Episode 15: Service Design & Research Ops for Public Design with Cheryl Wong , UX/Service Designer & ResearchOps at GovTech Singapore
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Hi everyone, I'm Dalen, founder and design educator at Curious Core.

Welcome to our Working in UX Design podcast series where we interview a UX design leader in the industry on their experience in this emerging field. We've had UX professionals from Grab, AirAsia, Google and more join us previously and we're bringing you more exciting interviews this year. Stay tuned for this week's interview with our special guest who is working in UX design.

Good evening everyone, for those of you who are dialing in, it's so good to see you. And we are here for our monthly webinar session with a very special guest with me over here, Cheryl Wong. And Cheryl Wong is currently a UX/Service Designer and Research Ops team member at GovTech, the government digital services for Singapore.

I'm Dalen, I'll be your host for this evening. I'm the founder of Curious Core and we help mid-career professionals transition to the field of user experience design and product management. And you can find out more at curiouscore.com. And just to share a little bit about Cheryl, she has over 11 years of diverse experiences.

Working as a team lead at a veteran design studio that made it to Singapore Design's history books, startup consultancy and digital experience for an agency spanning various sectors like fintech, banking and hospitality.

So she's based in Singapore, but she has worked on projects from around the world, including in Australia, Bangladesh, and Indonesia and Hong Kong. And she has organized and facilitated and presented several tech public events, such as Elephants in the Room, Shitstorms in UX, that sounds really interesting,

and also our event as well and of course one of GovTech's events which is STAC 2020 conference and she has supported the global UX community as a design mentor at the government digital services as well as ADP List which some of you would know and serve as an industry guest reviewer at Singapore Polytechnic Red Show and General Assembly

And she's a contributor for a Gluework article. And I'm sure she'll be explaining a little bit more about what Gluework means. And it's featured in TEDx Storytime. And she has many accolades, which I wouldn't stretch further. But I think you get a good sense of where Cheryl is from. And Cheryl's really a community builder and someone who is very passionate about design and very passionate about bringing people together through her work.

as well. So welcome to the show Cheryl. Thanks, Daylan. Thanks for having me. It's such an honor to be here. That's awesome. So Cheryl, let's start with the easy one. Maybe you can start with telling us on a day-to-day basis, what do you do at GovTech?

Right, alright, that's a good question. So my day to day actually varies depending on the phase and the scope. So my developer colleague would summarize my work as this. He says that your job makes our lives easier. And it can be anything from research ops,

like conducting strategic user research, coordinating and improving the research ops processes across GoBusiness workstreams, as well as design work like developing UX roadmaps, supporting end-to-end UX delivery on service journeys,

leading UX workshops, service blueprinting, scrubbing the user requirements in collaboration with developers, the product owners and delivery managers to creating user journeys, maps and iterative design prototypes and providing UX guidance and support to the GoBusiness team and the wider GDS UX chapter to develop its UX capabilities through a range of community

activities such as learning circles, design sharings, service design initiatives, and as a GDS UX mentor.

So I've also championed and socialized UX and service design value beyond designers. So how it works is that you need to drive the KPIs and the business outcomes with the wider GoBusiness team, stakeholders and government agencies. And this is done through UX sharings and UT findings.

and which I'll share more later on, and breaking down silos, ensuring quick communication feedback loops for information flow, and creating self-organizing

internal support processes. So earlier on you mentioned about glue work, right? So I enjoy doing glue work. Yeah, of introducing new team rituals like organizing GoBusiness gatherings and virtual lunches and games to help teammates to activate their voice and to get to know others beyond the work stream. And the goal is to build psychological safety and trust.

Yeah, before we go on on Gluework, can I just ask you for the benefit of the audience here today, what is GoBusiness and what does GoBusiness do? Right, that's a good question. So GoBusiness aims to be a single touchpoint for businesses transacting with the government. So it is a whole-of-government initiative driven by the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, Ministry of Trade and Industry, and GovTech to

to provide businesses with simpler, better and faster digital government services. So it comprises of six key features, such as the GoBusiness starting a business, GovAssist, licensing and COVID-19 related regulations, such as applications for exemptions and government support schemes to help businesses through the pandemic.

