Government Property Community alpha reassessment
The report for the Government Property Community alpha reassessment on 24 February 2022
Service Standard assessment report
Government Property Community
| From: | Government Digital Service |
| Assessment date: | 24/02/2022 |
| Stage: | Alpha Reassessment |
| Result: | Not Met |
| Service provider: | Office of Government Property (Cabinet Office) |
Previous assessment reports
Alpha assessment, March 2021 - Not Met
Service description
Government Property Community is an online community for property professionals to learn from, and interact with, each other. It is a virtual tool which also brings together and communicates the full suite of career development, learning, training, and skills products which are available to the property profession within the public sector.
Service users
This service is for;
- public sector property professional
- public sector property line manager
- non-property professional support
- government super user
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has put in place user research expertise during the Alpha and has put in a plan for recruiting a permanent user researcher for the team
- the team recognised the need for more work to understand their users and conducted a discovery with a much more exploratory approach and appropriate research techniques
- the team had a clearer sense of their users, their goals and their pain points with the current as is experience
- the team has rewritten their user needs and Jobs To Be Done based on the research they have conducted and focused these on users’ goals and pain points rather than the solution
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider a wider scope for the research in Alpha. This Alpha has been very focused on iterating a specific solution instead of considering different opportunities and the feasibility of these
- consider what the needs are for professionals considering a move into the property profession
- consider whether the needs of property professionals in smaller organisations differ. The team has done research with users in different government agencies but it’s noted that these all appear to be large departments
- review some of the user needs they have identified - while the team spoke well about users and their goals - this wasn’t as well reflected in the documentation shared. Some of these needs would benefit from rewriting what it is users actually need and the reason behind this (examples: “I needs to be aware that there is a central place for government property professionals and what it can do to support” and “I need the Government Property Function to be more visible”)
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service did not meet point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has removed some features which they could not find user needs for - such as gamification
- as noted in point 1 of the Standard, there has been significant work by this team to go back and understand their users and the problems they experience with the current journey
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- demonstrate that they have considered different potential solutions to the problems they know users face. The team has taken the approach to ‘ask users what they would like’ in order to conceive and validate the idea for a dedicated platform. This is a discredited approach to designing good services and products. The team should identify the needs from users and test different ways to solve the problems, comparing hard evidence to determine what will actually work
- consider what else they can do to gain more confidence that their solution will be used. The team accepted that the biggest risk is that the service will not be used. While the team has a plan for monitoring usage, the panel was concerned that there was a very real possibility that this solution might not be used and that the team would only know this once having spent a significant amount of time and money building the final product. The current mitigation hypothesis is that if the platform provides good content, users will return. This hypothesis is not only difficult to test for during an Alpha, but also it might only be part of what would make people use the solution
- the panel felt that the Alpha was started with a pre-conceived solution for the collaboration portal and the skills mapping tool, and there was little other consideration or testing to validate if there are other solutions which could potentially better address the problem and needs (e.g. community pages on Confluence, using Slack or some other collaboration tool, a more complex end-to-end bespoke solution). For example, the service team highlighted the requirement to have functionality that will mimic a social network (such as likes, tagging, integrating with Twitter and LinkedIn). However, it wasn’t clear what the actual user needs driving this requirement were and also how this solution will address the original problem statement: “finding information is time consuming, and it is difficult for career professionals to navigate to the best option for them”
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service did not meet point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has carried out usability studies requiring users to complete certain tasks within the system and covering different features within the tool. There was evidence of iterating based on seeing users use the prototype
- there is a closer look and feel to the collaboration platform and skills map which was a problem highlighted in the previous assessment. The team has also done work to test the connection between the different aspects of the tool with users
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider what the end-to-end journey will look like for users. At the moment there are a number of different sources of information and ways to communicate. The team should think of ways to test how the existing services will work alongside their solution – and whether in practice the solution would remove complexity rather than adding to it
- understand the implications this new service will have on the staff who will support it. Operating this site will introduce new activities for staff. The team mentioned staffing levels to support this work, but the service would also benefit from clearly detailing how new and existing tasks will be carried out so that internal processes and systems work well
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the design system style guide was considered in the skills assessment tool
- usability testing of the prototypes has helped the team to spot ways to improve navigation and usability. This is a much more appropriate technique than the previous use of demonstrations
- although the team had passed Point 5, they have considered accessibility throughout the Alpha and made changes to their design based on this to make it easier for everyone to use the service
- the team recognised that they struggled to conduct research with people with accessibility needs but had a plan for how they might be able to find out more about these users and find participants for future research
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- there is no further evidence to show that the team co-designed, prototyped and tested more than one solution with users. The rationale behind why the team built a portal and a skills assessment tool was unclear
- the team has changed the name of the service as recommended by the previous assessment. It would be useful to know the evidence for the new name they have decided upon and how users’ expectations of this service from the name matched their proposed solution
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- there is a team of three user researchers engaged in the work to help test the team’s solutions based on best practices in the research community
- going to beta, there is a plan to retain key people from the alpha stage in the team. This will ensure continuity and somewhat mitigate the risk of knowledge loss in case the contract for beta is awarded to a different supplier
- technical owner is now a permanent member of Cabinet Office staff
- there have been extensive discussions with CDIO throughout the process (with support from Finance, Comms and Project Delivery)
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that they retain an adequate user research support throughout the beta phase, to be able to continue understand the users and their needs
- make a plan for knowledge transfer and handover to ensure knowledge is not lost should supplier team members leave the service team
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service did not meet point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team can demonstrate where they have created designs, tested them with users and iterated the designs based on their research findings. The organising of the designs and research findings was clearly presented
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- allow more time for testing and iterations. The team ran 4 overlapping, 2 week sprints, over 4-5 weeks. The assessment panel felt there was not sufficient time for substantial revisions or improvements to the service based on data and user research findings
Published 25 January 2024