Following on from Rohan’s blog post introducing himself as DVLA’s Service Manager I wanted to provide some further detail on my role as the product owner for IEP, one of DVLA’s three digital exemplar projects. I have been in this role for a whirlwind 5 months. I often get asked what’s involved in being a product owner so thought now was a good time to share my experiences.
My working day starts with the daily stand up. This is a quick meeting of the project team and includes software developers, system testers, business analysts, a scrum master to keep everyone in check and myself. The stand up only lasts for 15 minutes and everyone has to answer three questions – what did you do yesterday? What are you going to do today? Do you have anything blocking your work? This gives everyone in the team an up to date overview of what is happening and any potential issues.
After the stand up it’s off to the first meeting of the day. I’m meeting with DVLA’s diversity team to ensure that I and the IEP project consider the needs of all our customer groups.
As I make my way back to the team to decide which part of the website to build next, I can see they’re all busily developing the service. When I get to the team area I can see a developer has finished a piece of work and it’s ready for me to sign off, I put decision on hold and review the work with the developer. As product owner there is no set day and the daily plan is quickly rearranged and reprioritised.
After a quick bowl of soup for lunch it’s off to meet DVLA’s Usability Testing Team to talk through the recent customer testing which took place in Taunton. The testing process is vital to the success of the IEP project. I wanted to talk through the latest results to ensure they are used to improve the customer experience and iron out any bugs that may exist. It’s then straight into a conference call with GDS colleagues to discuss how we cater for people who are unable to access or may need assistance to use our new digital service. My day was finished off by reading through my emails and seeing what’s in store for the next day.
6 comments
Comment by Julie posted on
Did you find any new product backlog items lurking during your sessions?
Comment by Ryan Davies posted on
We have found new user stories from every session we have run so far. It’s so useful to get real customer feedback as things are highlighted that we wouldn’t necessarily have thought of. One that stands out is the addition of a logout button. As the customer isn’t actually logging in it did not occur to add a log out button as part of the development.
During testing we found that customers were coming to the end of their session and finding themselves stuck on a screen so the logout functionality was a great addition. This is one of many stories that have been developed as part of user testing and made the service even better.
Comment by John posted on
When does the IEP project (i.e. driver records) be completed - 2014 or 2015?
Comment by Ryan Davies posted on
We are aiming to go live with a public beta by the end of this year soon followed by a full roll out of the View Driving Record service early in the new year.
Comment by John posted on
Thanks for the reply regarding the IEP project, regarding the public beta and the full roll out of the View Driving Record service.
I wonder if you know the exact date for the public beta to be available for the public to test, and the full roll out.
Thanks.
Comment by Ryan Davies posted on
There are currently no exact dates in place for the Beta roll out to the public but estimate dates have been set for the end of 2013/early 2014. The full service will then be available a few months later. Once these dates have been finalised I will post a further comment to keep you informed.