Other assurance types
It isn’t mandatory for a delivery group to use these assurances, but they should be included wherever possible.
Show and tells
Show and tells help teams to constantly share progress and to check they’re meeting the right needs. The whole team will contribute to show and tells, but they don’t all have to present at every meeting.
To run them effectively:
- invite the right people, especially business stakeholders such as policy and operations teams
- hold them regularly throughout delivery
- focus on what’s valuable for your audience, not everything you’ve done
Architectural assurance
Service assessments check that services have been built in line with architectural guardrails. But fixing mistakes later can be expensive.
To build the right thing from the start, the technical team should have regular engagement with their strategic technical lead. Show and tells are a good way to do this.
During alpha, prototyping multiple options helps teams make technical choices within existing guardrails.
Guardrail exceptions
If a proposed best option falls outside of delivery group guardrails, teams should engage with the strategic technical lead to update the delivery group guardrails or agree on an exception.
If the proposed best option falls outside of enterprise architecture guardrails, teams should work with enterprise architecture to either update the delivery group guardrails or agree an exception.
Change management
The approach to change management depends on the type of change.
Ideally changes should be small, regular and easy to roll back. These types of changes do not need to be formally managed. Examples of tools that support this approach include the core delivery platform (CDP).
Where changes are larger, irregular and hard to roll back, then more formal change management is required. This includes wider consultation so that any risks and impact can be understood before making changes.
Private beta
The best way to reduce risk of change going wrong is to make it as small as possible. When delivering a new service this means launching a minimum viable product (MVP) with a closed group of users.
Launching a service with a closed group of users means less assurance is needed.
Assurance for launching a private beta should focus on:
- a basic readiness for service check
- testing to avoid negative impacts any other live services.
Cross-cutting technical services (CCTS)
The CCTS assurance team help service teams meet Defra standards. They support teams by:
- engaging early to make sure teams are set up correctly from the start
- tracking progress and providing advice if required
- working with service assessors to provide a confidence level for each point of the service standard