Understand your services from the perspective of customers, users and people outside the organisation.

Have a clear understanding of service outcomes to work towards.

Strive to understand what works and what doesn’t work for all involved.

Use this as the basis to steer, change and improve what happens on the inside.

Know what good looks like, in terms of effectiveness, efficiency - and what people need.

Look at overall performance to identify, quantify and shape improvements and changes. 

Understand the important issues that affect performance, outcomes and people.

Proactively work to address these, or be able to say why not to, yet.

Recognise service design, delivery and operations as fundamental to how well organisations achieve their mission.

Arrange for people from different disciplines and functions to work together to learn what works best and to pursue outcomes. Reduce or remove the separation and handoffs.

Develop and evolve strategy or policy, service design and delivery choices together, by being able to see and respond to what works.

Anticipate and prepare for future challenges by horizon scanning, investing in foundations, expecting to need to change.

Detect, learn and respond to what works best or what is most likely to achieve outcomes.

Choose delivery approaches that support learning and iteration, rather than predetermining it all.

Learn and do together, rather than ‘do’ change to each other.

Make arrangements to be able to continuously improve services and component parts, at all levels

Understand that technology and data design and delivery choices heavily influence service performance and outcomes. Not as something separate to be done and handed over.

Arrange for technology (products, platforms, systems and IT) to be more continuously improved and supported.

Are aware of the problems, risks and opportunities related to services as a result of technology and data. Seek to actively address these.

Are able to anticipate and respond to risks and changes, and strive to improve ability to fix and improve.

Build awareness of contemporary approaches, risks and issues with technology and data

Describe work clearly and simply, setting out the actual problems to solve or outcomes to achieve.

Share more work as it happens, between people, teams and organisations, such as with ‘show the thing’ sessions, weeknotes, blog posts.

Have clear service strategies and narratives about what is happening, what is a priority, what is not happening and why.

Organise and support multidisciplinary teams to deliver, improve or enable services.

Design and iterate working practices to make the most of people working together.

Shape a blended portfolio of short, medium and longer term improvement that addresses issues, builds future foundations and improves overall performance. Rather than separate ‘business as usual’ from its ‘transformation’.

Understand ‘org design’ and ‘operating models’ as the need to learn what is needed, rather than committing upfront. Expect to organise more fluidly to suit different stages and situations.

Have leaders who can hold the whole vision and direction for a service, on behalf of customers and users, staff and operations, policy intent and outcomes, technology and compliance.

Know how to get things delivered operationally, corralling all the different influences into meaningful priorities, decisions and direction.

Have guardianship and responsibility for outcomes and performance across, and for, different functions.

Are aware of the need for service design, user research, operational transformation and technology good practices - enough to be trusted by specialists. Or are closely supported by specialists.

Have financial practices that support more continuous improvement of services and component parts. For example, more ongoing funding, more cycles of learning and iterating, more opex, less capex.

De-risk delivery by controlling the flow of money and work across the organisation for the good of services and for outcomes as a whole.

Monitor progress towards outcomes, and enable incremental delivery and course-adjusting, rather than risky ‘big bang’ or early lock-in to untested solutions.

Steer, assure, prioritise or stop work through processes designed to protect the strategic direction of services, overall performance and priorities.

Understand there are many different types of design and delivery decisions and choices that impact how well services work

Delegate decisions to those closest to the work and to the service(s), with clear parameters and risk escalation routes.

Make decisions based on realistic understanding of vision and implications, with a cadence fit for purpose. This means decision makers being closer to the work, meeting daily or weekly when necessary.

Evolve towards clear, simple and proportionate governance processes and structures.

Separate forums for engagement, from those for constructive direction setting and robust decisions.

Develop the skills, know-how and experience internally so that more people and teams understand and use good practice to deliver and improve services.

Have more leaders aware of the services, how they perform, the top issues, what is being done, and what needs to be done.

Understand the role of enabling teams and leadership in creating the conditions and support for more people and teams to work in ways that result in better outcomes.

Support, defend and protect competent people and teams delivering service value.

Seek to improve the experience for people, customers, users, staff and everyone else involved. Raise the bar, collectively challenging unhelpful norms and habits.

Grow trust between people in different teams and functions. Likely to include people caring more about the issues that other people and teams care about, beyond just their own team.

Build habits of listening, as well as kind, constructive challenge to avoid conflicting decisions, directions or interpretations, for the good of the whole.

Aim for more honesty, openness and curiosity, and less blame, tribalism or defensiveness.