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Context

Do you have an understanding of where your component fits?

Who is it for?

If you are building something with the intention of it being used as a common component then you should outline for your product how to implement the pillars of success.

You may need to consider various delivery methods, both for your team to utilize the things you build, and for how you plan to allow others to use them.

Each reusable software building block will fit into a category related to where it sits in its proximity to a user. Make sure you have a good understanding of where your product sits and how it supports the broader ecosystem of common components.

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titlePillars of success for achieving reuse

  • Self Service

  • Showcase Capabilities

  • Implement Examples

While it is good to work in the open and be transparent, all too often it is left up to the team that is looking at a open sourced product to sift through the code to find the pieces that they can reuse. The effort to find the reusable code and repurpose it to fit with your product offsets the value obtained for developers who typically prefer to make it from scratch themselves anyways. Even a small barrier in this space will be enough to prevent success towards the goal of avoiding duplication and achieving the ecosystem approach.

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titleDelivery method(s)

  • Hosted Service,

  • Reusable Component,

  • Shared Code, or

  • Tested Instructions

As you consider how users are wanting to consume your product to gain value from it, selecting the right delivery method will help you to maximize the value while limiting overhead. These delivery methods are built on the pillars of success for achieving reuse.

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titleCapability level

Understanding the capability level will help guide your work to identify user groups and help you determine the scope and boundary of the product you are building.

Core

Core capabilities are the ones that users will ask for by name.

Supporting

Supporting capabilities are the ones that service providers need to implement for the core ones to work.

Service Management

Service management capabilities are the ones that help you operate the administrative work back stage.

Service Quality

Service quality capabilities are the ones that help you have a good reputation because your software is reliable, secure, privacy preserving and high performing.

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Component Design Framework

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What makes a good common component?

Introduction

What general characteristics or ingredients does each component need to have for it to be considered “good”?

The big three are to 

  1. reduces costs

  2. accelerates development

  3. promotes consistency and supportability

If you think you have a "good" one and would like it added to the catalogue so that others can find it easier, you can request to add your common component on the common components page of digital.gov.bc.ca/common-components.

Reducing Costs

Cost Avoidance

The following are a few examples of how a components can create cost avoidance savings:

  • Built by one team, but used by more than one team

  • Deployed and hosted by one team

  • Enterprise licenses versus many individuals licences

  • A generic capability built that eliminates the need for reimplementing that function in all applications

  • Adding a self-self onboarding process to a Common Service that didn’t have one previously

Cost Savings

  • An innovation solution that allows for discontinuing an existing common business process or function entirely

  • Providing a free and open-source alternative to switch to from existing more expensive options

Accelerate Development

tbd

Promote Consistency and Supportability

tbd

Policy

Core Policy, Chapter [12.1.1] Lists the Digital Principles.

Principles 5 and 6 (Work in the open, Take and ecosystem approach) specifically relate to Common Components, but they are all useful for any software teams to be very familiar with.

Definition

In a software context, common components are building blocks that enable core capabilities within services. A single definition is not the goal because it can be many different things.

  • A core capability or service that can be utilized by public and private service delivery teams

  • A common component is platform agnostic for the user, well documented and regularly updated by a dedicated team that enables self-serve and quick onboarding

  • A common component is cataloged in a central repository with an interactive dashboard that provides information on active users and teams (maybe a GitHub repo link) and abides by well-defined standards of software maturity

  • The objective of a common component is to solve a frequently occurring problem faced by multiple teams for once and for all

Ecosystems and Value Streams

Identifying Commonality

What are the other products or services that may be doing what I’m doing? Who can I collaborate with?

Your product or service may operate within many categories of software capabilities. Start with looking at just one of those categories that you think might benefit most from using common components.

Capability Categorization Models

When thinking about what the list of all common components are, it might be helpful to consider that there are multiple ways to group things to create this list.

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title1. Service Delivery Cycle

This model looks at the journey of a user:

A. discovering a service is available,
B. requesting or activating the service
C. the service being performed or the transaction being processed

Note that in the model one service may initiate the

  • Discovery of

    • Products

    • Services

    • Careers

    • Procurements

    • Data

    • Subscriptions

  • Submission of

    • Enquiries for information: Asking for guidance

    • Requests to create, update or delete something: Asking for coordination

    • Applications for a decision to be made: Asking for support

    • Messaging to provide comments: Feedback elicited and voluntary

  • Processing (Operation)

    • Status: recording, tracking and displaying the state of a users submission

    • Comments

    • History

    • Assignment

    • Notification

    • Automation

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title2. Capability Enablement Level

FOUNDATIONAL:

Starting with Foundational capabilities ensures there is demand and that you are solving problems for users.

  • collect/submit information

ENABLERS:

Factor out the enabler capabilities as new common components.

  • design forms

  • store information

ADDITIVE:

Looking at the user journey where there are system handoffs work to add connections to solutions for the next chunk of work in the user journey.

  • evaluate applicant’s submissions

  • send notifications

MULTIPLICATIVE:

As it will not be possible to scale with just additive approaches, we will need to implement event triggered messaging and subscription services that can enable many systems to connect with each other without those services being tightly coupled.

  • system A is subscribed to certain events that get posted by system B

  • a process for the evaluation of grant applications may start when a new grant application is received

  • example component: event streaming, or message queues

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title3. Product Model

This model looks at the logical breakdown of the capabilities of a software product. Each of these capability areas may contain many functions:

Capabilities

Enablement Type(s)

Service Delivery Step(s)

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titleForm Design and Submission

Form Builder Tool

Form Versioning

Form Publishing

Form Submission Lists and Details

Form Settings Management

Form Permissions and Security

Submission Status

Data Export and API Access

Event Triggered Service Extensions

Foundational, Enabler

Submission

Payment and Reconciliation

Login, Identity and Digital Trust

Template and File Mgmt

Subscription/Notification

Additive

Discovery

Workflow and Event Streaming

Multiplicative

Processing

API Access Management

Visualization Dashboards

Password Management & Automation

Registry Aggregation (Backstage)

Prototyping Kits

DevOps and Hosting

Find out what ecosystems you may be contributing to or consuming from.

When you think about the service that your product delivers also consider what the larger value stream your service is a part of. Once you identify your value stream, take steps to connect with others who are there as well, and start examining the various points along the way where there are hand offs, and make plans to address them.

Agile Approaches

Where does the need for

common Services exist?

your Digital Service exist? Understand who the user is not well understood, but I want to point out two distinct groups that occur commonly with Common Components. These two groups are not easy to focus on at the same time.

The Have’s and the Have Not’s:

  1. Staff who are non-technical and have no funding to acquire them

  2. Product/Project Teams with technical resources who need to integrate their system with common components

How do we build Solutions to help both groups? (more to come in this section)

  • Start with the simplest user journey

  • Add new capabilities that have only a minimal increase in complexity

  • Hide the complexity from those who don’t need it or want to see it

Market Awareness

Are customers satisfied that their problems are solved by the product you offer? What threats and opportunities are presenting themselves from the industry?

Analytical Iterative Feedback, measuring the pulse on the three pillars and adjusting as necessary

  • internal adjustment based on user centric feedback

  • external adjustment based on industry factors

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