When we take a truly human-centred approach to how we design and reform service delivery, it becomes apparent that people sometimes find it hard to engage with any one government, let alone across jurisdictions. It is clear that we need to work with our customers when driving transformation and service reform, but we also need to work and collaborate more closely across agencies and government to really understand and respond to these needs effectively. This is where the concept of 'life journeys' comes in.
Exploring common life journeys gives us a powerful way to understand what customers need and how government can serve them better in times that can be difficult and confusing for people and their families. Some of these journeys include starting a family, transitioning to adulthood, retirement, aging or dealing with death.
The Federal Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) and the NSW Department of Customer Service (DCS) are exploring ways to work together on life journeys that traverse jurisdictional boundaries. Working closely with the NSW Agency Lead, Family and Community Services, we have established a multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplinary team to work on the mapping, establishment, agency engagement and user research of a new life journey. This allows us to leverage expertise and experience across jurisdictions, agencies and subject matter experts, as well as contributing to a more consistent model for life journey work.
The Australian Digital Council has been a strong enabler of this kind of collaboration, and there are several jurisdictions now making significant progress with a life journey-based approach. The Queensland Government has the lead on 'Looking for Work', the ACT Government on 'Birth of a Child' and NSW has the lead on 'End of Life'.
The DTA and the DCS team (the DNA Lab) have found great benefits in working together. We are sharing methods, relationships and bringing different perspectives to the work. We hope this demonstrates that real collaboration is not just possible, it is preferable for this work. And it doesn't need to be complicated to get in the (usually virtual) room together to better serve the public. This way of working puts customers at the centre of how we design and deliver services and creates shared priorities across our governments to serve everyone better.