Friday 15 November 2013

Can the Government Procurement Service count?

The "Digital Services framework, which is now open with 183 companies evaluated and selected to supply services" is the result of a year's work by GDS, the Government Digital Service.

So says joshr (?) in a post today on the GDS blog, A supplier framework for building digital services.

"It gives government access to a competitive and wider pool of innovative suppliers, to design and build user focused digital by default services in an agile way". That's joshr's entry in the competition to get as many buzzwords as possible into a single sentence – "user focussed", "digital by default" and "agile" all in one sentence is good, but surely we can do better.

Anyway, there's going to be a Digital Services Store according to joshr on which suppliers can offer their services and government users can buy them:
Suppliers have one place to go to apply to offer these services, and in the upcoming store, buyers will have a single place to procure. The framework will also be the first one of its kind to be supported with a managed service from Government Digital Service and Government Procurement Service.
But hang on a minute.

Suppliers can already offer their services on the CloudStore. Buyers already "have a single place to procure". What joshr means is that suppliers will now have to register with two different stores doing the same thing and users will have two places to procure.

GDS must know about CloudStore – they've been responsible for it since 1 June 2013. The Government Procurement Service must know about it as well – Phil Pavitt told us a year ago that supliers on CloudStore are "required to meet a set of mandatory criteria set out by Government Procurement Services".

joshr should say that the Digital Services Store is the second one of its kind "to be supported with a managed service from Government Digital Service and Government Procurement Service".

Why launch a second store to do the same thing?

Left hand not in touch with right hand?

Maybe.

Or maybe GDS don't like CloudStore. Not invented here.

In which case, CloudStore, having crashed twice in the past two weeks, beware. GDS have been known to let projects hang out to dry if they don't approve of them. GDS avoid "becoming fully involved", as the ruthless ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken told the FT, and "not that close to it" as he told the BBC about Universal Credit going down below the waves for the third time.

The Digital Services framework is "iterative, evolving and adapting, the framework itself being designed in an agile way and based on user needs" – that's joshr's second entry in the buzzwords competition, and much better than his first. Can anyone on the G-Cloud team beat that?

----------

Updated 12.3.14

Four months later, surprise, surprise:
GDS to combine G-Cloud and digital frameworks

12 March 2014

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is currently exploring plans to merge the G-Cloud and digital services frameworks.

The service is hoping to create one single marketplace by amalgamating the Cloudstore (which acts as a catalogue for services and suppliers on the G-Cloud framework) and the Digital Services Store (which provides the same function for digital services) ...

Updated 20.5.14
Digital Marketplace – May update

...

Two frameworks to build digital services
What’s the difference between the two frameworks? Simply put, G-Cloud provides access to commodity, cloud-based services. Digital Services framework (DSf) allows the public sector to commission capabilities to help design and build bespoke digital services ...

Rolling out the Digital Marketplace
... The Digital Marketplace will then replace the current CloudStore for G-Cloud 6 – which we expect to be live in Autumn 2014 ...

Updated 27.1.15

Over a year after this all started – the duplicate/rival digital services forums – where have we got to?

According to ElReg in one of its more impenetrable headlines, Gov.UK inhaled G-Cloud, spat out framework:
Mark Craddock, former G-cloud lead, said: "GDS is obsessed with what I call pub-prietary software – the public sector building everything in-house and putting itself in danger of replicating the failures of the large [system integrators]" ... Craddock added: "G-Cloud needs to be handled with care, because too many people want it to fail."
That was on 23 January 2015.

Then yesterday we read Ex-G-Cloud bigwig Chant weighs in on GDS' framework rebrand:
Former G-Cloud head Chris Chant has entered the growing row over the status of the framework under the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS), criticising its decision to ditch a brand "that has won hearts and minds" ... According to Chant, "G-Cloud is about a fundamental change in the way the government does computing – not just about cloud computing".
GDS is in danger of replicating the failures of the large systems integrators, says Mr Craddock. So is G-Cloud. G-Cloud has won hearts and minds, says Mr Chant, and it's not just about cloud computing. The same could be said of GDS.

G-Cloud is by no means the biggest casualty of the GDS juggernaut. Its demise will leave the excellent Mr Chant even freer than he has been until now to pursue his six month-long truth-not-trust campaign.

Unlike G-Cloud, GDS has always enjoyed powerful political support. It's seen to have votes attached to it.

Those votes will disappear when people notice the daily diet of hacking stories in the media and realise the implication – that GDS is incapable of delivering the secure public services it promises.

Secure public services delivered over the web – digital by default – depend on identity assurance. Central government departments and local government need to be sure that you are who you say you are on-line. Ever the fashion victim, GDS has hitched itself to a "trust framework" to deliver identity assurance through the stillborn GOV.UK Verify service. It doesn't work. It can't.

