The Australian Government Digital Transformation Office (DTO) has been actively working to improve online government service delivery throughout the country.
As we previously reported, DTO launched their Digital Transformation Programme, a nine-week design process to create a GOV.AU model that would be built around the citizens’ needs. DTO is currently tasked with 6 projects to facilitate through 5 different Government Departments, including:
- Improving Appointment Booking Services through the Department of Immigration and Border Protection
- Improving the International Movement of Goods and Australian Import services through the Department of Immigration and Border Protection
- Improving Retirement Planning and Senior Citizen Entitlement services through the Queensland Government
- Improving Outpatient Appointment Booking services through the ACT Government Health Services
- Improving Business Registration services through the Department of Industry, Innovation, and Science
- Improving Medicare Enrollment services through the Department of Human Services
Since the Australian Digital Transformation Office (DTO) announced its nine-week design process to improve government service delivery, they have received a lot of feedback and inquiries as to how this process is being carried out.
It was found by DTO that it would be valuable to share, with the rest of the world, how it is progressing through the first stage, Discovery.
“Many people have asked us what a Discovery actually looks like: what are the activities you do, and the things you should produce? Today, we’re launching a detailed handbook to the Discovery stage. It covers topics like the shape of the team you need, how you approach user research, mapping the existing technology and data, and ways to present your research and findings,” Jordan Hatch, Development Strategy Advisor, DTO, revealed in a blog last Friday, “We see the guide as a continuous work-in-progress and we expect to update it as we learn more from our work across government.”
The DTO Guide to Discovery walks through what is required of an organisation tasked with improving their service delivery process. It aims to help organisations learn from the experience of DTO and apply it to their Digital Transformation projects.
The guide emphasises the need to go out in the field and observe the process in action. As Leisa Reichelt, Head of Service Design, DTO, explains, “We need to understand things from the end-user point of view… then you will come back and see things completely differently, and that is what discovery is all about.”
The DTO Guide to Discovery emphasises the need to establish a solid and connected team. This is essential to creating a collaborative space for digital transformation.
The DTO Guide also focuses on understanding the whole process of the service delivery, in its entirety, so that the complete process is dissected. Furthermore, it suggests mapping the technology and data infrastructure which is currently in place. This will help an organisation understand where the pain points are and what the most critical changes to be made are.
At the end of the DTO Guide, the user must report findings from Discovery and begin to move into the Alpha Stage.
To see the handbook in its entirety, visit http://ausdto.github.io/discovery-guide/.
