Lead Service Designer

Job description

We are looking for a Lead Service Designer to join the funding service portfolio team. They will lead the way in transforming the user experience of receiving and managing education funding, as well as how our internal operators use the service. We view the education funding service as not just the digital element, but also the operational processes, the data in it and the whole journey both on and offline. All of the divisions involved in the service take a holistic approach and all are focused on the needs of our users.

You will be responsible for the design of the service, leading a team of user researchers, content designers and interaction designers to understand the problems faced by our internal operators and external users and design innovative solutions to address them.

You will lead a strategic design-lab, where you will create and manage a problem backlog, and co-design solutions with the policy, operations and our external users, to ensure policy can be implemented efficiently and effectively.  You will also line manage a design team that will feed the product development stories with content and interaction design.

Person specification

Main Responsibilities

• As the lead service designer on the Funding Service, you will:
• Lead the strategic design-lab, ensuring the delivery of solutions that enables us to delivery policy effectively and meet the needs of users; line manage the service’s design team
• Contribute to the overall leadership of the funding service delivery division and funding operations, providing expert advice on design related matters
• Set direction, assure the quality of design delivery across teams
• Provide service design leadership for the funding service, working with stakeholders and senior leaders to create the service vision and build a roadmap to deliver outcomes across our portfolio.
• Contribute and build a vibrant, diverse and passionate design community and help to mature the profession capability, standards and service design
• Actively promote the design perspective in discussions with teams and stakeholders. Mentor and coach individuals and service teams, support education including inductions, training and workshops.
• Assess service performance against government standards, including accessibility.
• Coach, mentor and train other designers, helping set and communicate good practice to improve quality and consistency across DfE’s transformation programmes

Essential criteria:

We are looking for someone to show they have:

• Design experience. You will have experience of leading the design of large, mission critical systems with a varied user base, working across various design disciplines to deliver pragmatic, cost-effective solutions on time.
• Strategic thinking. You can lead the design and implementation of strategy, directing the evaluation of strategies and policies to ensure business requirements are being met.
• Leadership and guidance. You know how to manage stakeholders’ expectations and facilitate discussions across high risk and complexity or under constrained timescales. You know how to lead on the strategy for the whole organisation, marrying business needs with innovative analysis.
• User focus. You know how to give direction on which tools or methods to use. You are experienced in meeting the needs of users across a variety of channels. You can bring insight and expertise in how user needs have changed over time to ensure these are met by the business. You know how to apply strategic thinking in how to provide the best service for the end user.
• Community collaboration. You know how to work collaboratively within a group, actively networking with others and varying feedback for the appropriate time to ensure the discussion sticks. You can use your initiative to identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them. You can pull out issues through agile health-checks with the team to provoke the right responses.