And who better to convey that message than Mr Truth-Not-Trust himself, Chris Chant?

Can the Government Procurement Service count?

The "Digital Services framework, which is now open with 183 companies evaluated and selected to supply services" is the result of a year's work by GDS, the Government Digital Service.

So says joshr (?) in a post today on the GDS blog, A supplier framework for building digital services.

"It gives government access to a competitive and wider pool of innovative suppliers, to design and build user focused digital by default services in an agile way". That's joshr's entry in the competition to get as many buzzwords as possible into a single sentence – "user focussed", "digital by default" and "agile" all in one sentence is good, but surely we can do better.

Anyway, there's going to be a Digital Services Store according to joshr on which suppliers can offer their services and government users can buy them:
Suppliers have one place to go to apply to offer these services, and in the upcoming store, buyers will have a single place to procure. The framework will also be the first one of its kind to be supported with a managed service from Government Digital Service and Government Procurement Service.
But hang on a minute.

Monday 11 November 2013

GDS – this is getting embarrassing

GDS, the Government Digital Service.

Remember the pan-government identity assurance system that was promised for autumn 2012, then March 2013 and which still doesn't exist?

Remember the assisted digital project that keeps starting, stumbling and starting again?

Remember the four professors' frosty report on GDS's government digital strategy?

Remember the other frosty report, this one by the Electoral Commission?

Remember the fifth professor's warning about the need to use formal methods (para.13) to produce quality software systems?

Remember the CloudStore being unavailable for four days?

They've only been and gone and done it again:


"This site will be unavailable from 6pm (GMT) Friday 8 November due to required maintenance" – 75 hours later, it's still down and we get this post on the G-Cloud blog:

CloudStore update:

Sorry that the CloudStore is not available right now.
Current CloudStore status
On Friday, we were carrying out updates to the records and the search indexes, and noticed that this had affected some of the search queries which were not always returning all of the relevant services. It’s important that no-one is at a disadvantage and we've decided to take the site down until this is fixed to ensure everyone is being treated fairly.
Working on a fix
Right now we’re working on a fix to get things up and running again as soon as possible. We’re keen to ensure that this issue are resolved and to make the user experience better as we keep iterating and making improvements.
If you need help
If you have an urgent procurement, we can help. Please email enquiries@gcloud.cabinet-office.gov.uk and we’ll aim to respond to you as soon as possible.
GDS are supposed to be using open source software. You'd expect open source software to have been used at thousands of sites worldwide and to have conducted billions of searches. There shouldn't be any major bugs left in it. People make mistakes with search queries.  "select * from table1" when they mean "select * from table2". That kind of thing. It doesn't take 75 hours to fix.

The Guardian called GDS "an elite team of digital experts". Will the Cabinet agree with that description? Or the Americans? What are the Koreans going to make of it? Or the Estonians? Or Chris Chant?

GDS run the digital leaders network, a cadre of IT people who are supposed to mould Whitehall to the Cabinet Office's wishes. What kind of an example to Whitehall is this latest CloudStore outage?

As Philip Virgo was asking only the other day, Should G-Cloud and the GDS be taken seriously as contenders to run Universal Credit?. What temptation is there left for DWP to adopt GDS's agile methods?

Talking of which, agile principle #7: "Working software is the primary measure of progress".

Not to mention principle ##1 and 3 "Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software" and "Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale".

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Tuesday is when GDS publish their weekly diary. The diary is usually fairly anodyne. But tomorrow? The first signs of a GDS re-launch?

----------

Update 12.11.13:
  • The Law Society Gazette announced yesterday that the Supreme Court has entered into a new contract in the hope of cutting its IT costs. Was the new service procured through G-Cloud? No.
  • CloudStore is back, says the post on the G-Cloud blog, but the search facility still isn't working so it's not entirely back.
  • It doesn't matter so much, sub specie aeternitatis, if the CloudStore's doors are shut for several days at a time. Contrarywise, if the ID hub proposed for GDS's Identity Assurance Programme goes down, the digital-by-default UK will seize up, Estonia-style – luckily, there is still no sign of GDS providing identity assurance to the nation.
  • Earlier, Digital By Default News magazine announced the winners of their Digital Leaders 50 awards, given to "leaders and organisations who demonstrate a pioneering and sustainable approach to digital transformation". GDS came top. The BBC came second and Francis Maude came third.
  • No GDS this week diary yet.
Update 15.11.13:
CloudStore is back. That's what the G_Cloud team told us three days ago. And again two days ago. But is it?

