Discovery phase
Duration: 8-weeks (January - March 2019)
The project team began the project with a discovery phase, aligned with the GDS Service Standard, to explore the problem space and identify the needs of planning officers and planning managers.
Activities completed across the discovery phase included:
User research — carrying out contextual face-to-face interviews, shadowing planning officers using existing back-office systems, user journey mapping, user story formation and defining emerging design principles
Technical exploration — tracking data through the current planning application systems and processes, and investigating emerging data standards across other related systems and projects
Business case definition — exploring cost per application type across different councils and identifying opportunities based on time spent per application per team
Concept creation — facilitating co-design workshops with planning officers, creating a series of concept prototypes based on emerging user research, and testing concepts across London and non-London council teams to gather feedback
The team engaged with:
- 7 x London borough councils (Southwark, Hackney, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Lambeth and Islington)
- 1 x Metropolitan district council (Leeds)
- 2 x other councils (Canterbury and Huntingdonshire)
See the full discovery report here.
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A user-centred Back-office Planning System (BoPS) for local authorities
BoPS is a collaborative local authority project, funded by the MHCLG Local Digital Fund and led by Southwark Council & Partners.
Contents
- About the project
- Project background
- Our approach
- User research
- Discovery phase
- Alpha phase
- Beta phase
- Weeknotes and sprint notes
If you are part of a local authority team or an interested party and would like to find out more about contributing, collaborating and/or our approach, please get in touch:
Project contact
Project partners
