Digital

Trove.scot – embedding the Standard and working with the assessment process

October 9, 2024 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Assurance Office, Digital Scotland, Technology Assurance Framework

Guest blog by Laura Johnstone, Continuous Improvement team, Digital Assurance Office.

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) care for and curate millions of internationally renowned collections and archives. As the lead public body for Scotland’s historic environment, they also play a key role in identifying, celebrating and protecting Scotland’s most significant heritage. Their records on listed buildings, scheduled monuments and other designated places are widely used by a range of people from homeowners to solicitors and planners.

Since 2022, HES have been working on a project to bring together this wealth of information, images, and data that is currently spread across a sizeable digital estate. The project will bring together heritage information into a searchable and discoverable single website – trove.scot.

New digital services must comply with the Digital Scotland Service Standard (DSSS) and this compliance is assessed through a Digital Standard Assessment, under the Technology Assurance Framework.  The trove.scot service was the first time HES had engaged in a DSSS Assessment. During the period that the trove.scot service was being developed, the Digital Assurance Office noted a maturing approach to delivery by the Service Team in accordance with the Standard. 

This case study explores how the trove.scot Service Team matured its approach and their reflections from the assessment process. A further two case studies will explore how the trove.scot service put users at the heart of its design and how they worked with their supplier.

Activities

• the Service Team had a very limited understanding of the DSSS and the assessment process at the discovery assessment, following that assessment the Service Team did a lot of work to understand both better
• the Service Team took time to understand the Minimum Evidence Framework (MEF) which provides guidance on the typical evidence you need to provide for an assessment
• a supplier carried out the design and development work for the trove.scot service but HES retained ultimate responsibility for the design and delivery of the service
• the trove.scot Service Team was HES and the supplier working as an integrated team
• the need for compliance with DSSS was built into the Invitation to Tender (ITT), at the end of the discovery phase
• HES based the ITT on a sound understanding of the skills available within HES to meet the criteria in the Standard, and what gaps were needed to be filled by the supplier – when the supplier were on boarded there was explicit agreement on the ownership of the specific criteria in the Standard
• as the project progressed through delivery the Service Team actively used the MEF to consider what evidence the assessment team would look to see and ensured that was built into the working practices of the team and the documented outputs
• the Service Team mapped its outputs against the MEF and identified who was responsible for providing the evidence – this meant a lot less effort at the point of assessment and was the right approach for the team
• the beta assessment was carried out fairly early in the delivery phase, driven by the Service Team wanting to take as much uncertainty as possible out of the timeline to get to Go Live and confidence that they were in a good position to comply with the majority of the DSSS criteria, with the exception of some final sign offs
• the Service Team have actively promoted the DSSS and the assessment process within HES and have shared their challenges, their learning and reflections to support the embedding of the Standard
• this has been done in a number of ways including – providing an update on the DSSS assessment process as part of regular project communications within HES; a standing update on DSSS assessment progress to the trove.scot Project Board; regular updates on the assessment process to internal groups, including the PMO, Product Owner meet ups and Agile groups and through the sharing of lessons learned with other teams preparing business cases, ensuring that the DSSS assessment process is adequately understood, planned and costed for

Reflections

• make sure the organisational leadership team and the SRO/project leadership understand the DSSS, its drivers and how it will influence the design and delivery of the digital service – if possible have someone in the service team with experience of working with the Standard and the end to end assurance processes
• to retain ownership of the service the commissioning organisation needs to understand what it is delegating to the supplier, and how it will know if the work has been done successfully
• work closely with your DAO engagement manager, have regular check ins and don’t be afraid to ask questions
• the DSSS assessment process does take time to plan and prepare for and to follow up on recommendations made – you need resources to do this effectively, some of the recommendations made in order to meet the Standard required new work to be progressed by the Service Team in response
• understand that the assessment process will lead to recommendations and potentially some of the criteria not being met, it is a learning process and an improvement opportunity
• plan for your assessment from the very earliest stages of a project and integrate it into the project plan
• identify all the meetings needed and who needs to be at them being clear on purpose and expected outputs, work closely with your DAO engagement manager to understand the implications of timing your assessment to decide the right time for the assessment in the delivery phase
• build in time for preparing for the Show and Tell in order to effectively demonstrate the work done in the delivery phase
• an early beta assessment took as much uncertainty out of Go Live as possible, but due to the assessment taking place early in the delivery phase there were a number of criteria assessed as not met
• these not met criteria were a reflection of time and not a reflection on the work of the project, positioning the review outcome in that context was important for the trove.scot team and communication within HES
• ensure that your supplier understands what the DSSS is, and what the assessment process is – it is not the same as the UK Government and it has to be built into the tendering process

Find out more

For more information about this case study contact: trove@hes.scot.

The Technology Assurance Framework (TAF) is designed to help prevent digital projects from failing for common reasons, improve delivery and ensure that the lessons learned from previous experience are reflected and embedded in future practice. The Digital Assurance Office are working with organisations to share information which might help others deliver digital projects and we have been publishing our insights and case studies on our digital blog.  On our blog you can read about the  National Entitlement Card smart ticketing project and how the Service Team matured their delivery practices in accordance with the DSSS and how the Census 2022 Programme approach the Digital Standard.

If you want to get involved contact us at: DigitalAssurance@gov.scot.

For expert guidance on delivering a digital project visit the Digital Scotland Service Manual.

The Scottish Digital Academy is the public sector centre of expertise for digital capability and can provide information, advice and guidance on developing digital, data and technology skills to support transformation.  The academy runs two courses specifically on the Digital Scotland Service Standard:

Digital Scotland Service Standard Awareness – Scottish Digital Academy

Working towards the Standard – A deeper understanding of the Digital Scotland Service Standard – Scottish Digital Academy

The Social Security Programme: Our Story Team are part of a wider legacy portfolio, whose goal is to capture and disseminate eight years of acquired knowledge, capabilities and lessons learned to demonstrate that irrespective of the size, nature or maturity of your Programme, your profession or career pathway, ‘Our Story’ has the potential to build individual and team skills and capabilities whilst improving the effectiveness and quality of your delivery. They do this through a variety of means from building case studies, interviews and blogs to facilitating workshops and resource loans, for the benefit of Social Security Scotland, the wider Scottish Government and public sector. You can access their resources on Pathways or contact the team: socialsecurity.ourstoryteam@gov.scot

For further information and signposting to advice and support on programme and project management contact the Programme and Project Management Centre for Expertise. The Scottish Government programme and project management principles are available and apply to any project of any size.

Tags: Continuous Improvement, Digital Assurance Office, Digital Scotland Service Standard, Historic Environment Scotland, Technology Assurance Framework

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