GDS – this is getting embarrassing

GDS, the Government Digital Service.

Remember the pan-government identity assurance system that was promised for autumn 2012, then March 2013 and which still doesn't exist?

Remember the assisted digital project that keeps starting, stumbling and starting again?

Remember the four professors' frosty report on GDS's government digital strategy?

Remember the other frosty report, this one by the Electoral Commission?

Remember the fifth professor's warning about the need to use formal methods (para.13) to produce quality software systems?

Remember the CloudStore being unavailable for four days?

They've only been and gone and done it again:


GOV.UK and user needs

GOV.UK is the public face of the UK government on-line.

Take a look:


Zoom in on the orange text and you see:


"This website replaces DirectGov" is an assertoric statement. It can have one of only two truth-values, True or False. Which is it?

Suppose you want to register for Jobseeker's Allowance.

Search GOV.UK for "jobseeker's allowance" and four clicks later you see this:


Zoom in top left and you see:


DirectGov has not been replaced. The assertoric statement is false ...

... and needs to be corrected. That is a user need. We can't have the government publishing information which is manifestly false.

There should be no prevarication. GOV.UK is the award-winning product of GDS, the Government Digital Service. And what drives GDS? One thing. User needs.

----------

Updated 15:07:

Comment submitted to the GDS blog:
Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Faulkner did indeed recommend that writers should be prepared to kill their darlings but he’s more famous for evoking the pious honour of the southern states, a virtue which GDS may consider in connection with GOV.UK which currently says “This website replaces DirectGov [and] Business Link” when manifestly it doesn’t, please see GOV.UK and user needs. Leaving that claim on the site detracts from trust. Removing GDS’s darling loses nothing.
15:12: comment deleted from GDS blog.


Updated 18.3.14

Tom Loosemore, the Deputy Director of the Government Digital Service, has a new blog post today:
One link on GOV.UK – 350,000 more organ donors

Tom Loosemore, 18 March 2014 — GOV.UK, Measurement and analytics

Last autumn we shared early results of testing various versions of the GOV.UK ‘Thank You’ page. First introduced a year ago, people see this page once they've bought their tax disc via GOV.UK. People are generally more open to trying out new stuff after completing a successful transaction, so we’ve been using this page to encourage as many  as possible join the NHS organ donation register ...
"... once they've bought their tax disc via GOV.UK ...", he says. You buy your tax disc on-line from https://www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk. There's no telling what Mr Loosemore sees when he looks at that page. But what you'll see is this:


DirectGov has still not been replaced by GOV.UK.


Updated 27.10.14

Happy birthday GOV.UK, said Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE on 17 October 2014, and added:
On 17 October 2012, GOV.UK became the official website of the UK government, taking over from Directgov and Business Link, both of which were switched off on the same day.
This statement remains manifestly false:
  • Directgov and Business Link weren't "switched off" two years ago ...
  • ... and they still haven't been today. Applying on-line for a Blue Badge, for example, still takes you to direct.gov.uk. And the Contracts Finder service, for example, is still on businesslink.gov.uk.

    Updated 28.10.14 #1

    Suppose you wanted to find a job.

    How to go about it?

    You might start at GOV.UK's Find a job with Universal Jobmatch.

    Click on Log in to Universal Jobmatch if you have an account, and what do you see?

    But, no, surely this is impossible. Directgov was "switched off" two years ago. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE says so. So that's not what you see.

    And when you get to the Universal JobMatch welcome screen on ...

    https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk

    ... that's not on direct.gov.uk.

    Despite what it looks like.

    Because it can't be.

    Because Directgov has been replaced.

    Everyone knows that.

    That's what it says on the GOV.UK home page:



    Updated 28.10.14 #2

    Suppose you wanted to find a contract.

    How to go about it?

    You might start at GOV.UK's Contracts Finder.

    Click on Start now and what do you see?


    And where do you see it?

    https://online.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/

    But, no, surely this is impossible. Business Link was "switched off" two years ago. Public Servant of the Year ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken CBE says so. So that's not what you see.

    Regardless, suppose you enter "government digital service" into the search box and see what that turns up:
    There's an enormous amount of fascinating detail like that available on the Contracts Finder service on businesslink.gov.uk.

    Which is odd, considering that Business Link is supposed to have been replaced by GOV.UK:



    Updated 9.11.14

    GOV.UK is two years old.

    Go to Apply for your first provisional driving licence on GOV.UK, click on Start now and guess where you end up – Directgov, the same Directgov that was replaced by GOV.UK two years ago according to GDS.



