SUPPORT DURING COVID19
2019-2020
The Digital Transformation Agency is often looked to for advice on digital ways of working, tools and remote collaboration. These enquiries increased significantly as the volume of remote meetings and workshops escalated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
​
My team was redeployed in the early days of the pandemic to address this user need for internal staff, but our work quickly gained momentum and we were able to then provide this support for the broader APS. Some examples of this work are featured at the bottom of this page. I led a small team in conducting user research on the experiences of people working remotely, often for the first time and through the very new experience of COVID lockdowns. From this research I created the "working from home during COVID19" journey map. This map allowed us to identify key areas of support and advice that we could then develop.
Through this work, one of the most common pain points we heard was navigating the vast amount of remote working tools, and what was available at each agency was complex and time consuming. As the resident remote tools guru I undertook, with the support of my manager, to prototype and pitch a solution for this. My hypothesis was that this could be solved with an interactive tools matrix.
​
​Over two sprints, I conducted a range of user research to flesh out my hypothesis and collected data of the remote tools available in 20 key agencies. I then used this data to create two prototypes, one public and one available only on a closed network, to test with users. ​With this tool, public servants were able to select the agencies they were wanting to collaborate with and the matrix dynamically presented the suite of tools available for that group. The groups I tested this prototype with absolutely loved the idea.
​With that validation, the idea was taken forward to the CIO/COO committee for consideration. Unfortunately, a handful of CIO's were concerned about possible security implications should information be publicly published, and so the project did not receive support to be further developed. However, we did end up using the insights and data collected in the research to create a document, available on request, with the same guidance. Although not the intended end product, our users told us the document was still incredibly useful, and so to some degree, this product still resolved the users pain point and was a success.
Guides, advice and support example
