Sprint 9 Update

Due to the extended bank holiday, we decided to run this sprint for 3 weeks (rather than the usual 2), which gave us a few extra days to get through more of the tasks on the backlog.

Our Technical Architect, Dave, continued working with the Placecube team of developers and QAs on the build and test of the remaining front-end forms, as well as the ongoing implementation of the various back-office system integration connectors - with just Mayrise left to be completed now.

At our sprint Show & Tell session, Dave provided a demo of the 'Report Fly Tipping' form, as well as an updated version of the 'Garden Waste Subscription' flow, which incorporates some additional functionality, to demonstrate some specific features that can be configured if, like Rugby Borough Council, the service includes things such as an eligibility check, confirmation of the number of bins already subscribed to the service, and the ability to send the physical bin stickers to a different address if required. Unfortunately, another service ('New Bin/Household Requests') didn't quite make it over the line in time to demo, so this one will be shared at our next Show & Tell.

As we've previously highlighted, each council will be able to easily configure these low code forms to tailor them to meet both the specific delivery needs of their local services, as well as their current waste management system requirements. Understandably, everyone is very keen to get hands-on with these form templates, and the form builder tool, as soon as possible, so Placecube will be working on setting up a shared UAT environment to enable this - alongside planning for the wider Digital Place platform upgrade to v3.

Gavin (Chief Product Officer) briefly talked through the service implementation steps and he also shared the various adoption options that will be available to councils, including those that aren’t customers of Placecube - all of this information will be documented in the next sprint.

Other work that the team have progressed this sprint has included reviewing the draft 'User Research Review & UX Insights Report'. This is currently being updated to reflect some recent changes (primarily to the Garden Waste section) and, once finalised, this will be shared for feedback. We also reviewed an example Monitoring & Evaluation Plan from another similar funded project (LocalGov Drupal) which had been shared with us to help inform development of our plan.

We completed a review of the original MVP and Optional waste services / functionality wish-list and identified what still needed further clarification by the LA Leads. We confirmed what will be delivered in this first Beta phase and what is still outstanding, which could form part of a future phase. The emerging areas of focus, which are currently being explored by the team are Commercial Waste services, widening out to Traded Services capabilities on the platform (based on existing discovery work undertaken by Dorset, amongst others), plus completion of the Renewal Reminders and Customer Communications features that we could not develop in this phase. These ideas still need to be discussed in more detail and agreed by the council partners.

Sprint 10 is another 3-week sprint, due to key team members taking some planned annual leave. Our plan is to:    

• Complete work on one or two 'demonstrator' end-to-end integrated services.
• Complete development of the final back-office system integration connector (for Mayrise), including confirming the various calls needed and methods currently used in forms.
• Update and finalise the User Research Review & UX Insights Report and circulate for feedback.
• Continue work on the draft M&E Plan and circulate for input.  (Agree the objectives and associated metrics and establish the baseline data needed)
• Book in, and prepare for, a 'Phase 1 Retrospective' (i.e. a Project Review / Lessons Learned session)
• Continue drafting the Phase 1 final report
• Begin drafting the Service Implementation Guide (Adoption Playbook)
• Continue discussions about the Phase 2 options and, if proceeding, the development of a proposal requesting further funding from the Local Digital Fund.

Our next Show & Tell update session will be held online at 2pm on Tuesday 5 July, so please do get in touch if you would like to attend. You can also follow our project Twitter account for regular updates. 

This project has been funded by the DLUHC Local Digital Fund.