The fifth is like the e-service navigator. It has information on over 300 government e-services to help businesses make their search quicker and simpler, as well as e-advisors. So how does e-advisors work? The business owners will answer a series

of questions about their business and it will provide recommendations based on the answers given. And we are also the proud recipient of the One Public Service Award and have also received the Honourable Mention for Woga's Best Usability Award.

Well, thanks for sharing. It sounds like there's a lot of activities and projects being done in your team and it extends quite far reaching in terms of the business sphere, especially in Singapore. I was just wondering what got you into this team? Like, did you have a chance to vote or become part of the team or join a team? How did you manage to join this particular team in GovTech? Oh, it was a very interesting story. So...

So I was reached out by Steven who is the GDS director and at the interview, the tables turned and I had several projects to pick from. So you were given an option? Yeah and I chose GoBusiness because I really resonated with it and the people working on it.

Yeah. At that point in time, what stood out for you? Like why, out of all the projects that GovTech is doing, I mean, GovTech does a lot of great work with the COVID Trace Together app and all that stuff as well. So yeah, why did you pick GoBusiness? I think later on, I can share more about how in the past, you know, I was working on a project that was related to licensing and stuff and that kind of

got me really excited about that. But apart from that, then there was also my first supervisor. I think he was a coach and really, really amazing guy. And I think that really hooked me on to the culture of GDS. Yeah.

Lovely. Well, sounds very, very interesting. Today we're here, I mean, this is not the first time we're gathering. We've met before and we've known each other for a while. I remember when we first met, you were doing a charity-related event. Yes. You were trying to get books shipped into Bangladesh.

And I remember donating a few books and stationery and getting some introductions going. So yeah, like how did you go from there and ended up being like in the UX discipline and the UX view itself? Yeah, that is a very interesting question. And to actually share that is I got to take you back in time, right? When I was at my veteran studio, right? So there was a turning point early in my career, right?

So I had a colleague from IDEO who came to work for us and he introduced to us the concept of human-centered design, creative confidence and work at IDEO. So he brought in design thinking, curiosity, play experimentation and a do-first-ask-for-forgiveness-later approach to design and that shaped the way we work at our veteran design studio and I found that very refreshing and

and liberating as a designer because I tried to cultivate that in the many places that I've worked for subsequently. And I think that was how I got really excited about venturing the field of human-centered design in the U.S.

And you mentioned, you know, in your work at GovTech, you do a bit of service design, you do a bit of glue work. Can you explain to us, you know, more about service design and more about glue work? Yeah, okay. So for service design, right, the Nelson Norman Group defines service design as the activity of planning and organizing of business resources, such as people, props, and processes.

So by directly improving the employee's experience, it will indirectly improve the customer's experience. So how does it differ, right? Service design versus UX design, you might ask.

User experience is focused on what the end user encounters, whereas service design is focused on how that user experience is internally created. So when you think of it as layers, the top layer is the UX, the user's actions or the customer journey map, the what. And beneath it is the how, the service design layers that support these services like the front stage actions, the backstage actions, the support processes and so on. Yeah.

So your question was around glue work, right? I have an article there and I think that would be a greater justice to what glue work is and I'll be happy to share. But what about like just for our podcast audience, like, you know, in your own words, as a practitioner of glue work and as someone who has been doing glue work for a while, how would you define it in your own words? Yeah, I would define like glue work, right? As something like, you know, being the glue that

stick people together like be it the team rituals or kind of getting people to activate their voice building that kind of psychological safety and things like that and I'm happy to expound that later on

Sounds good. Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity to share a little bit more. We can go either talking about service design or we can go more talking about glue work. Which one would you like to begin first? Yeah, I think we can talk about service design because that makes a very good segue as to your earlier question as to why I was really interested in GoBusiness.

Yeah, let's go for it. Yeah, so you know like Steve Jobs has this quote that says, "You can't connect the dots looking forward, and you can only connect them looking backwards." So you have to trust the dots that somehow they will connect in your future.

And I'm very happy to share about this service design project that I've been working on called e-Advisor for Events. And here's why I'm so passionate about it. So several years ago, I was working on a placemaking space activation project called Urban Ventures under LopeLab. It was supported by the Urban Redevelopment Authority URA. So we created furniture by repurposing upcycled materials for the public to use.

