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07. Use agile ways of working

Create the service using agile, iterative user-centred methods.

Use agile ways of working - inspecting, learning and adapting as they go

  • Throughout the project we have run regular agile ceremonies, including:
    • Daily stand-ups (15 mins every morning)
    • Weekly sprint review & planning sessions
    • Show & tells with internal stakeholders
  • These ceremonies allowed us to plan effectively, communicate with members of the team and collaborate as much as possible.
  • Workload and tasks are tracked on Jira and updated regularly. Members of the project are allocated tasks via tickets on Jira, and all team members have full access to the board, should they want to keep track of progress or view a particular task. Jira tickets and progress on them are discussed at daily stand ups.
  • Design documents were created using Google docs to articulate substantial design work that needs a broad consensus. This is partly due to working remotely in multiple languages, but also to coalesce design concerns in one place. These documents have been shared with all team members, as well as internal stakeholders beyond just the technical team via a tech docs site.

Have governance arrangements that are consistent with the agile governance principles and make sure that the right people know what’s happening with the service, at the right level of detail (including, for example, the minister or chief executive)

  • Everyone in the delivery team is responsible and involved in the governance. We have a different list of attendees per agile ceremony, to ensure that people only attend the relevant level of governance where they are required.
  • We have daily stand-ups which are less than 15 minutes where everyone takes it in turn to discuss what they achieved yesterday; their plan for today; and any interdependencies/meetings they need to set-up.

Where appropriate and proportionate, test the service with the minister or relevant senior stakeholder

  • The product was tested with a range of government stakeholders at disco, alpha and beta.
  • Senior stakeholders from the UKSA have attended show and tells for updates on progress and suggested ideas which we have take on board and integrated into the product.
  • The link to access the prototype remains consistent throughout the project, and users who have been engaged are invited to return to the prototype to review how their input has been integrated.
This page was last reviewed on 7 December 2022. It needs to be reviewed again on 7 June 2023 .
This page was set to be reviewed before 7 June 2023. This might mean the content is out of date.