Delivery manual

Changing how we design services

A service is any activity that helps someone complete a task. With that in mind, all public servants – whether they work in digital, communications, policy or operations – are involved in designing services.

Services are groups of transactions, activities or information that work together. They might take place online or offline.

Government services often require people to go through the service in the way that government designs it, and often this design is not simple or easy to follow.

A service may need smaller products to meet user needs. If these products are delivered by different parts of government that are working in different ways it can make it harder for the user to do what they need to do.

This is why we need to design together to deliver the whole experience.

The delivery process

Following the service design process will help your team build services that solve a real customer need, based on evidence. Following the process from beginning to end will also help you meet the NSW Design Standard.

Phases of agile delivery

Pre-discovery phase

Create a strong foundation by ensuring everyone has a common understanding of the problem to solve, next steps and desired outcomes.

Discovery phase

Understand who uses your service, their challenges, and what motivates their behaviour to design better solutions.

Alpha phase

Test hypotheses and different approaches with users rapidly to determine how to best meet identified user needs.

Beta phase

Turn best-performing prototype into a working “minimum viable product” - the quickest and simplest version of a service to meet basic user needs and provide value.

Live phase

Build all of the main features in the backlog and improve continuously.

Retiring a service

At some point, users may no longer need the service. Government policy changes can make a service obsolete, or a new service may better meet the same user needs.

How the process helps

This process will help you design services that are:

human-centred (engaging and learning from the people who will use the service throughout the process)
evidence-based (based on data and user research, not opinions)
iterative (continually building on past learning)

The service design process typically involves:

exploring the problem and identifying issues through in-depth research
narrowing in on key insights that will inform the design
brainstorming several ways to solve the identified issues
prototyping and testing potential design ideas to gauge their impact
planning the features and capabilities the service needs to deliver
iterating the solution and repeating the process

Following proven service design methods can help you meet the needs of users and the organisation while avoiding common project pitfalls.

Solve the right problems

Taking time to understand who uses a service and investigating underlying issues before building a solution helps you design a service that truly meets people's needs as well as policy goals.

Reduce risk

Testing potential solutions directly with users and capturing their feedback early in the design process ensures that a service is on the right track and will work well for the people who will eventually be using it.

Save money

Making small, iterative adjustments as you design and build a service ensures that good ideas are implemented properly the first time and avoids big, costly fixes later on.