Design Principles
Should we build it? How do we decide?
The following questions may help Product Owners to guide the effort of their team. These questions are not meant to be a checklist, rather they are tools to help you think critically about your roadmap and backlog and about the individual stories. These question may also help team members to make certain technical decisions and determine how to handle technical debt.
Will the feature make the product more useful to a larger audience of users?
Does the feature help to improve how the users trust the product?
Will more people choose to use it because of this feature?
Is the feature doing something that was previously hard work for someone to do in another way?
Is the planned work avoiding opinionated designs and instead allowing for configurable choice?
e.g. BCGov Theme can be selected, but if another province was using our product, could they easily select they own style library to use?
Does it increase the reputation of the team?
how we document
how we code
how we deploy
how we test
how we work (agile fluency)
Is there measurable value aligned to a user problem?
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 consider the following:
Select a Delivery 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.
Understand the Capability Level: Core, Supporting, Service Management, or Service Quality
Core capabilities are the ones that users will ask for. Supporting capabilities are the ones that service providers need to implement for the core ones to work. Service management capabilities are the ones that help you operate the administrative work back stage. Service quality capabilities are the ones that help you have a good reputation because your software is reliable, secure, privacy preserving and high performing. 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.
Ecosystem
What are the other products or services that may be doing what I’m doing? Who can I collaborate with?| Page Tree | ||||
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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
reduces costs
accelerates development
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.
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 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:
Staff who are non-technical and have no funding to acquire them
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