    Updated 24.11.15 and 28.11.15

    "This website replaces DirectGov BusinessLink", as they used to say. We have expressed some scepticism about this claim. Now, from the Department for You Couldn't Make It Up, we learn that "the most popular page on GOV.UK is Find a job with Universal Jobmatch, with 56.3 million page views between October 2014 and October 2015". GOV.UK is three years old and that is just one of the indices of its success asserted by GDS in 2 billion and counting.

    And whaddaya know? Universal Jobmatch is a DirectGov service for job searchers. As we speak, there are 391 jobs for IT consultants, for example, within 20 miles of the London post code, SW1A (https://jobsearch.direct.gov.uk).

    How do we know? Because employers list their vacancies on Universal Jobmatch. And how do they do that? By using BusinessLink (http://jobvacancies.businesslink.gov.uk).

    (No.2 in the 2014-15 hit parade, by the way, is Renew vehicle tax with 40.2 million hits. Happy though they are to take the credit, the on-line vehicle excise duty renewal service actually went live in 2005, six years before GDS existed.)

    DMossEsq first wrote about GDS's false claim to have replaced DirectGov and BusinessLink in November 2013. As late as March 2015 they were still deluding themselves, please see Government as a Platform: the next phase of digital transformation:
    GOV.UK, the single domain, is a platform for publishing. It’s used by hundreds of departments and agencies, and replacing DirectGov and Business Link alone saved more than £60m a year.
    At some point since March 2015 GDS have finally withdrawn the DirectGov/BusinessLink claim from the home page of GOV.UK. They have turned over a new leaf. The first of many, it is to be hoped, in their £450 million bid to satisfy user needs.


    Updated 24.11.16

    One James Stewart is leaving the Government Digital Service (GDS). He published a moving valedictory yesterday, Moving on: "In February [2017] it will be six years since a small group of us gathered in a scruffy room in Lambeth to work on what we called alpha.gov.uk". Thus began GOV.UK, GDS's award-winning face of the UK government on-line.

    Picking out "highlights from the past few years", Mr Stewart remembers first "the long night when we switched off DirectGov and BusinessLink and all the change that has come beyond. On one level GOV.UK is 'just a website' but it was and is also the starting point for everything else, a way to shape and communicate government that is of the internet".

    You may remember that phrase, "government of the internet" (26.10.12), from four years ago. Never mind if you don't. It goes with last year's "internet jibba jabba" (12.12.15). GDS's elaborate analogy between the internet and administering the UK has been irritating senior members of Whitehall for some time. But that's not the point.

    The point here is Mr Stewart's claim as late as yesterday that DirectGov and BusinessLink were "switched off" years ago, when GOV.UK was just an infant. It wasn't true then and it still isn't true now.

    Universal Jobmatch is still on DirectGov – take a look. That's for people looking for a job. And employers posting job vacancies on Universal Jobmatch still use BusinessLink – take a look.

    Why make that claim?

    GOV.UK and user needs

    GOV.UK is the public face of the UK government on-line.

    Take a look:


    Zoom in on the orange text and you see:


    "This website replaces DirectGov" is an assertoric statement. It can have one of only two truth-values, True or False. Which is it?

    Agile v. digital-by-default

    Are GDS agile?
    Or are they digital-by-default?
    When it comes to Universal Credit,
    it may not be possible to be both.

    Manifesto for Agile Software Development

    We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
    • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
    • Working software over comprehensive documentation
    • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
    • Responding to change over following a plan
    That is, while there is value in the items on
    the right, we value the items on the left more.

    Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

    We follow these principles:
    1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
    2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
    3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
    4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
    5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
    6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
    7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
    8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
    9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
    10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
    11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
    12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

    History: The Agile Manifesto

    ... Representatives from ... and others sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes convened ...

    ... attendees voiced support for a variety of "Light" methodologies ... articles were written that referenced the category of "Light" or "Lightweight" processes. A number these articles referred to "Light methodologies ...

    ... Early on, Alistair Cockburn weighed in with an epistle that identified the general disgruntlement with the word "Light": "I don't mind the methodology being called light in weight, but I'm not sure I want to be referred to as a lightweight attending a lightweight methodologists meeting. It somehow sounds like a bunch of skinny, feebleminded lightweight people trying to remember what day it is" ...

    [which is how the methodology came to be called "agile"]
    GDS, the Government Digital Service, are committed to making public services in the UK digital-by-default.

    They are committed to achieving this goal by using so-called "agile" methods.

    What are agile methods when they're at home?

    Agile
    As noted by the National Audit Office in their report Universal Credit: early progress (p.53), agile methods derive from the admirably short Agile Manifesto published by the Agile Alliance in 2001 and reproduced opposite.

