Adopting a Product-Centric Approach in Building Homeland Security Solutions
Authors: Leslie Han (HTX), Hor Guoyong (HTX), and Chandrasehar (HTX)
“In a rapidly evolving technology landscape, compounded with the complex operational demands of public safety and security, our development processes need to be agile and adaptive to address emerging challenges and threats effectively.”
Setting the context
No, we are not a technology vendor or start-up.
The Homeland Security solutions that we are building are for Singapore’s Home Team, comprising the Ministry of Home Affairs Headquarters, 7 Home Team Departments[1], and 3 Statutory Boards[2] working collaboratively to keep Singapore safe and secure.
Working in a fast pace and increasingly complex environment, Home Team officers rely on technology to optimise operational effectiveness and mitigate operational risks to focus on tasks that have the most value and impact for their constituents.
Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX)
HTX is one of the Statutory Boards within the Home Team, with a mission to advance science and technology to enhance the capabilities of our Home Team so that they can better anticipate and address both existing and emerging threats to public safety and security. This overarching objective drives the purpose and value of products that we develop for the Home Team.
We, the Sense-making & Surveillance Centre of Expertise (S&S CoE), are part of HTX, developing innovative technology solutions that empower Home Team officers to do their jobs well so that Singapore remains one of the world’s safest countries to live and work in.[3]
At S&S CoE, we innovate and build custom solutions to address niche use cases for the Home Team in their daily operations. Some of the users whom we frequently work with include officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), Singapore Prison Service (SPS), Singapore Police Force (SPF), and Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), amongst others.
So, how do we go about developing and managing bespoke Sense-making and Surveillance capabilities that support the daily operations of the Home Team?
Over a series of articles, we will cover 3 broad areas on how we have adopted a product-centric approach to better serve and meet the operational demands of our Home Team colleagues. We will discuss how we:
(1) Organise ourselves to be a product-centric team;
(2) Adapt industry best practices for our context;
(3) Deliver our products.
We hope to share our experience in navigating the intricate journey from discovery to development, growth, maturity, and retirement — all whilst keeping the requirements of our constituents at the forefront of our strategy.
The approach that we take is far from static. We emphasize continuous improvement, with feedback from users and stakeholders playing a pivotal role in shaping our products and strategies.
In this article, we will discuss the benefits of adopting a product-centric approach in software development, how we have organised ourselves to support the approach, and an overview of our product management process.
Why adopt a Product-Centric approach?
In a rapidly evolving technology landscape, compounded with the complex operational demands of public safety and security, our development processes need to be agile and adaptive to address emerging challenges and threats effectively.
The conventional project-centric approach, which fixates on predefined timelines, costs, and scopes, often falls short in supporting the iterative and collaborative processes required to meet evolving user needs continuously.
Preparing a fixed set of requirements upfront and outsourcing solution development can be costly and increases risks of delayed deployment whenever changes are made to a solution’s design or development plan.
Consequently, project teams find it challenging to pivot in response to changing requirements that arise from evolving needs.
Difference between Project-Centric and Product-Centric approaches
There are also situations where it warrants an assessment of whether it makes more sense for us to buy instead of build internally. Some of the questions we ask ourselves when making the assessment include:
· Is the use case too niche? Is it for a single use or will the needs evolve?
· Does the use case contain sensitive data that prevents it from being addressed effectively by the market?
· What is the technological readiness level of the solution?
· How reliable is the solution?
· What are the potential limitations?
The answers to the above questions will determine our choice to develop internally or purchase from an external vendor. If the choice is to build internally, then it is important to build up our internal capabilities and ensure that we have a team that can deconstruct complex problems into smaller, manageable, and prioritised features that align with user needs.
In S&S CoE, we have deliberately organised ourselves to conduct end-to-end activities in the product development lifecycle to elicit user feedback loops and adopt Agile frameworks (Scrum) that accelerate product development for the Home Team.
We believe that by adopting a product-centric approach, we can continuously evolve and enhance our products, provide value to our users, and remain agile to adapt to an ever-changing security landscape.
How do we organise ourselves to be Product-Centric?
The success of a product is a collective responsibility. Our structure within S&S CoE has been reorganised to shift from a project-centric to a product-and-tech centric team.
Previously, master-planning, engineering, and project management teams were distinct functions managing their own projects with few cross-functional engagements.
Today, our product-centric transformation involves adapting old pillars and creating new ones to facilitate the functions necessary to execute the entire suite of activities under Product Management. Key functions that were introduced include:
Product Management Team: Orchestrates the development of products in collaboration with stakeholders, including internal and external parties. This function plays a crucial role in ensuring the viability, feasibility, and desirability of the product, with a long-term vision of success and sustainability.
Tech Management Team: Akin to traditional project management, this team is well-versed in Agile methodologies. They plan and execute product delivery over its lifespan. The team balances technological and resource constraints to ensure that we can achieve intended outcomes successfully in an Agile fashion.
Solution and Design Team: Interfaces with Home Team users, gaining a deep understanding of their needs, and collaborating closely with them to identify the right problem statements. They also play a vital role in evangelising our products and generating leads to ensure user engagement and satisfaction.
Engineering Team: Responsible for the technical aspects of product development, this team brings our products to life based on requirements identified by the Product Management team.
Masterplanning Team: Oversees the division’s direction and overall strategy for Sense-making and Surveillance capabilities within the Home Team. They maintain oversight of our plans to ensure alignment with the Home Teams’ goals.
Putting in place a Product Management Framework
To ensure a structured and sustainable development of products, it is important to collaborate across functions within a systematic and iterative framework that guides our product teams in delivering desirable products while staying true to organisational goals.
Below is a snapshot of a typical process flow that illustrates our journey from planning to the release of each product.
To execute our processes effectively, we constantly adopt industry best practices in product leadership, such as developing a business canvas, roadmap planning, backlog management, versioning and version control, sprint artefacts, product team roles, user stories and acceptance criteria, monitoring and metrics, and design thinking. We have adapted from these best practices to serve the needs of our users in the Home Team.
In the following articles, we will delve deeper into the execution of the approaches outlined above. We will also share insights on the modifications we have made to widely adopted industry best practices in Product Management and explain why the changes were necessary.
In addition, we will provide practical details about our journey to enhance Homeland Security through a product-centric approach, including a glimpse of some of the products we have built.
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Feel free to reach out to Leslie_W_HAN@htx.gov.sg, HOR_Guoyong@htx.gov.sg or Chandrasehar_RAJASEHARAN@htx.gov.sg to pollinate ideas on Product Management in the Public Sector.
References
[1] Singapore Police Force, Internal Security Department, Singapore Civil Defence Force, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, Singapore Prison Service, Central Narcotics Bureau & Home Team Academy. https://www.mha.gov.sg/who-we-are
[2] Home Team Science & Tech, Gambling Regulatory Authority & Yellow Ribbon Singapore. https://www.mha.gov.sg/who-we-are
[3] Overview of Safety and Security Situation in 2022. MHA, 2022 — Singapore maintains its status as one of the world’s safest countries, having secured the top ranking in the 2022 Gallup Global Law and Order Report for the 7th consecutive year.