And I remembered the day we installed it at Kyeongsak. It was in a park. And this office worker who worked in the vicinity ran out and sat there. And she said, we used to have to walk 10 minutes to have a tea break.

Now we can gather these seats to rest and chat." And I thought, "Wow, that is so awesome, right?" Like having live feedback from your users. Right on the spot. Yeah. And I remembered my events manager who was organizing public events for the first time did not know where to start, right? What licenses and permits to apply. And there was so much back and forth, like learning from mistakes and delayed time. So it was pretty overwhelming.

Fast forward to the present, when I was given this project, GoBusiness eAdvisor for Events, I was super excited. I saw the dots connected. I finally got to do it in collaboration with Public Service Division and the eAdvisor for Events team to help event organisers in Singapore streamline the licensing processes and make it more discoverable.

That sounds like a really fun project. And what's your takeaway from doing that event as a designer? I think my takeaway was that when you actually bring your designs out there to test it with users and let them use it and just observe how they are

Using them for users that you didn't even think that they would actually do. That was really remarkable. So we actually saw some couples, they actually lie down on it and just had a really good time there, reading a book or people just chatting. And I thought that while design can actually change the way people's behavior and change the way people interact with each other. And I thought that was really remarkable.

awesome and that was before I was a UX designer yeah that sounds really fun it sounds like you've been using your intuition and your design skills since like a long long time ago and

And I was just wondering, you know, in the work you do as a service designer, how different it is from the work you do as a UX designer? Are there any examples you want to point out or elaborate on? Yeah, I can share more. So I will share about the service design project, which I'll continue sharing about the events, eAdvisor for events, right? And then later on, we can talk about the research one, which you'll be able to see, you know, the different components involved and what...

the stark difference it is. I mean, there are some overlaps, right, with user research, observing users and all. So let's go back to the EMI support events, right? So how it all started is that we received industry feedback that organizing events in Singapore was extremely challenging due to the high regulatory burden. So therefore, we saw the opportunity to challenge ourselves

to make Singapore the choice destination to host world-class events. And therefore, we undertook this effort to reduce regulatory burden and improve service delivery so that the organisation of events can be made easier, clearer and more customer-centric. So COVID-19 took us by storm shortly after it was commissioned, and the industry was severely hit by the pandemic.

And that also added to the impetus to support the industry recovery. So the development of this project is timely because we are hoping that the solutions, when fully launched, will make it much easier for event organizers to bring events back with a bang. So how we did that was that we conducted interviews and focus group discussions across different stakeholder groups, such as the public

agencies, the event organizers, land and mall owners to identify key pain points from the stakeholders' perspectives and understand their needs in the end-to-end process from the conceptualization of events through post-event. And we identified opportunities to streamline the application form and processes. So what we did was that we reviewed all license applications forms field by field.

to streamline and reduce the administrative burden. And we also designed targeted solutions for the desired outcome based on the user's needs. And we started with an MVP delivery with solutions for the end-to-end journey developed progressively. So together with Public Service Division, PSD, and the eAdvisor for Events team, we streamlined the whole of government.

processes, policies and digital services through service design work with agencies, stakeholders and event organizers. And this culminated in an e-advisor launched in October last year to help event organizers find the relevant safe management measures and licenses for their events with a simplified single touch point.

So you might ask, how does this e-advisor for events work? First, you answer a few questions about your event, and then you get a personalized set of licenses and safe management measures recommendations for your event. And this e-advisor for events will direct you to the relevant license application forms.

So just to pause you for a while, it sounds like in this case when you were building this digital service, what it allows event organizers to do, if let's say I'm running a public event, it allows me to

actually get recommendations to be legally compliant, especially during the COVID period. So based on that, I think that's what I understand that your digital service actually fulfills and does. I just want to maybe point out on, you know, since we have an audience here who is really about learning, you know, what are some of the

the lessons or some of the things that you did differently that you think would be relevant for an audience over here who's practicing user experience design. So how I did it differently is that traditionally people will tell you that you need to create a service blueprint upfront to cast a vision, get buy-in from stakeholders to get the resources. You need to execute a vision.

