Triad UX consultant Jenny Lardh explains what a Service Assessment is, and how Triad trains clients to pass them.
Last year, I wrote a blog post about service assessments and how to pass them. With the high frequency of digital projects for government clients, preparing for and passing GDS Service Assessments is an important skill set. We were recently asked to use our experience to create and deliver a training course for some wonderful clients at the FCDO.
GDS Service Assessments and the FCDO
The Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) lead the UK’s diplomatic, development and consular work worldwide.
The FCDO wanted to build their internal capability on Service Assessments and many of their colleagues haven’t been through one. Here at Triad, our mantra is always to leave something extra behind. We love upskilling the people we work with and take pride in leaving every organisation in an even better place than we found it, fully equipped to tackle future challenges independently.
GDS stands for Government Digital Service. When you create a digital service for the central government, you will be asked to follow specific Service Standard guidelines. A GDS Service Assessment is a way of ascertaining how well you have followed them. Only once you have ‘met’ them, will you be able to continue to the next development phase.
How to pass an Alpha Service Assessment
Triad has a vast knowledge of GDS assessments, and the FCDO was keen to learn from us. They identified nine FCDO staff members from across the directorate who were cleared to spend two days with us.
We created an interactive workshop covering Alpha phases and Alpha assessments while offering them the insight and knowledge required to pass a live mock assessment. The course covered:
- How to run an Alpha phase – Explaining what is contained within a typical Alpha, what goes into it, and why we do them.
- GDS Service Assessment overview – Everything you need to know, including the ‘what, where, when and how’.
- Technical aspects – A light touch on the technical aspects included in an Alpha phase, plus background on why it makes sense for researchers and designers to collaborate with their developers throughout.
- A real-life Service Assessment—This was designed to give our participants a real-life experience of a GDS Assessment. We set them up with a realistic problem that required them to develop a service as a solution. They conducted interviews, analysed data, and turned the information extracted into a visual solution in the form of user journeys and a prototype.
We used a scenario that we had originally created for students at the University of Northampton, so we knew it was challenging, but achievable. We took it a step further by preparing an assessment report on their Service Assessment in the style of reports produced by the GDS.
What a blast!
It was an absolute joy to be part of this course. I asked colleagues within Triad to act as users and members of the assessment panel. Our participants had a blast, and we were all impressed with their work. They listened to the information given to them. They created a solid process from which to work. They divided and conquered all tasks needed to get a huge amount of work done while showing genuine collaboration. Seeing how our participants worked so closely together was amazing, and it strengthened them as a team.
One of our participants approached me and said, “I’m having so much fun! This is amazing, and I feel it has brought us closer as colleagues.”
While cleaning up after the course, I found a post-it note with the message “Thank you, Triad, heart FCDO” stuck on the door to our boardroom.
Tried and tested!
For many public sector organisations, preparing for, and passing GDS Service Assessments is an important skill. I am proud to have helped create such an interactive course format. And I expect to be using it many more times in the future.
Let us know if you are interested in Alpha phases and GDS Alpha assessments and want to upskill your team. We are more than happy to help.
If you have a question for Jenny or the Triad team, please get in touch.