    The Agile Alliance acknowledge that their thinking is based on earlier methodologies in software engineering – it wasn't new in 2001 and it certainly isn't new now, 12 years later.

    The reader may note en passant that "agile" is just a word. The Agile Alliance could have been called the "Lightweight Alliance", please see opposite, and they could have published the Lightweight Manifesto.

    More important, please note the 12 principles that the Agile Alliance distilled from their professional experience in the world of software engineering.

    Digital-by-default
    Universal credit to be first service 'digital by default', said the Guardian on 3 February 2012, when Steve Dover was still the director of major programmes at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The article quotes him as follows:
    The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.
    Mr Dover is no longer the director of major programmes at DWP.

    The Cabinet Office's Digital Efficiency Report estimates the savings to be made by introducing digital-by-default. These savings would be made only if 80% or more of public service transactions take place on-line. The report estimates that it could take 11 years to reach that goal. On p.19 the report says:
    If the proportion of savings estimated to relate to staff costs ... is applied to the total estimated annual savings and then divided by an average cost per FTE [full-time equivalent, what we used to call a "person"], this amounts to a total FTE savings estimate of at least 40,000. This represents the number of FTEs [people] that could be saved [scrapped] if a shift towards digital transactions right across government were achieved.
    "Digital-by-default" means empty call centres, unmanned back offices and 40,000 fewer public servants, minimum, all replaced by computer systems.

    This is Tony Blair's deceased transformational government agenda. Dead, but still walking.

    No.6
    Take a look at the principles behind the Agile Manifesto reproduced above. Particularly principle no.6:
    The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
    "Requirements elicitation" as it's known. The best way for a development team to understand or elicit what is required of them is by "face-to-face conversation".

    As keen followers of agile methods, GDS may be expected to adhere to that principle. They will not rely on documentation printed on paper or displayed in browsers, they will not rely on emails or texts or instant messages or phone calls or memos. Face-to-face conversation. That's what works.

    We can think of other scenarios where face-to-face conversation works best. Teaching children in class, for example, and diagnosing a medical problem.

    Let's call this class of requirements elicitation scenarios "Class H", where the "H" stands for "human".

    And let's distinguish Class H requirements elicitation from Class D, "digital".

    Amazon doesn't need a teacher or a doctor to find out which book you want to buy. That simple piece of requirements elicitation can be accomplished digitally. Buying a book on Amazon is in Class D. You want to buy a heated towel rail on eBay? Ditto. Class D. You want to hire a car at Catania airport for five days beginning 12 December 2013? Class D. Etc ...

    Universal Credit
    Now suppose that you don't want to buy a book or hire a car, instead you want to register for Jobseeker's Allowance or any of the six state benefits that Universal Credit is meant to replace. DWP need to elicit your requirements. Is that a Class H or a Class D requirements elicitation?

    The answer isn't obvious. We need an intelligent argument based on facts to convince us that registration for state benefits could be achieved exclusively digitally.

    GDS simply assume that registering for state benefits is comparable to buying a book on Amazon – they haven't provided any argument to support digital-by-default in this case.

    And in the absence of any such argument, it is imprudent – to put it mildly – simply to assume that registration could be digital by default. If we look at the evidence, we may find that the Agile Manifesto is right and that, in this case, "the most efficient and effective method of conveying information ... is face-to-face conversation".

    Are GDS agile? Or are they digital-by-default? When it comes to Universal Credit, it may not be possible to be both.

    ----------

    Updated 11.11.13:

    Should G-Cloud and the GDS be taken seriously as contenders to run Universal Credit?
    Among the offenders are those who trumpet "digital by default" as the "answer", without considering the question.

    Agile v. digital-by-default

    Are GDS agile?
    Or are they digital-by-default?
    When it comes to Universal Credit,
    it may not be possible to be both.

    Manifesto for Agile Software Development

    We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
    • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
    • Working software over comprehensive documentation
    • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
    • Responding to change over following a plan
    That is, while there is value in the items on
    the right, we value the items on the left more.

    Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

    We follow these principles:
    1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
    2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
    3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
    4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
    5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
    6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
    7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
    8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
    9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
    10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
    11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
    12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

    History: The Agile Manifesto

    ... Representatives from ... and others sympathetic to the need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software development processes convened ...

    ... attendees voiced support for a variety of "Light" methodologies ... articles were written that referenced the category of "Light" or "Lightweight" processes. A number these articles referred to "Light methodologies ...

    ... Early on, Alistair Cockburn weighed in with an epistle that identified the general disgruntlement with the word "Light": "I don't mind the methodology being called light in weight, but I'm not sure I want to be referred to as a lightweight attending a lightweight methodologists meeting. It somehow sounds like a bunch of skinny, feebleminded lightweight people trying to remember what day it is" ...