And however, a lot of times when you ask people, have you implemented the service blueprint? Chances are they'll tell you that it's dated as a piece of paper or it only lasted for three to six months. Then you get shelved to other delivery priorities. And maybe that works if you're a consultant or a vendor, right?

Is a service blueprint like a customer journey or what does it look like? I would say a customer journey is a subset within the service blueprint and within the service blueprint it has several layers such as the front stage, back stage, support processes and so on. Okay, that makes sense. So you mentioned you did it differently and in parallel with

UX and Agile delivery. So yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that. Yeah, so how I did it differently is that I think it's easier to run service design in parallel with Agile and UX delivery by applying service design and implementing these strategies to bridge gaps while meeting delivery. Because stakeholders are more concerned, right, about hitting the milestones and driving the outcomes within a timeframe.

So I've successfully used this approach in the previous organizations I've worked for. So after the MVP release, our team did an after action review and I helped the team visualize the work we've done on a service blueprint to highlight the work we have achieved to fill in the gaps identified in the support processes. And we co-created the improvements to it. And through that, we got everyone on board.

So I'm really grateful to the openness and progressiveness of the e-advisor for events team to make it happen. And I think that it's easier to drive service design by showing how easy it is to implement and demonstrate proven results with an MVP release.

So it sounds like there's quite a number of overlaps with the UX design process because it sounds like you use UX design methodologies in your work as well as I think you mentioned about building upon like the service blueprint it sounds like there's some overlaps with what we practice as UX designers doing customer journey maps. We're also here to talk about research and research ops so

Can you tell the audience over here what is ResearchOps and how is it different from user research? Right, so ResearchOps, when you think of ResearchOps, it's about operations, right? It's about streamlining the research processes. And there are six areas that I've applied

So the first is competency, right? It's about enabling, educating and onboarding. And the second is advocacy, which is defining, sharing and socializing value, like user research value. So I spent a year organizing this series of user research sharings for GoBusiness and GDS.

The third is participants recruiting, screening and managing a regular participant poll. The fourth is governance through consent, privacy and information storage. And the fifth is knowledge collection and sharing of research insights with stakeholders. And the sixth is tools, right? Using effective tool sets and platform spaces, right?

This sounds a lot like getting research to scale within an organisation and making it easier for non-researchers to also do research. Would that be an accurate description? I would say that we have not reached to the point of getting non-designers to do research, but I would say that the advocacy and the competency part is helping people to understand what are good user research practices.

and what does good looks like. So that was how I went about doing that. And to do that is to educate these non-designers on good user research practices. I organized two kinds of sharings to get user research buy-in so that the stakeholders can emulate what success looks like on projects with good user research practices. So the first was I did internal sharing. So I shared on ethnographic research

which was in collaboration with other GDS UX researchers. And I also got in international speakers to share about user research and service design. People like Amy Lu, who was the design manager of PwC Australia, to share about her service design work at St Vincent's Hospital, the Safe Haven Cafe, and how it's applied to public healthcare sector.

And in addition to socialize UX value to developers, how do you make it relevant to them? I invited Sini, who was the senior UX designer at Google, to share on UX and engineering collaboration.

Yeah, that sounds really great. And it sounds somewhat a reminder of what you mentioned to us earlier about glue work, right? Where you're actually trying to bring people together and trying to evangelize UX design. So maybe share a little bit with us, like from this experience of trying to evangelize UX,

good practices within the organization? What did you learn? Yeah, I think that to scale user research is actually a team sport. So the onus is not just on UX researchers or UX designers. Well, Stephen Covey had this marvelous quote, right? It says that change moves at a speed of trust and trust moves at a speed of relationships. And I think that was the biggest takeaway I had for the work that

That I was working on. Change moving at the speed of trust. And we're all moving at the speed of trust. I seem to remember that quote in one of the workshops I attended before. So that's such an excellent way to think about how trust affects how we work as a team. And especially when we're thinking about UX design, it's such a collaborative activity. So that's really, really wonderful.

I guess it's not so much different on how we do it commercially as well like the way you do it in government for the government projects. Yeah, maybe do you want to share a little bit about you know working with all the stakeholders you know trying to get them aligned and what kind of tips do you have in getting stakeholders to buy in to what you're about to do? Yeah, I'll be happy to share about your stakeholders, right? Yeah, that's right about stakeholders.

