Iterative Building for Effortlessness

The organization shall build a service that is simple, intuitive to use and effortless across all channels through an iterative approach with a full understanding of the tools and systems required to build, host, operate, and measure the new service design and how to adopt and adapt them sustainably and efficiently.

Building for effortlessness requires a full understanding of the problem statement of the current service, alongside being aware of customers, including their demographics, skills, and backgrounds, the types of digital and non-digital environments that they may use to encounter a service, any forms of assistance required for their support, as well the predicted CX of the future.

Once the solution has been selected, it is then necessary to understand the data, storage, and software requirements, integration dependencies, intellectual property rights, and cost of the technology. Building an awareness of the technologies that can be used during the development process, involves identifying appropriate potential technological solutions to the design problem. Recommended criteria for choosing a solution include efficiency in responding to service problems, the potential to make future improvements without constraints, and employing solutions that reuse or extend upon existing technologies.

It is important to record and monitor these insights and act on critical elements in fast feedback loops to incrementally develop the service output. Such clear and transparent communication allows for better use of prototyping and other iteration methods that can feed into generating more effective minimum viable products and a final service solution.

Accessibility and Inclusivity

The organization shall build a service that is accessible and inclusive of all customer segments regardless of their background, ability and environment.

With the need to cater to a uniquely diverse demographic, public services must be accessible and inclusive to all customer segments, irrespective of their background, abilities, and access barriers. Customers served include all segments with varying digital, language, cultural as well as ability barriers.

Solutions should always be built to work easily with a range of channels as well as digital devices and browsers, all whilst offering relevant and helpful support options to assist customers in need of guidance.

Security

The organization shall create a robust secure service that meets all privacy, security and legal requirements

With the rapid rise of technological adoption, the issue of security and privacy has come to the forefront of social discourse and organizational policies. It is critical that these concerns are kept consistently in mind by development teams when building service solutions by consideration of the following:

Team members must have a foundational understanding of relevant legal frameworks and policies to ensure solutions meet legislative security, safety, and privacy requirements.

With a pertinent care in the handling of personal information, development teams should also have a complete awareness of all the data and information that their service will utilise and create, and how this information will potentially be collected and used in a way that does not violate customer protection laws or privacy regulations.

The above requires the implementation of secure authentication methods to be used by the customer as well as secure methods of creating, storing, processing, accessing, and disseminating data within the system or between datastores.

Apart from the focus on data handling, development teams must also be aware of potential security threats to their service, their effect on the customer, and available routes for prevention, mitigation, and recovery. This requires potential collaboration with relevant stakeholders and experts in the security and risk assessment domains, as well as the integration of monitoring, detection, and security breach prevention mechanisms within the solution. All relevant details of the above processes should be effectively planned and tracked using a risk treatment and officially recorded in relevant security documentation.

Communication and Messaging

With the rapid rise of technological adoption, the issue of security and privacy has come to the forefront of social discourse and organizational policies. It is critical that these concerns are kept consistently in mind by development teams when building service solutions by consideration of the following:

Team members must have a foundational understanding of relevant legal frameworks and policies to ensure solutions meet legislative security, safety, and privacy requirements.

With a pertinent care in the handling of personal information, development teams should also have a complete awareness of all the data and information that their service will utilise and create, and how this information will potentially be collected and used in a way that does not violate customer protection laws or privacy regulations.

The above requires the implementation of secure authentication methods to be used by the customer as well as secure methods of creating, storing, processing, accessing, and disseminating data within the system or between datastores.

Apart from the focus on data handling, development teams must also be aware of potential security threats to their service, their effect on the customer, and available routes for prevention, mitigation, and recovery. This requires potential collaboration with relevant stakeholders and experts in the security and risk assessment domains, as well as the integration of monitoring, detection, and security breach prevention mechanisms within the solution.

All relevant details of the above processes should be effectively planned and tracked using a risk treatment and officially recorded in relevant security documentation.

Testing and Deployment

The organization shall rigorously and comprehensively test the service multiple times before its launch and plan carefully for the deployment of the service in order to operate a reliably after launch.

Once the solution has been developed in an iterative manner that creates effortless, secure, accessible, and inclusive, as well as a well-communicated service, it must be rigorously tested to determine whether it serves its function. The service must first be tested for accessibility and end-to-end usability across all digital and non-digital channels by the development team, as well as all current and potential future customer segments.

It is also best to test in an environment that is as close as possible to the live version in a way that simulates multiple possible real-world scenarios to maintain ecological validity. All results must be recorded, including an assessment of potential risks and relevant mitigation actions.

The successful completion of the testing phase shines a green light for officially deploying the service for the first time. Deployment starts with careful planning, beginning with a comprehensive audit before launch. The purpose of the audit is to ensure the solution serves its purpose by effectively addressing the challenges identified during problem framing, all whilst meeting the needs of all customer segments across all service channels in a secure, inclusive, and effortless manner. The service should continue to be monitored, even after launch and relevant stakeholders must be effectively trained on using the service to maintain delivery quality, effectiveness, and efficiency.