    [which is how the methodology came to be called "agile"]
    GDS, the Government Digital Service, are committed to making public services in the UK digital-by-default.

    They are committed to achieving this goal by using so-called "agile" methods.

    What are agile methods when they're at home?

    Agile
    As noted by the National Audit Office in their report Universal Credit: early progress (p.53), agile methods derive from the admirably short Agile Manifesto published by the Agile Alliance in 2001 and reproduced opposite.

    The Agile Alliance acknowledge that their thinking is based on earlier methodologies in software engineering – it wasn't new in 2001 and it certainly isn't new now, 12 years later.

    The reader may note en passant that "agile" is just a word. The Agile Alliance could have been called the "Lightweight Alliance", please see opposite, and they could have published the Lightweight Manifesto.

    More important, please note the 12 principles that the Agile Alliance distilled from their professional experience in the world of software engineering.

    Digital-by-default
    Universal credit to be first service 'digital by default', said the Guardian on 3 February 2012, when Steve Dover was still the director of major programmes at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The article quotes him as follows:
    The starting point, I said to our telephony collaboration teams based in Newcastle, was just think of a contact centre, but it has got no people in it and think of an operating model that has got no back office, and start from there.
    Mr Dover is no longer the director of major programmes at DWP.

    The Cabinet Office's Digital Efficiency Report estimates the savings to be made by introducing digital-by-default. These savings would be made only if 80% or more of public service transactions take place on-line. The report estimates that it could take 11 years to reach that goal. On p.19 the report says:
    If the proportion of savings estimated to relate to staff costs ... is applied to the total estimated annual savings and then divided by an average cost per FTE [full-time equivalent, what we used to call a "person"], this amounts to a total FTE savings estimate of at least 40,000. This represents the number of FTEs [people] that could be saved [scrapped] if a shift towards digital transactions right across government were achieved.
    "Digital-by-default" means empty call centres, unmanned back offices and 40,000 fewer public servants, minimum, all replaced by computer systems.

    This is Tony Blair's deceased transformational government agenda. Dead, but still walking.

    No.6
    Take a look at the principles behind the Agile Manifesto reproduced above. Particularly principle no.6:
    The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
    "Requirements elicitation" as it's known. The best way for a development team to understand or elicit what is required of them is by "face-to-face conversation".

    As keen followers of agile methods, GDS may be expected to adhere to that principle. They will not rely on documentation printed on paper or displayed in browsers, they will not rely on emails or texts or instant messages or phone calls or memos. Face-to-face conversation. That's what works.

    We can think of other scenarios where face-to-face conversation works best. Teaching children in class, for example, and diagnosing a medical problem.

    Let's call this class of requirements elicitation scenarios "Class H", where the "H" stands for "human".

    And let's distinguish Class H requirements elicitation from Class D, "digital".

    Amazon doesn't need a teacher or a doctor to find out which book you want to buy. That simple piece of requirements elicitation can be accomplished digitally. Buying a book on Amazon is in Class D. You want to buy a heated towel rail on eBay? Ditto. Class D. You want to hire a car at Catania airport for five days beginning 12 December 2013? Class D. Etc ...

    Saturday 9 November 2013

    Putting the user first – what does it mean?

    Co-operating with Korea to put users first – that was the big news two days ago from GDS, the Government Digital Service.

    According to Liam Maxwell, Her Majesty's Government's Chief Technology Officer: "As demonstrated in last month’s Conference on Cyberspace in Seoul, we have much in common with Korea, but we also have much to learn from each other. Yesterday’s signing commits both of our countries to creating digital public services that put the needs of the citizen first, and I'm excited that we’ll be working more closely together".

    Francis Maude signing an agreement with Korea for no apparent reason
    Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken was equally excited after his presentation to the Cabinet a few weeks ago: "Starting with the needs of users has led to a radical shift in the way we build and provision government services. That’s a huge thing. It means an end to big IT, it means smarter and cheaper services which meet users needs, and it means digital sitting at the heart of teams all around government".

    Does "starting with the needs of users" mean "an end to big IT"? No. Does it mean "smarter and cheaper services"? No. Does it mean "digital sitting at the heart of teams all around government"? No. Not in English. And not in Korean.

    GDS imply that "starting with the needs of users" distinguishes them from other government bodies. It's "led to a radical shift in the way we build and provision government services".

    But does it?

    If you ask the Department for Education "do you put the needs of students first", will they say "good lord no, we've got much more important matters to consider"? If you ask the department of Health "do you put the needs of patients first", will they say "don't be ridiculous, there's no time for any of that nonsense"? If you ask the London Borough of Merton "do you put the interests of Mertonians first", will they say "we used to but ever since Francis Maude signed that agreement we're concentrating more on Korea"?

