7. Use agile ways of working

This guidance will help you apply standard point 7.

Everyone is responsible for meeting the Service Standard. This standard point is most relevant to:

Delivery managersProduct managers

Why it's important

By getting your service in front of real users as soon as possible, you can get insights on how they use it and iterate based on what you learn.

Working this way means you're not specifying everything up front before you've developed an understanding of what users need, reducing the risk of delivering the wrong thing.

All phases

Things to consider:

  • how the team uses agile ways of working, tools, and techniques
  • make changes to your service are based on user research feedback and testing. The children and families design history documents how they have done this
  • how the team will prioritise riskiest assumptions
  • evidence decision-making with senior stakeholders that allow the team to adapt and change
  • evidence that governance is being managed with measurable goals
  • the team has all the skills it needs at each phase of the agile lifecycle

Things to avoid in all phases

  • not involving users regularly in the design and testing process

  • making decisions without sufficient evidence or user research