Day 2-Optimizing for Outcomes: Transformation Design in Systems at Scale

— Today want to talk about transformational design, and move beyond processes and org culture, and talk about how service design can get transformational outcomes for orgs at every layer of delivery

— Will talk about how culture, mission, paradigm shifts on how government agency delivers on mandate for change

— We provide means where design gets started in deepest layers of org, and clarifying where it’s harder or less obvious where human-centered design might fit like data modernization

— Nava’s mission to transform agencies and programs that serve vulnerable populations

• Dual definition of success, and theory of structural change through work with service experiences being fast, equitable for all users
• Agency tech operations are adaptable and resilience in world that is faster and more unpredictable

— Design is working for all layers working in government

• Better foundations, not facades
  • Focus on meaningful change to outlast involvement for any project

— Start with working with product or service experience layer, and designers that communicate to program vision while working alongside partners to implement inputs

• Along with designers working with engineers, and building processes that impact how service is delivered

— To grasp scale, let’s consider one agency where we operate

• 160 million plus users, and it accounts for 14% of US GDP and federal budget, and processing 1-2 billion claims on mix of legacy and modernized infrastructure

— Significant footprint and supported by 100+ vendors that contribute to ecosystem

— Can appreciate magnitude you are impacting through the work, and space for reflection and deep within roots of system

— We’ll start with front-of-house services and then work our way deeper

— Most typically think of diagram above at layer

• Clarify core external and internal processes to improve overall delivery
  • Example of maintaining tool for Medicare.gov and bottlenecks to maintain and update quality measures and critical performance information for providers

— Optimization of service experience, and how service design might play role in long-term transformation

— Meta effects of designing for service experience through working in smart, sustainable ways

• Agile iteration that culture will change as team learns, and resisting waterfall processes

— Co-creating buy-in for research driven design and development, and de-risking user experience

— Fostering cross product and team collaboration norms and practices to work more efficiently and effectively together

• Contribute to shifting away the orgs way of working and how value streams are created and shifting culture with not knowing how project should develop and harmony for cross-functional perspectives

— For middle portion of diagram and transformative outcomes at program layer of org

• Teams that work on shared platform that provide common tools and patterns, that build best practices in—like a well-crafted API

— Service design at program level can emphasize shared language and tools to build influence

• Facing Financial Experience was an interagency initiative to increase access to federal safety net program like food stamps

— Team improved efficiency accuracy and integrity of overall service experience, and policy ideas for future and even levels of government so how income gets verified

• Verifying eligibility for different benefits with old or out of date income data and lack of pay stubs for cash payment
  • Requires manual verification for eligibility
• 140 billion in government benefits goes unclaimed each year, and hoops to obtain benefits

— Plain language playbook and customer experience metrics for inputs of research that shape innovation and how to be more programmatic

• Building shared understanding through playbook

— A program layer service design for platforms means heavy facilitation and participatory design

• Mandate to ask question, and identify gaps, and partner with engineers to think through experiences surrounding it
• In project with US Department of Veterans Affairs, designer embedded with technical systems team to test and develop benefits for veterans benefits administration

— Technical team had sandbox to play-in and circumvent typical hurdles for building apps at VA

• Apps to build and release in record time, and quicker service delivery for how veteran claims were processed

— Gaps in sandbox environment and building on experiences with platform support

• Seamless deployment process and incident process for Slack workflow and work with team on GitHub

— Shared understanding with program and serving type of support for what was aspired to by customers

— Outcomes achieved at first service experience layer, and given scalability of work, and baking in practices, like helping teams have shared understanding

• Codify common language and standardize documentation and content strategy for data schemas

— Evaluation frameworks and vendor satisfaction for technical performance and shift what success look like

— Shared cross-functional vision for future of program, and evaluating metrics along long time horizons with equity and resiliency in mind

• Creating artifacts like maturity models and higher-levels of interoperability and start to effect programs at agency and delivery at more core level

— Look at ways operate within deepest layer and foundations and how programs operate at state and federal levels of government

— Emphasis now on higher stakes of operational efficiency, see the diagram for Center for Medicare Services, and where onboarding was slow and non-standardized

• V1 onboarding journey developed by service designers, and concerted efforts through steps of automation and modern engineering practices

— New journey for single cloud instance was whittled down to 48 hours and helping agency drive overall agency adoption by making onboarding easier

— Greater focus on minimizing administrative burden and spotting the issues in between by mapping a single procurement person’s job

• This procurement person was someone caught in cross-hairs of policy and moving away from brittle and aging data centers to more robust ones
• But only a single person was allowed to administer funds for application teams and followed contracting policy as written, but program was scaling far faster than what person could do
  • Service design found biggest bottlenecks to allow cloud infrastructure to grow as needed and prevent severe burnout

— Transformational outcomes and ways that access to shift paradigms at which agency even works, and foundation for programmatic change across enterprise and delivering on core purpose for public

• Enterprise wide offerings with human-needs and increasing adoption of shared services and solutions— like self-service experiences, or internal service catalogs
  • Allowing agencies for shared solutions

— Gathering qual and quant inputs to identify teams can save money or time or minimize dependencies

• Designers at layer can traverse all operational silos of agency and shared usage experience via branding
  • Still market to it, as why change in status quo to be preferred and gains from more modern technologies
• Governance and helping shared enterprise offerings are branded and genuine interest and preference, rather than hoping for adoption for top-down mandates

— Whether deeper in technological roots or surface experience, many opportunities to change organizational culture and how it manifests in artifacts, and delivering the agency mission

• Admittedly hard for designers themselves for real-value of design and deep layers of technical programs, especially if new to design work

— Designers: Consider this as essential program goals for how HCD can be woven into fabric of productions

— Cross-Functional Partners: Consider where HCD is most needed

— Government: Layer designers into technical program spaces, to drive connective tissue that holds program together

— As we wrap up, revisit how roots of work develop over time and how systems manifest in new ways, and how to improve system resiliency and allowing it to propagate and grow, with higher trust and confidence in every interaction

• One government agency serves as playbook for success in another and contributing to playbook and building more effective and accessible and equitable services at all levels of government

— Wrap-up as thank you for other designers who helped make this work and Rosenfeld curation team

 

Questions

1. In examples shared, how much work was explicitly requested or supplemental to work required?
   1. Nava is organization where HCD approach intrinsic to DNA, and leadership are former designers, and most of it has not been Trojan horse approach and strategic argument upfront within RFP and intensive bid processes for selecting vendors
      1. Lay out cloud infrastructure program and argument for human-centered approach and designers for technical teams
      2. Enough track record taken by more holistic approach and evidence, and at one government agency sees to see how it rolls out across different agencies
2. Are certain layers or organizations where transformation easier than others?
   1. Logical that it does get harder to implement change the deeper you go in improving the core processes— where value that could be brought is hard to understand but we had enough of a track record and working across different agencies
      1. Creating advocates for your work, and bolster your reputation and way of working
3. Do you see some projects don’t evolve to third-layer and service experience layer or program layers?
   1. With way government contracts set-up, at experience layer and thinking through more vertical and holistic changes impacted
   2. Helping zoom out and get forest for trees and combination of many different contracts and have contracts complement each other across different agencies
      1. Team might be locked in at one layer at a time