and zooming out. We don't just step back and look - like when you look at a blueprint and you can actually see it - but we go in and we understand what makes that project link to that project or that program link to those many projects or why do my insights in any research play a part in the other projects. The organisation I'm in, how does that affect the delivery I'm on? It is a really great tool for breaking silos because it connects those strategies to the project deliveries. It is not just about what you are delivering, it is about understanding at a whole all the other projects and programs as well. At ThinkPlace we like to look at tackling a complex problem through the layers of design and layers of design here, I'll just go over it very quickly, is the strategy level, the experience, the service product channel and the delivery. Within each of these levels there are components within them that you have to unpack and they are different for every single project. This is actually an example of unpacking the layers of design to use on a project. The example I use is of digital transformation projects where we are looking at, in the delivery layer we are looking at systems, information structures, looking at relationships between them, the workforce, which is capability, the people involved. In the visual lane we have that client experience, the channels that make the service and the services themselves. And on top is your strategy. This is where navigating within Government, I like to add these two. Because in Government we have to understand the ap tide to change, the motivation, the drive, the culture, the buy-in these are crucial elements and you have to understand is it high or low. This is not within just the project you are working in but all areas of Government. I like to really understand when I come in as a team, we like to unpack these things, we like to understand what is that vision strategy at that
6. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 54 level, the executive at the director level, what is their appetite to change. What is their mindset, what is their buy-in, how do I get that buy-in as well if I am trying to do something. At that project level, my development team might be like you have to adopt agile, I'm like what is the culture and the mindset and the drive and motivation to adopt new processes, new ways of working. Oops! There we go. I will be showing you now three examples of large digital transformation projects I have been on and I will be framing it within these three kind of things, so navigating the complexity, prioritising for the greatest success and co-design change and communication. Now, the great thing is I can show you those really great reflections and insights from actual clients and customers that I've worked with as well as industry professionals that I've had the pleasure to work with as well, but I can't share with you the names of the departments or the actual information of the services I delivered because some of the information is sensitive and there's privacy around it. Again another gem from Victor Dominello, "Governments around the world have historically designed around siloed service delivery." This Tweet was a really a good one, he goes on to hoe actually tackle. That I won't share that with you, you guys can go and find that Tweet. The reflection here is that yes, in my experience, and it is not just within Government, that these operations are generally siloed. These business areas are siloed, they are working in this kind of vacuum and they don't actually align to the services they deliver to citizens. So how do you actually get to that? How do you actually get to aligning your services to citizens and how do you break those silos. I love this quote from Nicole, a very experienced delivery manager that has the worked on many, many large digital transformation projects, "It is the path from abstract to action. Both points of reference that guide teams to delivering value." This is in reference to service blue printing. I love that sentiment
7. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 55 "abstract to action", right? This is a story of how I went from abstract to action on a large digital transformation project. This diagram you are seeing here, you can't see the detail because of information privacy but this was the Blueprint that was created and we use various tools like mural and mapping physically in person sometimes. This large department, we had to redesign four existing services that were out there now and we had to kind of mush them together into one. This was about redesigning for efficiency, for better customer experience but you can see the complexity already there. We are talking about three services that a large department deliver and each of these services are delivered by different kind of areas within the department and you are asking us to mush it all in, not just the impacts internally but you can imagine the impacts externally. So this is the current state of the department that I was in - siloed operations, lack of communication, lack of shared vision and direction. It is a lack. They had a shared vision direction but generally it is not disseminated. To compound the problem was that there was a set date for delivering new services. Have you guys been in that situation before? This is probably not just for Government as well. At ThinkPlace we like to start complex problems really by doing these three key things and it is very much like a lot of the design probably approaches that you have done in the past but we are looking at things like we like to do a kick-off meeting where we develop something called an intent statement. An intent statement isn't just about understanding what you are delivering and the scope but it is about understanding the context, why are we here? Why am I, as a design consultant, here helping you and what is the problems that I'm here to help you with. So we unpack looking at the problems of today and the design levers that are required to go to the future and we don't look at just very small things like the customer needs a button or needs a colour change, we
8. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 56 actually look at things like, "What is the outcome of that future that they require? What was that unmet need they didn't get with the current service that was out there that we need to design for the future?" We look at the future of the strategy of the actual department or the actual organisation so we don't just look at the future in terms of, "This is what we are delivering, these are the artefacts" but we look at what is that future that you are trying to get to that we can assist you to get there as well. We like to plan the stakeholders and we plan this right from the ghetto. Organising participant, mapping it out, getting them onboard and sending emails takes a long time. Starting that from the get go and saying who are the people we need to talk to and how do they like to be approached because everyone obviously has some different way, is it workshops, one-on-ones, just observing them and to be respectful for all the work that has been done to date we always need to understand what was the prior research, what was the information and what in other Governments have they done that's equally as successful. That large blue Print was made up of business doing a lot of business case design, requirements gathering, a lot of process mapping, customer journey maps and experience maps and they had a lot of information and then They ready to engage with IT. Did you hear that handball. Business has kind of finished all that stuff and now they are kind of handballing to IT. That is a repeatable story here. But, you know, by saying that, IT had already done a lot of mapping, solution design, documentation, conceptual architecture but it didn't align together. It was like this disconnect between the language. So I did this - a lot of workshops with a small team at ThinkPlace, we did a lot of one-on-ones and workshops and developed a service Blueprint. Everyone asked me you are doing all this research and all this amazing work, what are you building along the way. Sometimes as consultants you are only there for a short period so how do
9. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 57 you actually get quickly to showing that value, showing what you have done in those workshops and things are meaningful. Victor Dominello here states, "How can we further improve Governments to improve service delivery around the customer?" The customer is the sun, that is the key there. Start with the customer. So that base definition of service design I don't agree with because you can't just improve internal, you need to first start with the customer. What I am not showing you here, because I am running out of time as well, is how do I get to mapping out that service and a tool I use - I will just give you a tip here - is the job stories from Jobs to be Done. The key element here in job stories is the key piece of information that job stories is made up of situation, motivation and expected outcome. The key thing here is situation. If you understand the situation that the user is in you understand along the entire service - end-to-end - the service has a beginning, middle, end, what they need in the service. So just like Jen this particular service, Blueprint mapped out front stage, backstage, pain points, we mapped out a lot of backstage system functionality, it was needed, it was a digital transformation project, the most important thing here was because we were changing internally the delivery structures we mapped out the service operation delivery pain points. We mapped out what was painful to deliver this in from all business area, policy areas, technology, so what made it painful to deliver. We were adopting Agile at the same time so this was a lot. That swim lane was quite a high one. This is a visual depiction of what we did in the end, because I can't show you the detail of the other one but you can see there that we had these service stages, because we had the user's outcomes mapped out and what I mean about the front stage and backstage, we actually don't map out the journey or the experience. We are mapping out each of those books as actually an outcome or a goal. It's an inquiry and let's say
10. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 58 green is customer, maybe the customer is trying to find information about X, Y, Z. The outcome is to find information that they need, doesn't matter where or what channel, that is your job to map that out, the channels, right. I need to find information. That is the top goal, under it might be I can call the call centre, I can go the website or go to a service centre and pick up a flyer so there is a lot of kind of detail that lives underneath the outcome but mapping out the outcome not the experience. Then underneath you can see you can map out what the backstage needs to do so if a customer's looking for information the business needs to be able to create that information, they need work flows and processes to be able to push that information up. And then going down the line you can then map out everything else, the enablers that are needed, in the back end you might need a customer relationship management system to handle the web flow, website, you need some web pages to deliver the content and so forth and so on. It is a team activity. Just by sheer luck that I come from a tech background so I knew all the technologies that they needed to do to actually make the service a success but the key takeaway here is that you need to bring the team that are building the service together. It can't just be you and the designers and some business people, it needs to be everyone. Everyone's perspective is going to be building that service. The thing here is that you can validate and collect information at the same time and can communicate that change. People understand the impacts that are going to happen. There are benefits all round, really. Like most other capabilities I feel that service time has important part to play. In a Government context it is vitally important to our customers because they can be the country's most vulnerable citizens. We owe it to them to always do better. It can help prioritise where the greatest opportunity for success is. I will get another gem quote from Nicole, the experience
11. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 59 delivery manager. I will go quicker because I know I am running out of time. But just bear with me and come along for the ride. So people always say, "What do I do after the service blueprint" and as you saw this is where a lot of design teams come in and do this beautiful, big service blueprint and they can be running for days and Jen's one running across five cubicles, this is where you shouldn't stop - keep going. This is what I'm saying that the design team, the product team, the businesses, sometimes they are standing and looking at this great communication artifact, it is a great planning artefact but as a designer the thing is here is to keep going and how do you do that? You actually do that by harvesting the blueprint. That is the key step - us as designers, serves designers in the team - this is blurry because I can't show the information, this is using a technique called user story mapping. Harvesting blueprint, you look at the service stakes and understand all the activities that make that service. Who builds this user story map? The entire team that is going to be building the actual product or service. Your product team, your developers, your integration team, your BAs, testers, SMEs, business people who will be using this or affected by it and sometimes even your external stakeholders. The beauty with the harvesting is that you can prioritise. You can put up the things that you need to do to deliver a base service and you can push that out which is called an MVP or minimal viable product. You can test it early and often and keep delivering for value later on. We can see the transitions that were going be difficult, we can see the service journey, describe the features and the descriptions and the user stories to help the team build to the right acceptance criteria. The service blueprint, especially user story mapping really helped Andy, the product owner in that large department, navigate and see the difficulties and plan it out. Those implementation blockers that were going to be a problem. So service
12. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 60 blueprinting is just about understanding and mapping all the layers of design, team event again. Harvesting and prioritising the work, getting out that MVP and then it is about identifying the implementation blockers to plan the work. The tip here is to use that user story map. I'm going to zoom through these because I think I only have about two minutes left but around MVP we can't actually deliver to long-year investments anymore. Victor Dominello says it is too costly to de-list that design delivery, we need to understand that the investment is viable in a shorter time frame and then Digital Victoria CHO said MVPs and parts are the way to go. Another thing to de-risk the design delivery is around having these - the ability to co-design. Jen really pointed that out there too. Co-design doesn't mean designing with everyone, pulling everyone in saying, "Okay everyone I need your time and will take a lot of your time. " It is about identifying the users at the time of the service and what you need to build and creating groups to rapidly build and design and test and at the same time on this project I am showing you we actually let them prioritise as well using the Moscow framework which is must have, should have, could have and won't have. This gave the ability for the product designers to have further evidence and say, "This aligns with the strategy of the product we are delivering" or "service we are delivering" and yes, the users need this thing to actually finish and do their outcome. I will go quickly in this one. I like Agile is a structured an consistent approach. The methodology is accepted by the team and they are empowered. So clicking really quick whip through this. It is the planning and the change and methodology and the change and communication. I might skip through to telling you about the next case study which was another large department, digital Transformation I was on, because I am running out of time but where Agile doesn't work is where it is
13. Note that this is an unedited transcript of a live event and therefore may contain errors. This transcript is the joint property of CaptionsLIVE and the authorised party responsible for payment and may not be copied or used by any other party without authorisation. Page 61 framework or approach driven not mind driven. Agile mindset as oppose to agile approach. Dan is an experienced product designer and I love the fact he said don't just focus on being really rigid. What does this mean? It means about letting the team have the autonomy to actually craft their own process within the confines of obviously agile and here this was also used as a change communication piece to say this is what the team is doing so we could get the buy-in and get the checkpoints of agreement and get the buyers back in. Andy, who was new to Agile said it was a pain in the butt some of the ceremonies but he recognised the empowerment that it gave to the team. Again another artefact just to help them plan and be transparent and open. Lastly, this is the most important thing, you need to communicate this early, as early as you can. All the successful digital transformation projects I have been on, they have communicated how they were working and what benefit it was to that business team that they were going to be engaged and reinforcing the change and the benefits that will have for that user and internal business. Mindsets don't change. If someone suggests Agile make sure you are adopting for the right listen reasons. Find ways of working that complement the Government structures that are more typically traditional. So can we design better Government services that have continuous, quick and positive impacts? Yes, yes, we can. Through my lived experiences these four points here are something that I really appreciate bringing in as a perspective into all these really complex projects so I hope today you've learnt something to tackle some of your own complex projects and thank you so much for your attention. (APPLAUSE) I think I've run out of time. STEVE BATY: Thank you Liz, it brings us to lunch. Thank you so very