    No. Putting the needs of users first doesn't distinguish GDS from any other government body.

    GDS may say that the other government bodies, with the disgracefully old-fashioned ways they "build and provision government services", don't really mean it.

    But do GDS really mean it? Never mind the other government bodies, do GDS really put the needs of users first? The progress (complete lack thereof) of their assisted digital project suggests not.

    What does "putting the user first" mean? Nothing? Whatever you want it to mean?

    ----------

    Updated 16 December 2013:

    Why is [are?] design and creativity important to your organisation? That was the question Design Week was asking last Friday and a jolly good question it is.

    Can you guess GDS's answer? Are you beginning to get the hang of this user needs business?
    ‘Because the organising principle of GDS is the user, and the user deserves services designed for the user, not the Government. Design and creativity are central to recasting public services, and indeed the civil service, if we are to create public services fit for a digital era.’
    Deflect your eyes from the screen for a moment, look around you and look back, and you may see that the "organising principle" of every government department is meant to be the user, that doesn't distinguish GDS, it's not a new idea.

    Design and creativity are of course important but again, that's not a new idea. You may remember that each government department website once had its own branding, designed to suit its users. Arguably, the award-winning GOV.UK took an undesign step backwards when it standardised the lot of them.


    Updated 29 January 2014:

    It's that time of the year again. Reinvigorating the troops with self-congratulatory jamborees. This time last year we had The future is here. Today it was Sprint 14 (which remained coyly imprecise about where the future is now).

    Rt Hon Francis Maude MP gave a speech today which returns to the theme of the post above, viz. the useful versatility of the phrase "user needs":
    Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s British born designer, put it best when he said:

    ‘The word design is everything and nothing. We think of design as not just the product’s appearance: it’s what the product is and how it works. The design and the product are inseparable.’

    So what does that mean for government?

    It means putting users at the heart of public services.

    Updated 31 January 2014:

    Anyone can play the what-does-user-needs-mean children's game to achieve any result they want. It's easy. Here's an example. Look:

    A year ago, four professors reviewed the Government Digital Strategy and said: "We see little discussion of a concrete and practical change management process to support the “digital by default” strategy in the current [Government Digital Strategy]. We view this as a potentially fatal omission. Put another way, trying to drive cultural change via technology (IT) is highly risky and almost never succeeds".

    What does that mean?

    It means that users have not been put at the heart of public services. It means that the 25 digital-by-default exemplars (1 live, 24 not) haven't been designed. The creativity needed to recast public services is missing. It means no end to big IT, more expensive and dumber public services, and no digital sitting at the heart of teams all around government.

    The following comment was submitted  at 9:14 yesterday morning, 30 January 2014, by someone remaining anonymous. The computer said no – the length of the comment exceeds some limit – which is why none of DMossEsq's millions of readers have seen it until now.

    It is posted here, where the size limit is more generous, so that people can see a more grown-up way of playing what-does-user-needs-mean:
    Of course putting users first is right - a sound marketing phrase that is too easy to say but in reality in enterprise software is a lot more than "design" of a user interface. GDS have built expertise in doing that for information web sites but building "a digital” service is a whole different ball game.

    Historically enterprise software in all its forms was “system” centric and as a result users had to mould their action and needs to the “system”. As a result users resort to off line activity spreadsheets access database even post it notes! Over the past 15 years Business Process Management BPM emerged as the industry’s recognition of this “problem. As ever in an industry that puts hype before reality early iterations were overhyped in actually delivery capabilities but this is changing as new players now can deliver on the requirements to cover all user needs internal and external.

    Here are all the requirements in software that are needed to “put users first”
    1. Process engine - to ensure all works to plan
    2. Rules engine - reflecting real world of compliance
    3. Calculation engine - automating system work
    4. State engine - real time feed back from any point
    5. BPM - focus on people and their processes
    6. Workflow - everything connected in right order
    7. Audit trail, events, escalations = control
    8. Rapid prototyping - user involvement in build
    9. Time recording - supports activity based costing
    10. Real time reporting - become predictive
    11. Prebuilt configurable dashboard - operational visibility
    12. Build mash ups - one screen multiple data sources
    13. Linked intelligent Ajax grids - enter data only once
    14. Roles and performers - people and machines indentified
    15. Management hierarchy - see who does what and when reallocate work
    16. Orchestrating legacy - recognising valuable data in legacy
    17. User interface dynamically created - linking people, roles, task type and data via forms for specific instances recognising that user forms needs to be specific for that task in hand
    18. Pre-built templates for custom documents, letters, e-mails, messages etc dynamically populated with instance specific data and edit capability in browser - automating yet giving users ultimate control over external communications
    19. Process and task versioning control - recognising change is inevitable
    The supporting technology to do all this is now available without need to resort to custom coding. The speed and thus cost of build on any requirement is significant better than either custom coding or moulding a Custom Off The Shelf to the business.