Yeah, so the thing about stakeholder management tips is that if you want to get buy-in for user research, right, you got to... If let's say there isn't user research buy-in, I think what you can do is to run a series of user research sharings, that's one. If it's about time, then I would suggest to pick

in time at the onset and what you can do is that you can do like UX roadmaps and to bake in time at the beginning. Yeah, so that's that. And I would say that to get them, get your stakeholders on a journey with you so that they can have a felt experience because once they sit into your user interviews and all, then they'll be able to be better advocates for you.

And what I'm gathering from this session is this, I mean, you work with the public in service design and one of the advantages of getting your designs out in the public is actually getting feedback

from the public almost immediately. As part of your work with the government, you naturally have to do a lot with stakeholders and you shared some tips in managing and dealing with stakeholders. Let's talk a little bit about your colleagues, right? Like, you know, do you usually work alone or do you work with other people on

projects how does it go because i imagine in the more commercial projects we usually have a team working together so how's the experience been with your colleagues and what's the composition do you get

to have a UX researcher working with you on some of your projects? Right, so over here we have a team of five UX designers and we are mainly generalists so we do end-to-end UX delivery as well as the UX research work. I've set up the team with a Shuhari model in a sense that we have this

Because of our complementary skill sets, we get to be both a teacher and a student and that has that kind of very good supporting one another on the journey kind of dynamics.

Yeah, so can you elaborate what is this Shuhari model we're talking about? Yeah, so for Martin Fowler, he would define Shuhari as this, right? So at the Shuh state, in the beginning, the student will follow the teaching of one master very precisely. And then he will concentrate on how to do the task without worrying too much about

about the underlining theory. So then after that, if let's say there's multiple variations, he will just ignore that and then he will just focus on that one way his master teaches him. And at the hard state is that at this point, the student learns to branch out. So with the basic practices working,

he now starts to learn the underlining principles and theories, the why behind the technique. And he also starts to learn from other masters and integrates that learning into his process. So the restate is when the student isn't learning from other people but from his own practice and he creates his own approach and adapts what he's learned to his own particular circumstances.

That sounds a lot like general learning as learning through imitation and then learning, finding one's style eventually. Yeah, that sounds really meaningful. And how does your team work together and how do you guys sort of like practice

the Shuhari model or any other models that you practiced in order to be more successful navigating very large and complex projects? Yeah, that's a good question. So I think to set up the team for success, I think first is about identifying what are the learning goals of each teammate, so that you can have a longer career runway.

then you get a buy-in needed. So for us, it was about user research. And so that's how, you know, earlier on, talk about scaling the user research and to get it done and all that. And I think it's also around team rituals. Like this year, we're going to experiment about using this user manual. It's about how do you

learn to give and receive feedback? How do you support your teammates if they're feeling stressed? So these are things that to build that kind of psychological safety and trust, I think that is when the flow actually happens, you know, when you want to have learning and all that. And I think there's also this thing called learning circles, which is an experiment that

where I envision a world with designers beyond borders, where we leverage on the wisdom of the crowd, uplifting and supporting one another. So it's this very intentional, cozy, casual chat that we keep it small. We offer fresh perspectives and applicable insights to practice in real life. So I've offered this Learning Circles initiative to GDS UX chapter for our UX community and also our GoBusiness team, right?

to get the support they need and cross-pollination can happen. And in future, I will open source it to the wider design community locally and globally once they gain momentum. Would you consider what you just shared, glue work, as you defined earlier?

I would say it's a combination of glue work and about understanding people's needs, right? And also about making learning fun. Yeah, I always believe learning can be fun and you know, you can always keep learning. Yeah, and it really sounds to me like in your organization, working for the government, it's like even though most of you were hired in as generalists, what ended up happening is that

you learned from each other and you're also quite experimental in terms of the approach of how you do learning together as a team. I wonder how far this extends beyond your team of five that you mentioned, you know. Do you also involve the stakeholders in the learning process? Oh yeah, so when we actually do all this

all these sharings, right, we actually involve our stakeholders and our product managers and engagement managers and developers, whoever was interested to join.

