Case Study: Closing a digital service
Thorough investigation, identification of core issues, and making data-driven recommendations enabled me to deliver substantial cost savings and better resource allocation that would suit the ongoing work of the team.
Task
The National Leadership Center, part of the Cabinet Office, was set up to connect public service leaders and support them in the development of solutions to some of the country’s toughest challenges. I was responsible for the digital aspects of the team’s work, the website, a digital service ‘Connect’ and the underlying data platform.
Delivery on the ‘Connect’ service had slowed and uptake of the service was low, new features weren’t being released, and work needed to be reprioritised to ensure that the operational needs of the organisation were being supported and that the service was meeting the needs of users. Budgets also needed to be set for the forthcoming year.
Action
- Informal conversations with NLC team
- Collaborated with contracted digital team to review roadmaps, research, and identifying existing blockers
- Commissioned a short-run discovery project into data quality issues
- Monitoring service metrics
- Synthesis of user research and conducting additional research at the organisation’s National Forum event.
Action
I quickly identified that the data set of public service leaders, which was core to NLC’s operational aspects and ‘Connect’ service eas significantly out of date. Additionally, the Salesforce platform required specialised knowledge, and there as no designated person responsible for data quality.
By commissioning a short discovery to highlight the data quality issues and their potential impact I was able to deliver a report outlining recommendations to improve data quality management.
By synthesising user research, conducting additional research and monitoring service metrics I was able to determine that the Connect service was not effectively meeting user needs. Leaders expressed a stronger preference for using more common channels like email, LinkedIn, Twitter and WhatsApp to connect, rather than a specialised service.
Result
I recommended the closure of the Connect service. Budget was repurposed to hire a Data Assistant responsible for the quality of the data held in the Salesforce system and for support to the operational aspects of the work. This immediately made a saving for the team of almost £40,000 per month.
Read more
Connecting our Network online (NLC Blog on Medium)
Sam Villis 