Solving the Whole Problem for the Users

What does it mean?

Services become fragmented and user operate in silos thanks to ‘barriers’ that are put in place. Quite often these barriers are related to team, departmental or organisational level constraints. In some cases, these barriers are required to ensure the security of the organisation and/or the data and information that is being processed.

Solving the whole problem for the user is not a call to break down those barriers completely, quite the opposite. It is more of a mindset and approach to cross-functional collaboration. The objective of which is to improve the journey for the user with as little ambiguity as possible.

Example: A user wants to check their eligibility to receive a range of services. Currently the user is having to navigate different sites and make a series of applications having used their own initiative to find those entry points.

The change in mindset, outlined above, would encourage internal teams to work collaboratively to offer a single point of entry for the user, allow them to check their eligibility then make an application based on the outcome of the check.

This would remove the multiple entry points and make finding the whole service more intuitive to the user. Allowing a single eligibility check would give the user control and allow them to see their eligibility for a range of services rather than individually.

The above example encourages a user focused approach to solving the whole problem. It promotes cross-functional working and breaking down barriers, where appropriate, to deliver a joined-up and intuitive service.

What it does NOT mean

• Data and information security constraints are of paramount importance. Solving the whole problem for the user does not mean removing these restrictions to allow for a ‘free-flow’ of data. This would not only compromise the organisation/s but would put the user at significant risk.

• Creating monolithic, unintuitive solutions that are difficult to use and maintain as they are expected to deliver to much.

• Trying to do everything at once. In our experience this is the single biggest consideration for programmes falling into difficulties.

Insight: Trying to do everything at once will overwhelm productivity and severely impact your delivery. In our experience, it is far more beneficial to start small and work in an iterative way to deliver improvements to users of a regular basis.

The key to success when working in this way is to ensure you have a ‘bigger picture’ in place that is commonly agreed. Additionally, engaging users on a regular and continuous basis will help shape and deliver the overall delivery to be more user focused.

Our approach to Solving the Whole Problem for the User

What are the alternatives: This is about avoiding creating services which may be achieved by alternative means. A key consideration for the process is to remove silos and adopt a more joined-up working practice. Things we tend to consider at this stage will include;

• Can we make data available or have data made available to us?

• Can we achieve the objective by publishing content?

• Can we engage with users to achieve the objective, and how might thins look?

• Can we formulate a partnership to deliver a shared service or utilise and existing initiative?

What are the constraints: This is about understand what barriers in place and which of these are genuine. For instance, legislative requirements would be a genuine constraint whereas departmental barriers wouldn’t be. In any instance we will work with policy makers to seek a viable solution.

User alignment: Think of how the user will see the service rather than how it appears internally. Would the user expect the service to be merged?

Example: A user is looking for information around different forms of property improvement grants. Internally these are likely to be considered as sperate processes and may be handled by different teams.

However, the user is more likely to see these as a single service ‘Property Improvement Grants’.

Taking the above example, combining the services would be advantageous as it would solve the problem for the user of having to navigate and make a series of applications for different grants.

We will cover this in greater detail when we examine Scoping in the coming weeks.

How does it fit: The move to digital, in our opinion, is a journey – not a single deliverable. The need for organisations to continually adapt is becoming more prevalent.

We would always advise tackling wider problems with smaller more manageable component deliveries. Knowing where and how the component fits into the overall product Roadmap will help illustrate to the users the journey and what this means for them.

What principles do we apply?

Collaboration: Take responsibility for engaging with other organisations, departments and teams about how you might collaborate to solve the whole problem. It is likely they are facing the issues, even if these have not been identified yet. Share ideas and content to help develop and solidify open collaboration.

Open working: Building on collaboration. Where possible share the work that has been done, share the methods, tools and techniques you used to address the problems and how these applied to the specific situation. Unless commercially sensitive think about sharing;

• Problem statements;

• Mission statements;

• Business cases;

• User research findings;

• User experience maps (journey maps);

• Service maps;

• Roadmaps; And

• Development plans.

The objective is to engage an audience and get people thinking about how you may be able to work collaboratively to overcome a common objective. Another powerful way of sharing your work is through a company blog. This is particularly useful when you are looking to share information around tools, techniques and outcomes.

User centric: Above all else, ensure you apply a user centric approach to your work. Engage with your users through User Research and keep them informed and consulted throughout the process. Engage to provide a service that matches the users expectations, even if this means working outside organisational constraints.

Contact Us to discuss how we may be able to support you