But we always do an MVP release first. So we will actually start small with our own team first. And if it scales, then we will actually branch out wider. But I would say that in GDS, our mission is about, our values is about that we are this happy and awesome people, enabling others to be happy and awesome. And so that we can grow the pie. And that is, when you see yourself as an enabler and

And instead of seeing a pie that is finite and scarce, but rather you see that actually you can grow this pie for others through learning and sharing your wisdom with others. And I think that is a very powerful thing to actually practice and believe in. Yeah, that sounds really awesome. And it sounds like that's this really...

I would say wholesome kind of culture being built in GDS. And you want to add a few points on like how would you describe the culture at GDS and how do you think it's like shaped? It sounds like part of it is shaped by some of the things that you're doing. But yeah, I'm interested to hear more because in case some of the people here would maybe like to work for government services in their own respective countries, yeah, they can actually take this as a reference.

Tell us more about the culture. So for the culture, right, we are like really fun and really chill. There isn't so much hierarchy. So there's a lot of autonomy in the work that we do. We are very empowered to be bold, to be agile and collaborative about these things. And I think when you actually don't need to keep asking for permission and to just...

go and try things out and experiment and then we will see and test it out i think test it out with users and then you iterate from there i think that is quite really cool but i think back to your question about culture right so we have this group of more than 80 ux designers and i think it's really cool because you get to cross-pollinate get to learn from each other and i remember there was a time where

So there were two other designers across different projects and we just sat down and chat for the first time for more than four hours. We talked about systems thinking, we talked about organizational development, talked about self-awareness and all kinds of things. And I thought that was super interesting.

like really cool and then later on we talk about okay what kind of like cool initiatives we want to kind of bring people together and stuff like that so you can see that culturally there is so much more than work because we have a lot of other like cool stuff that we actually do on the side to to help one another and to just have fun you know

Yeah, that sounds really great. And just out of curiosity, because I understand for GDS, you're like a separate entity that's quite independent of your own. You're also like in a separate building from all the other government ministries. You know, when you're working with your own culture and then you're working with the ministries or larger organizations which have their own culture, how do you assimilate stakeholders who are maybe a little bit more traditional or a little bit more like...

like serious you know because it sounds like a very fun approach that you guys are working yeah so how do you kind of like bring them in you know do you have any tips yeah okay I won't speak for the rest but I'll say what I did right so I think Daylan you know like we have been doing this thing called connectversations and we have

conversation starters and all. So I think that is a really great way to, you know, get to know, to break the ice, to get to know each other on a deeper level. But I think fundamentally, we need to understand that they're just humans as well. And when you get to have lunch and just talk to them and get to know them a bit better, I think, and build that relationship, I think slowly, you know, they'll find that, hey, this is like, you don't need to like be...

Yeah, you can just be yourself and just be chill about it. And I think usually, somehow, they'll just be attracted to our culture more lah.

Yeah, it sounds very inviting. It sounds like this little social gathering or learning circles, as you call it, or even like icebreakers that you set up to just invite people into the conversation and get them to share more about themselves. And as they are more open and you build a kind of relationship and trust with them, you're able to then...

share with them like the agenda for design and have them go through a process or a journey with you where you and your stakeholder collaborate together to come up with like outcomes and impact that are delivered in terms of projects. Does that sound about right?

Yeah, that sounds about right. And I think like if let's say people find like this kind of icebreaker a bit daunting, then we have other more lightweight stuff like how onboard them and then we play two troops at one night or we have like gaming sessions. So that is like other kinds of ways that we can connect, you know, find out where the hobbies and then we can figure something out. Yeah. I

I think there's a lesson to be learned there because having worked in the commercial field and having worked with more traditional stakeholders as well who have been doing the same thing for the same way for decades and multiple years, very often change is such a scary process. And because change is scary, the fact that you're actually connecting with them at a human level, right?

Meaning they're not representing the department, but they're representing themselves. They're coming in as a human being and you knowing them. I think that's really, really wonderful. I'm just wondering, you know, like what about stubborn stakeholders? Like stakeholders who are maybe a little bit icy, a little bit cold, or like take a little while to warm up, you know? How do you kind of like deal with them? Yeah. I think you kind of chart the progress and I think like change, right, takes time.

