As part of wider changes to its operating model, L&Q were seeking to take a fundamental look at how it delivered core services. Related to this, the decision had been made to procure new housing management and finance systems. Working collaboratively as part of a mixed team of Altair and L&Q colleagues, we engaged with a range of business stakeholders (including junior and senior operational staff, service improvement, and data design colleagues) to develop a series of 15 service blueprints of core activities.
The service blueprint output brings together customer experience, business process, policy and regulatory ‘rules’, IT systems, and data flow into a single artefact that makes visible the interrelation between these different views of the same service. Working with draft blueprints in a ‘co-design’ workshop environment enabled a range of stakeholders to meaningfully shape the high-level customer journey and business process (ahead of detailed design) and inform the specification for new IT systems.
Altair has worked with L&Q for several years, following the publication of their five-year Future Shape Corporate Strategy. Much of this work has been to help consider the future shape of their operating model, drawing in the sector and wider industry best practice, to define the principles and support the design of this to fulfil their ambitions to be operationally excellent.
The project achieved three main successes:
It successfully informed the specifications for new housing and finance systems, completing this work against an aggressive deadline
It helped operational, strategy, IT, finance, and data colleagues achieve consensus on key decisions about the future design of core service areas
It was an effective vehicle for L&Q strategy and transformation colleagues to launch wider engagement with colleagues and customers across the Group ahead of detailed design activities.
Altair worked closely with colleagues from across L&Q in designing the future of our services. They brought their experience from the housing, local authority sectors and beyond to bear, and their service blueprinting approach was an excellent and engaging way of co-designing complex service areas. More importantly, they have become a vital communication tool to describe how we want to operate in the future. The quality of thought, their outputs, and their professional approach to delivery enabled us to work in a truly collaborative way. Working as a single team, we were able to deliver service blueprinting workshops with a significant number of business teams in a short space of time, achieving the perfect balance between the expertise of external consultants and the insight and knowledge of the business they work for. This co-creation approach has been at the heart of the engagement with Altair and been the primary reason they have been such a pleasure to work with.Mark Hammond, Director Strategy and Planning, L&Q
