188体育

Creating a list of the services your organisation provides to citizens, or provides a part of, can be helpful for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it provides you with a backlog of services to map out from start to finish. These maps are useful because they help individual delivery teams understand the wider context around the thing they鈥檙e working on.

It also gives you a better view across services. It can help you spot big things you won鈥檛 see if you鈥檙e only looking at services individually - things like there being 30 different ways of applying for something, or no services at all for a given policy area, which might indicate a gap.

It can also bring a user-centred perspective to the writing of business cases. By asking people to explain which service their project is linked to, you get them thinking about the relationship of say, technology or databases, to outcomes for users.

Because it requires a broad view, it鈥檚 probably best that a head of a user centred design profession (or someone in a similar role) owns and maintains the list.

Build your list of services

Putting together your list means taking themes like 鈥榲isas鈥�, 鈥榗hildcare鈥� or 鈥榮ocial care鈥� and reframing them in a way that end users would understand or search for online.

Aim to reflect the big things that users are trying to achieve. Some examples are 鈥榣earn to drive鈥�, 鈥榮tart a business鈥� or 鈥榝oster a child鈥�.

Don鈥檛 think of lower level tasks like 鈥榓pplying鈥� or 鈥榖ooking a test鈥� as services - users usually only do those things as part of trying to achieve a bigger goal. For example, you only apply for a UK visa because you want to do something bigger like work in the UK. And you only book a theory test because you want to learn to drive. So keep the user鈥檚 overall goal in mind when defining what your services are.

Where services are delivered by multiple organisations, you can list out the different organisations. This gives you an idea of who you might need to collaborate with.

For example, 鈥榳ork in the UK鈥� involves both UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) and Border Force. 鈥楩oster a child鈥� involves the Department for Education (DfE) and local authorities, while 鈥榮tarting a business鈥� involves several organisations.

If you鈥檙e not sure how to frame the services, you can:

• read our guidance on mapping and understanding whole problems
• listen to how users talk or think about them in research sessions
• review service content on 188体育 to see how that鈥檚 been framed

Who to involve

The Home Office list was made by a small number of representatives from each different internal area, facilitated by someone with a user centred design background. They then invited a wider variety of stakeholders to give input on their list, from senior management to people from the operations and delivery professions.

Creating the list together is important. If only one person makes the list, it鈥檚 less likely that others will use it, understand why it鈥檚 important or agree with the contents.

Read more about .

What to do with your list of services

Once you鈥檝e built your list and understand the services you鈥檙e responsible for, you can do a few useful things. You can start mapping them to understand how the component parts of the service join up and who鈥檚 involved in delivering them.

This is a big job, so it鈥檚 something you鈥檒l want to do in stages. Start with any particularly high priority areas or things you know delivery or operational teams will be working on soon.

If you鈥檙e not sure which of your services are most important, look at which are the most used or most expensive to run.