Defra governance

The service: 

  • Digital, data and technology services (DDTS) governance at Defra

The problems

  • Digital, data and technology delivery governance at Defra wasn’t working well, which had an impact on Defra’s ability to provide high quality, cost-effective services

  • It was hard for people to find and understand information about governance

  • There were too many governance boards

The project:

  • Take a user-centred approach to governance

  • Make it easier for people to find information about governance

  • Test a process for reviewing and reducing the number of governance boards

What I did

Mapped the end-to-end service

I joined the project at the end of Discovery and was asked to map the DDTS governance process from end-to-end, including:

  • the steps

  • who is involved

  • user needs

  • organisational needs

  • touchpoints

  • impact on the user, work and cost

  • quotes from user research to give more context to the user needs

This helped stakeholders get a sense of the true scale of governance at Defra.

Impact

DDTS could see how complex their governance really was for the first time, and how important it was for it to change.

Discovery

Alpha

Created guidance on a user-centred approach to governance

Using the principles of good service design created by Lou Downe, I created guidance on what a user-centred approach to governance could look like and applied this approach to our work.

I also had conversations with key stakeholders to discuss this approach and why focusing on the users’ going through the governance process could benefit the organisation.

We showed them that when governance isn’t user-centred, it has a negative impact on the speed and quality of project delivery and job satisfaction.

Impact

DDTS could understand the importance of focusing on the impact that the governance process was having on the people going through it.

Mapped out the ways that people find information about governance

I created a map that showed the different ways that people find information about governance, which showed how complex the landscape was.

Impact

DDTS could see how complex the information ecosystem was, and why we needed to look beyond the Portfolio Hub to address wider systemic issues.

Alpha

Created prototypes

I worked with a content designer to help create prototypes of new intranet pages that explained the governance process.

Impact

  • Co-designing with stakeholders helped them understand our approach to content

  • It was easier for staff to find and understand information about governance

Alpha

Did research and created insights

In order to test an approach to reviewing and reducing the number of governance boards:

  • I did desk research to learn about all of the different governance boards at Defra, then categorised them to see where there might be overlaps in purpose and attendees.

  • I ran user research sessions with people who ran and attended governance boards to learn more about how they operate.

  • I attended several governance boards myself so I could experience them firsthand

  • I created insights based on our research that highlighted the challenges with boards

Impact

  • DDTS had a better understanding of some of the issues with boards

  • We were able to recommend that a board be retired

Alpha

Alpha

Created a reusable review approach for boards

I documented the approach that we took to reviewing governance boards and explained how Defra could replicate it in order to simplify their approach to governance.

Impact

  • DDTS now have a user-centred model that they can follow to help them reduce the number of boards and simplify the governance process