    It is clear GDS just do not get this evidenced by their very poor “digital frameworks” which do not reflect such capability. Also recent the Minister in an interview on BBC radio reported by Campaign 4change http://linkis.com/wp.me/ERyPg I was amazed to learn that GDS spent 750 man days building a prototype for UC at DWP.. Using such a “BPM Platform” with such capabilities it would have been a fraction of that?

    Something is badly wrong with the Cabinet Office research to ensure best value for money? Time to find out “why” So I have a few FOIs out and I will report back. 
    Our commentator, Mr Anonymous, is saying that a lot of tools for software engineering exist and that he suspects that GDS, the Government Digital Service, to the detriment of their performance, aren't using them. Item #19 in his list, for example, would address the four professors' concern about change management.

    There is some evidence that he's right.

    Consider, for example, this post on the GDS blog, Scaling Agile Practices to the GDS Portfolio. It's all about how GDS manage projects. Their preferred method is to use a wall.

    There are at least two problems with that – walls are predominantly two-dimensional, whereas project management has many more dimensions, and you can't put walls in your briefcase and take them to another office to discuss them.

    GDS have attempted to resolve those problems by developing a project management system, starting by asking the users what they need:
    We addressed the portfolio implementation project, much like we would any project at GDS, in an agile way: We spent time with the users and stakeholders to understand what their needs were; we spent time workshopping to understand drivers, what success looked like, what we hoped the project would do, and what our fears were – as well as opportunities that could arise from the project.
    And what did they come up with? All they tell us about is a pie chart:

    That's it.

    A pie chart.

    Day 1 of Graphics 101.

    And yet the world is full of sophisticated project management tools. Has been ever since the first Pharaoh started running up pyramids. See #9 in Mr Anonymous's list.

    There's no dishonour in using other people's software. But GDS seem to have preferred in this instance to reinvent the wheel.

    And not just this instance.

    As part of their doomed identity assurance project, IDA, GDS have elected to develop a brand new "hub" to link government departments, people and so-called "identity providers". There was no need to do that. We already have the Government Gateway.

    When the Electoral Commission complained that GDS wouldn't tell them their costs for working on individual electoral registration, you may have assumed that GDS preferred to withhold the numbers, perhaps because they were embarrassing. But there is another possibility – maybe GDS don't record time and don't cost it, maybe they simply didn't have any figures to give the Commission.

    Prima facie, Mr Anonymous seems to have rather a good point. Perhaps someone at GDS should take another look at the software engineering tools already available and consider using them instead of building new ones.

    But who?

    Who in GDS has experience of large-scale complex software engineering? And in particular, large-scale complex government software engineering?

    This is another matter that worried the four professors:
    ... there are many discussions on the need for better architectural insight to resolve challenges in understanding core service properties, there are frameworks for investigating the unpredictability of ultra-large-scale systems behaviour, and there are studies highlighting the challenges that arise at the sociotechnical boundary of where systems thinking meets system usability. The [Government Digital Strategy] shows no evidence that it is aware or has taken account of the impact of such thinking ...
    The lights may be on when Mr Anonymous knocks on GDS's door to talk about user needs. But is there anyone in?

    Putting the user first – what does it mean?

    Co-operating with Korea to put users first – that was the big news two days ago from GDS, the Government Digital Service.

    According to Liam Maxwell, Her Majesty's Government's Chief Technology Officer: "As demonstrated in last month’s Conference on Cyberspace in Seoul, we have much in common with Korea, but we also have much to learn from each other. Yesterday’s signing commits both of our countries to creating digital public services that put the needs of the citizen first, and I'm excited that we’ll be working more closely together".

    Francis Maude signing an agreement with Korea for no apparent reason
    while Martha-now-Lady Lane Fox looks on
    Ex-Guardian man Mike Bracken was equally excited after his presentation to the Cabinet a few weeks ago: "Starting with the needs of users has led to a radical shift in the way we build and provision government services. That’s a huge thing. It means an end to big IT, it means smarter and cheaper services which meet users needs, and it means digital sitting at the heart of teams all around government".

    Does "starting with the needs of users" mean "an end to big IT"? No. Does it mean "smarter and cheaper services"? No. Does it mean "digital sitting at the heart of teams all around government"? No. Not in English. And not in Korean.