So just know that

Change takes time and sometimes it is a very biological process, right? It takes time to change people's perception. It takes time to build trust. It takes time to build relationships. So even if your first intervention doesn't work, it's okay. You know, slowly I think if they see your sincerity and they see that you actually really mean well and really want to get everyone on board this journey together, I think slowly people will just open up.

And you know it's like growing this seed and sometimes the plant will grow really quickly but sometimes they will just, you know, so yeah. Yeah, they will just be where they are and that's also okay. Yao, I'm interested to find out more about GovTech and GDS, you know. What is your proudest moment working in GovTech? Okay, I would say two proudest moments.

So in the midst of the great resignation, right, and you see that a lot of people leave organizations and all, but the GoBusiness design team, we have a 0% attrition rate.

for the past two plus years. And to me, that is an achievement in itself. And I wouldn't take credit for it. I would say it is a joint effort because what we did was that we tried to complementary like shared vision and goals and want to see your interest and things like that.

So that's one. And then the second was about scaling user research for GoBusiness. Yeah, because that took a while. But I'm really happy that everyone is on board and get everyone's really warm support. So that was really awesome.

That's great. And we have a question from the audience. Gregory's asking about taking risks. He's wondering, you know, if you're engaging with more traditional organizations or more traditional stakeholders, what are two risks ever in about design methods or about design itself? What tips would you share when you're engaging people like that? Yeah, I think first is you need to find out more about

their why, like what's their concern about

Regarding the user research portion is that you need to create a user research plan and you need to like educate them and then you map it out to show that, hey, you know, we are able to deliver this based on the delivery and that will actually dereast it because when you launch then, you know, there isn't that kind of pushback from users. So in a sense, if that assures them, that's great. But then if let's say it's about

things that they haven't tried it before so maybe that's why they are worried then it takes time maybe you can share success stories of things that you've done in the past with that method and it works so

you know, it can de-risk that. I think it's about understanding where they're at and then trying to reassure them. Yeah, so it sounds like usually people may have some fears and some concerns and it is through demonstration, showing rather than telling, right? Through the artifacts that you produce or the evidence that you show or through examples that they get more assurance.

So we do have a question as well, you know, how do you work around red tapes? I'm sure you might have had some red tapes or gatekeepers, you know, as you're going along. So it could be in the form of a person, it could be in the form of a resource constraint. How do you work around them, especially with such a small team? Having red tapes, when you think of red tapes, you can think of them as constraints.

So design, we always work within constraints and then it helps us to be a bit more innovative around how do we try to find a solution that works like a win-win situation.

Great. One of our audience members really loved what you said about research ops earlier and is wondering, is there any resources you would recommend or where the points are expanded that he can read more about? Yeah, so I recently went to the Nelson Norman Group research ops course and I thought the way how they expounded it

bringing in research ops from different organizations and all helps to flesh things out clearer and all. So I'll definitely recommend you to check that out. I'm sure they also have articles on their site as well. I'll be happy to find that link later on towards the end.

Okay, so Cheryl, I'm aware you are hiring at Aftec and GDS, and I'm also aware that you volunteer your time and you review portfolios as well. And for the last couple of minutes, I just wanted...

to help those along over here who may not have transitioned into the industry yet. I know you spotted some things about bootcamp portfolios and of course now you're a professional, you compare it with your peers and the professional portfolios you've seen. I just want to point out

Would you mind pointing out to us what are some of the more common mistakes or common irritations that you spot on all these bootcamp portfolios? Sure, I'll be happy to share. So first, I'd like to say that these are just my observations as an ADP Leads Mentor and Industry Guest Reviewer. So the views are my own and do not represent the views of my organization. So

I'm sure that there are good book camp portfolios out there, right? Now we are talking about generalizations.

So what I've observed is that some bootcamp portfolios seem to follow a template. And as if UX design follows this linear process, well, most of the time it also lacks the understanding of how UX sits within Agile or product management and other design trade-offs such as business viability and technical viability.

Yeah. And on the other hand, professional portfolios, right? What they do is that they focus on how design solve challenges through experimentation and decision making. So they will show how design bridge the gap between business and technology and how does design like drive the conversation forward to non-design functions to

help to understand the value of design and it gives context the challenges faced, the design considerations and trade-offs. It also highlights the notable achievements and the impact of design and business outcomes.

