Policy & service design = 😁 service transformation

In the spirit of transparency and candour, the service transformation team publishes reflections on the what and why for the team.

Post by Jackie Duys, Senior Service Designer working with the Environmental Protection Division.

Context

In early September 2022, our service transformation team began working closely with Land Remediation Section (LRS) services staff to better understand their policy landscape. At this time, we were two months into digital development with the agile development team (ADA).

It became quickly evident the need and value of policy exploration and definition to inform and direct the rapidly progressing digital service development and delivery for LRS (the policy is the service!).

The ongoing work to bring policy, operations and delivery teams together. Credit: Home Office Policy Innovation Lab, Gov UK

How we got started

• Carefully reviewed all relevant policy documents. We mapped the key touch points along the end-to-end external user service journey to visualize and pin-point where policy influences or dictates actions and requirements of external users, ministry staff roles, tasks, decision making, information availability and timing.
• Facilitated several focus groups and interviews with key subject matter experts to review and validate these new policy maps and ensure accuracy.

Developing the workshop
From here, we collaborated closely with the Business Improvement Unit (BIU) and business area lead to design and facilitate a full day, in-person policy workshop that brought together all Land Remediation staff. Our goals were to:

• Gather the varied insights and experiences in using and navigating Land Remediation policy, so we may better understand the context and various factors involved in key policy areas.
• Provide opportunity for participants to share their perspectives, feel heard and validated and build a path forward collaboratively as a team.
• Build a deeper understanding of the holistic nature of service design, and the value of policy in effective long term beneficial service transformation.

The Workshop
Over 20 staff participated, including Directors, Executive Directors, and the Service Transformation Branch team. We designed the activities to:

• Inform each other to embrace the emergent nature of the questions and themes coming forward.
• Validate and further explore core service area pain points
• Collaboratively develop opportunities for improvement through identifying priority policy areas.

Many varied opinions where shared around four key questions. Participant ideas were collectively summarised and mapped over a timeline for the coming months and year(s), and voted on for prioritization. We worked with the business area lead and director to refine and finalise the outcomes:

• A team agreed upon set of recommendations.
• A recommendations roadmap outlining the various tasks required to meet the identified goals, along a defined timeline.
• High priority and quick win actions for the following 6 months — 1yr.

Takeaways
The workshop and outcomes where very well received and brought exceptional value to staff and the service transformation team. The learnings from this process and outcome where:

• It’s invaluable to have leadership present to participate, validate and acknowledge areas for improvement, and support in implementation and change management as we moved forward on this impactful work.
• Bring policy into service design and journey mapping as early as possible. Providing the policy parameters at the start of future state design and development is highly beneficial.
• Bring knowledgeable people into the discussion from the start. Especially policy experts and staff with substantial experience in these areas. This helps understand the contexts and relationships built with and around policy, to best address any challenges early on
• Set up in-person knowledge shares and knowledge exchanges to support staff to feel heard, validated and included in the process of redesigning how they do their work and what their work will look like. This builds trust in the process, trust in the fellow team members and enthusiasm for change.
• Prioritize next steps and include quick wins to encourage momentum and celebrate achievable goals for the short term, that motivates progress and commitment.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely the author’s and do not represent those of the Province of British Columbia or any other parties.