Starting with a Service Manual
In Nova Scotia, our goal is to deliver simpler, clearer, faster public services.
This is no small task. Nor can it be achieved in isolation. To achieve this goal, we need to provide clarity for our partners on best practices, on how to create more efficient services, and what is the best way to improve citizen interactions with government.
We need to scale the capacity, methods, tools, and ways of working that have been proven to deliver better services for everyone.
Just as important, is our ability to share those things and help everyone gain the confidence to work in new ways.
What is a Service Manual?
For us, a Service Manual is a collaborative and educational tool that will provide practical guidance and resources to deliver better services to Nova Scotians.
The Service Manual will provide guides to create, test and run user-focused digital services. The point is to show what good looks like. Our plan is to get the most requested guidance into the hands of anyone who needs it as soon as we possibly can and build from there. We also plan to iterate and build on to the manual based on what people tell us they need to know. It will include start to finish guidance on how to build a service and what teams need to know to deliver using internet era ways of working.
Eventually our intention is to have a Digital Service Standard. Many jurisdictions have openly shared their standards including our federal counterparts and Ontario. They are well researched and for now, we feel comfortable in using these as a starting point in lieu of writing our own. In fact, we’ve heard from many people that it’s the HOW, not the WHAT that they need help with. How do we work to include users in the delivery of services? What does it mean to be an empowered multidisciplinary team? How do we ensure inclusive and accessible services? These are all questions that will be answered within the Service Manual.
Starting with a Service Manual means that when we are ready to publish a Nova Scotia Service Standard, it will be more likely that teams can meet them.
Who is the Service Manual for?
The service manual is for everyone and anyone can contribute.
We recognize that people need a range of different things from guidance depending on their level of experience. The manual will support users, regardless of how experienced or confident they are about building and running a government service.
We will openly publish practical guidance and tools for Government of Nova Scotia employees, vendor partners, other jurisdictions, and people living in our province.
Where will we start?
We will not be starting from scratch. So much great work has already been completed by other jurisdictions. Ontario has led Canadian jurisdictions in publishing digital tools and guides for building and delivering services in the digital era. Their Service Design Playbook was released in 2018. The United Kingdom’s Government Digital Service (GDS) were the first to develop a Service Manual.
We will leverage existing work of mature teams and add to it what we have learned in the Nova Scotia context. To start, we will publish guidance around our methodology to creating and delivering great services. We hope that an overview of the process will provide an opportunity to iterate, grow, and build out more details and guidance as we hear back from our users, what will provide value.
Want to help?
Do you have a question for the Service Manual team? Is there a topic you think should be included? If so, we would like to hear from you. Email us at nsdigital@novascotia.ca
