Head of Service Design

Summary

A head of service design is an expert practitioner with broad industry experience, who can define and assure best practice while influencing, leading and mentoring others. At this role level, you will:

influence both design and organisational strategy and priorities

collaborate with counterpart colleagues across government

focus on ensuring the right conditions and environment for designers to work effectively

Work Activity Components

Title	Details
Design, analysis and iterative development (Level 6)	Plans and leads user experience design activities for strategic, large and complex programmes.
Commitment and maturity (Level 6)	Obtains organisational commitment to policies, standards and strategies to deliver required usability, accessibility and security. Undertakes or initiates assessment of organisation's maturity in usability and accessibility, and takes appropriate follow-up action.

Behavioural Skills

Title	Details
Creativity	Taking innovative approaches to problem solving and/or devising inventive and creative solutions.
Organisational Awareness	Understanding the hierarchy and culture of own, customer, supplier and partner organisations and being able to identify the decision makers and influencers.
Interacting with People	Establishing relationships, contributing to an open culture and maintaining contacts with people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. Effective, approachable and sensitive communicator in different communities and cultures. Ability to adapt style and approach to meet the needs of different audiences.
Influence, Persuasion and Personal Impact	Conveying a level of confidence and professionalism when engaging with stakeholders, influencing positively and persuading others to take a specific course of action when not in a position of authority.
Leadership	Clearly articulating goals and objectives, and motivating and leading others towards their achievement.

Technical Skills

Title	Details	Depth
Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)	Graphical human/computer interfaces that facilitate effective communication between human operator and computer.	Proficient in
Corporate, Industry and Professional Standards	Applying relevant standards, practices, codes, and assessment and certification programmes to the specific organisation or business domain.	Proficient in
Systems Ergonomics and Iterative Design	Iterative methods and techniques to allocate and optimise the division of functions between the human, machine and organisational elements of IT systems and the functions themselves in terms of ergonomic impact. Systematic and iterative design of the physical and cognitive interfaces to create an effective user experience in a software system, product or service with attention paid to variety of locations and access devices employed by users.	Expert in

Other Skills

Title	Details	Depth
Project Planning and Control Techniques	Methods and techniques associated with planning and monitoring progress of projects.	Proficient in
Organisational Brand and Culture	Knowledge and understanding of the brand image and personality of the organisation's products and/or services and the overall culture and personality of the work environment.	Expert in

Training

Title	Details
Stakeholder Relationship Management	Negotiation, presentation and engagement skills to adapt and address the needs of different stakeholders to develop and maintain strong stakeholder relationships.
Latest Cyber Security Threats for Senior Execs	Short, high-level, up-to-date and to-the-point briefing on the latest threats and vulnerabilities in cyber security.

Professional Development Activity (PDA)

Title	Details	PDA Group
Mentoring	Acting as a mentor, advising those for whom there is no direct responsibility, on matters to do with their job role, career and professional development.	Broadening Activities
Gaining Knowledge of Broader IT Issues	Increasing and maintaining currency of knowledge of broader IT issues through reading, attending and participating in seminars or conferences, special studies, temporary assignments etc.	Increasing Knowledge
Gaining Strategic Knowledge of Employing Organisation	Developing a comprehensive understanding of the business environment in which the employing organisation operates and its position, policies and direction in relation to health and care, country and global issues.	Increasing Knowledge
Gaining Knowledge of Standards and Legislation	Gaining and maintaining knowledge of relevant national and international standards and legislation.	Increasing Knowledge
Management Development	Undertaking learning and best practice of the skills appropriate to managing all or part of an organisation, including business and financial management, benefits management, people management, management of change and strategic planning. This will require both on and off the job learning and may include participation in an appropriate development programme such as MBA or DMS (Diploma in Management Studies).	Developing Professional Skills

Organisational Skill Name and Description

Framework	Skill	Level
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Agile working Agile delivery involves encouraging teams to build incrementally, test and iterate their work based on regular feedback and other useful data.	Expert Agile working You can: coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices, determining the right approach for the team to take and evaluating this through the life of a project think of new and innovative ways of working to achieve the right outcomes act as a recognised expert and advocate for the approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Communicating between the technical and non-technical	Expert Communicating between the technical and non-technical You can: mediate between people and mend relationships, communicating with stakeholders at all levels manage stakeholder expectations and moderate discussions about high risk and complexity, even within constrained timescales speak on behalf of and represent the community to large audiences inside and outside of government
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Community collaboration Collaboration in the DDaT Profession typically involves working in a multidisciplinary project team, and contributing to working groups and wider professional communities. It requires a broad understanding of the technologies, principles and perspectives of related professions.	Expert Community collaboration You can: solve and unblock issues between teams or departments at the highest level understand the psychology of the team and have strong mediation skills coach the organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution, while also building and growing the community
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Digital perspective Process optimisation involves ensuring your processes are accurately defined and capture the most efficient way to complete a task by monitoring modified procedures.	Expert Digital perspective You can: demonstrate knowledge of the wider digital economy and advances in technology, and understand how these impact in a government context make decisions that set the standards for others to follow understand working using Agile methodology at an organisational level create an environment for success
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Evidence- and context-based design	Expert Evidence- and context-based design You can: design systems for use across multiple services and can identify the simplest of a variety of approaches
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Leadership and guidance IT infrastructure involves ensuring systems and processes are available, adaptable, reliable and secure.	Expert Leadership and guidance You can: change organisational structures to fixable and sustainable designs lead on the strategy for the whole organisation, marrying business needs with innovative analysis make and justify decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity build consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly independent and diverse stakeholders solve and unblock issues between teams or departments at the highest level understand the psychology of a team and have strong mediation skills coach the organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Managing decisions and risks	Expert Managing decisions and risks You can: make and justify decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity build consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly independent and diverse stakeholders be trusted by senior risk owners as an expert in security apply risk methodologies at the most complex levels of risk guide others in applying risk methodologies in proportion to the risk
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Prototyping Prototyping a service or product involves exploring, testing and sharing different concepts before committing to the final design.	Expert Prototyping You can: use a variety of prototyping methods share best practice and coach others look at strategic service design end to end
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Prototyping in code Prototyping a service or product involves exploring, testing and sharing different concepts before committing to the final design.	Working Prototyping in code You can: write HTML and add new tags
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Strategic thinking Strategy involves creating a plan to achieve a team or organisation's objectives.	Expert Strategic thinking You can: lead the design and implementation of strategy, directing the evaluation of strategies and policies to ensure business requirements are being met
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	User focus User focus involves understanding the user needs to develop a detailed understanding of the problems that need to be solved.	Expert User focus You can: give direction on which tools or methods to use demonstrate experience in meeting the needs of users across a variety of channels bring insight and expertise in how user needs have changed over time to ensure they're met by the business apply strategic thinking to provide the best service for the end user
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework	Working within constraints Web performance optimisation involves improving the efficiency and speed with which web pages load in a browser.	Expert Working within constraints You can: influence, challenge and coach anticipate how constraints might change and know where to challenge or remove constraints

Framework

Skill

Level