I think you spotted some observations on bootcamp portfolios, right? If I'm in a bootcamp or if I'm someone who's like self-taught and I'm trying to break into the industry or I'm trying to like apply to GovTech, you know, like what would you recommend so that I prepare my portfolio in a way where it looks less like a template? Yeah. I would say you can take a common problem out there and then you try to,

conduct user research and all, and then iterate it, and then you can showcase your iterations and all. But I think at the end of the day, we are very interested more about your thought processes, not just like the finalized design screens and outcomes. How do you actually problem solve these challenges along the way?

And in your work as a mentor and in your work as part of the hiring panel for GDS, what do you think hiring managers actually look out for when they're hiring UX designers? I think at the end of the day, sadly to say, right, is that they are looking for proven design skills.

Okay, so first is that's that if they're looking at someone who is more competent and all. But if let's say it's more junior role, then I would say it's about does the team even have the capacity to support an intern or someone junior to kind of mentor them and all that. But I think at the end of the day, people are very interested about

what are your thought processes like how do you solve like challenges right and you kind of see how if let's say people just give that kind of model answers then yeah you know but if you actually think a bit more and be more thoughtful about and applying things then i think that would be quite interesting

So it does sound to me like actually it's about practical experience, it's about practice, it's about real projects. You know, I have a question in the chat as well, like for internship or entry-level roles, some people have master degrees. How do you even compete with someone with like a master degree? Yeah, like is there any tips or any suggestions you may have? I would say...

At the end of the day, education is just education, right? People just want to see if you have some outstanding work out there that

how you actually solve them and that would actually set you apart great um yeah i'm gonna just wrap up i'm sure there are still many many questions which we can answer them after but yeah if i were to you know bring you back in time and you're the young cheryl again what advice would you would you give the young cheryl or what advice would you give designers who are trying to

break into this industry and transition into the field of service design, user experience design, or research ops. I would give the advice that I asked my mentor and my bosses very early on. And I asked this question of how do I feel adequate, right?

the answer that they gave back to me was that you don't have to wait until your hair turns gray to feel adequacy and adequacy is more about a sense of being about knowing that you are enough and that you come from a place that you know you can just go out to try and you can learn and

you know, you have this growth mindset. So I'm sure you can learn along the way so you don't need to wait till your hair turns gray to feel adequate and it can start now. And this sounds like it's related to the GovTech ABC values. You want to share that with us?

Yeah, so our ABC values are agile, bold and collaborative. Yeah, agile because we have this mandate to drive the agile delivery across the whole of government. And then being bold is about, you know, being bold and willing to try to not being afraid to fail and just experiment and all. And then collaborative is like being just a good designer to collaborate with the different people, be it designers or non-designers and all.

and that's how collaboration and cross-pollination can happen. Will we be looking at any upcoming projects that will be going live on your site in the coming months? Or is there something already out there that's live that we can use that you and your team has created right now? Yeah, the e-advisor for events, the MVP is already released.

And there are several like go business, e-service navigators and the dashboard and whatnot.

Okay, and we'll keep a lookout for that. Cheryl, thank you so much for your time in spending the hour to share with us the lessons working for the government of Singapore in GDS as well as GovTech. We wish you all the best in terms of your team and the projects you're working on. It sounds like a lot of fun, sounds very wholesome in terms of your culture. Glad you got the points across and also gave some tips. Emerging designers, today to...

help them with the process of transition and I hope everyone here learned a little something about service design, about research ops and about blue work which for those of you who are not familiar with the term about bringing people together as we're working together and working better together through that. So that's it for tonight. Please give Cheryl a round of virtual applause and at least drop her some thank you messages. Cheryl, is it okay if people connect with you on LinkedIn?

Yeah, that's fine. Thanks everyone for joining. I know it's kind of late now. So thanks so much for your time. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please let me know what you think. Get in touch with me over email at mail at curiouscore.com. I would love to hear from you. Do also check out our previous interviews and other free resources at curiouscore.com.

And until next time, I'll see you on the next episode. Take care and keep leaning into change.