Operational service readiness
Operational service readiness makes sure that new or significantly changed services are safe and secure, and meet Defra’s requirements for managing live services.
This assurance protects the integrity of live environments by ensuring we introduce services to the Defra estate in a consistent, controlled, and compliant way.
It allows us to map our services and understand their interdependencies while supporting teams to deliver their set outcomes.
Assurance
The operational service readiness team is responsible for assuring the operational and business readiness of a service at any stage.
They do this by:
- understanding user needs and technical solutions
- engaging the right stakeholders
- confirming supplier contracts are in place
- ensuring support documentation is complete
- following all necessary governance processes
The team bring this information together in a service operations guide. This document sets out the service components and how they are supported throughout their lifecycle.
Operational service design review board
The service design review board is mandatory assurance as part of the readiness process. An operational service readiness manager leads this on behalf of the delivery group.
A service must go to the review board before a service is live. This usually happens at the start of the beta phase.
The review board is made up of a group of function specialists. It checks that we can operate a reliable end-to-end service and meet [point 14 of the Service Standard[(https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/service-standard/point-14-operate-a-reliable-service).
Supporting the delivery team
Each delivery group will have an assigned operational service readiness manager to guide the services through the review board process.
They’ll also have a live services manager to help them operate their services reliably and securely in the live environment. These roles will directly support the delivery group to move through this assurance.
Providing information for review
Different information is provided to the service readiness manager at different phases of delivery.
As soon as your service uses information or data from a live service:
- complete a security assurance pack to make sure cyber threat is understood
- provide the email address or contact details of the support team
This could include a service in discovery or alpha.
It is important for the team to be aware of a service in development because any changes made to a service at any stage could impact the status of another live service. The team also need to know who to contact if an incident occurs on a live service that could be caused by a service in development.
To do during private beta:
- update the security assurance pack
- create the workflow for ticket assignment
- upload information to MyIT (DDTS’s workflow management tool) around how the service is configured and supported
- define and agree your change model within the delivery group
To do during public beta:
- complete everything on MyIT for your service
- integrate dev tools so you can raise changes through automated links
- configure reporting and dashboards so that you can view performance data in real-time
To do before live:
- chose a contact who will own and maintain all your data within MyIT during live
- populate support queues in MyIT
- run live service rehearsals for incidents and change
- agree and ensure understanding for 24/7 support if your service is critical