service lifecycle - tpximpact/f4-fsa-field-ops-discoveries-overview GitHub Wiki

The five discoveries completed between August 2019 and August 2020 consciously focused on component parts of the bigger, end-to-end delivery of the official controls across Dairy, Meat and Wine.

We now need to bring those component parts together in a way that puts the focus on the lifecycle of interactions between the FSA and an FBO, and avoids putting boundaries around the teams that carry out specific processes and tasks.

A recurring theme in this consolidation exercise is to identify the common baseline and then apply the variables. The same principle has been applied in creating the service lifecycle which has been simplified to eight core processes:

• Engagement - stakeholder management activities.
• Onboarding - setting up a new FBO and adding them to the programme of official controls.
• Plan operations - long term inspection regimes and resource management; short-term scheduling.
• Change operations - updating inspection regimes, resource management and scheduling in a timely manner.
• Verification - Audit, Inspection, and Sampling & Testing activities.
• Enforcement - managing incidents and non-compliance with the official controls.
• Offboarding - stopping the deliver of official controls.
• Assurance - leveraging information to enable reporting, data sharing, business planning, business intelligence, and continuous improvement.

These are processes completed across all food domains, although the ways of working and the tools used differ. The Service Lifecycle presents a very simplified view of these processes, stripped back to the basics.

Click to open the service lifecycle in Google Drive (PDF)

The service lifecycle is a way to re-imagine Field Ops and the wider FSA in terms of:

• Interactions between the FSA and FBO.
• Interactions between different teams within the FSA.
• The data flow and how the FSA's record of the FBO is created and managed over time.
• Considering the data entry and use points and how the user will complete that action.
• Seeing how the interactions and data could flow as a single journey.

This means we can also visualise how the interactions and data flow are interrupted by isolated processes, multiple data stores, manual handovers and transfers of information.

The Service Lifecyle should be used in conjunction with the Service Overview and Alignment Scorecard. As a package, the overview and lifecycle should be used to review, refine and redesign processes from a Field Operations perspective. The scorecard should help ensure any improvement work takes the seven Future Delivery Model into consideration.

The Service Overview shows that each stage of the lifecycle is made up of a number of processes. The next stage should be to map the workflows for completing each process. Mapping a standard set of workflows would give Field Ops a reference point for continuous improvement, a way to design out pain points, and a quick reference tool for onboarding new Field Ops staff.

The Approvals discovery completed in August 2020 gives an example of workflow mapping.

The key business analysis/service design takeaway from this piece of work, and the previous discoveries, is that the commonalities between food domains are greater than the differences. Putting that into practice means creating a toolkit of standardised process structures and baseline tools that can be customised to accommodate the variables.

Out of the eight service lifecycle stages, the greatest variation comes in the Verification stage. There are different regulatory requirements for food traceability and animal welfare which determine different ways of auditing, inspecting and sampling/testing products. That said, this complexity should be seen as variables not a need to design standalone processes and tools.

Continuous improvement should be far easier to manage and sustain by taking this "start with what's the same" approach. It also means systems are designed to accommodate all food domains; relevant improvements can be shared; and there is greater clarity around what is and isn't a specific use case.

When re-imagining Field Ops as a service:

• Think about Field Ops as a single end-to-end journey; think about the ongoing interactions between the FSA and the FBO rather than a sequence of standalone tasks.
• For all food domains, be clear what information is needed to deliver "food we can trust". Think about what information the FSA needs from FBOs to demonstrate compliance. Then list what inspections, checks and testing is needed to collect that information. Then think about how to collect, manage, maintain, and use the information. This is as much an information management process as it is about regulation.
• Take a step back from the current way things work. Don't think in terms of things a particular team or role does, or the current tools available; think about tasks that need doing; the information we are creating, adding, changing or archiving; and the required outcome.