After gaining consensus around what success could look like during the Inception Sprint, Sprint 2 delved deeper into research. We conducted over 20 research interviews, carried out call centre listening, further journey mapping, data gathering, desk research and analysis.
We asked research subjects about how they work, what tools they use, role overlaps and pain points. This allowed us to gather insights, and they racked up fast with over 100 collected by the end of the sprint.
Shadowing Highways Inspectors really helped us understand what happens in the real world. We followed along on some day-to-day activities to find out how work is managed, observe the use of technology, and understand any difficulties. We even got to fill a pothole!
At this point we also began to look at the primary systems that are used by our research subjects. We carried out a technical exploration of Confirm Solutions to experience what it is like for the user, investigate how it integrates and interacts with other systems, and to delve a bit deeper into the data and reporting side. We also reviewed other systems in use such as our main customer reporting tool FixMyStreet.
Email data was also reviewed as part of this research sprint, including how many times emails were forwarded and how the multiple access channels contribute to the generation of email data and traffic across the Teams.
Overall, we’ve planned a 10-week discovery phase to really help us understand the users and the problems they face before we decide on what to take forward. Some key insights are already coming to the fore, particularly around ambiguous website content, multiple contact channels, and the flow of information through the various systems in use.
Sprint 3 will be a continuation of the research phase, drawing themes from our many insights. So far, we have been grateful for the level of participation of the Highways Teams. Our stakeholders are impressed that we are reframing and confirming the key problems to solve. We were asked if we had identified any quick wins. Some have been identified, but we feel we need to go a little further with our research before we can evaluate which quick wins to progress. More to come in the next sprint.
Read more detail on the Highways Services Discovery project
Main image: Geof Sheppard
