inland-revenue

government revenue collection

Challenge:
Inland Revenue provides a multitude of services to hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. As government policies change and new budgets are released IRD is often required to roll out multiple new services (like KiwiSaver) in very short timeframes. Often under considerable pressure IRD must create new services that understand the customer, meet diverse needs and satisfy government expectations. Historically these services have been developed in an ad hoc manner, with no consistent approach used. IRD wanted to create a design ‘methodology’ that would guide all service development through a systematic, comprehensive process.

Approach:
designindustry worked alongside key IRD Design Team staff to apply its 10 Design Principles to IRD’s particular needs and context. Over a period of several months designindustry developed a methodology for IRD that was simple, easy to understand and tied to IRD’s desired outcomes, but was rigorous and aligned to service design best practice. The final methodology was organised into stages that would allow IRD staff to enter it at any point and proceed through a robust process. Different pathways could be used depending on the time and resources available, and the degree of preparatory work.

Result:
The methodology became standard operating practice for IRD, and was used to design new services and make changes to new services almost immediately. Staff buy-in to the process was particularly high as it had been created specifically for them and understood the challenges they were faced with every day. The methodology ensured that design outcomes were better, rework was minimised, creativity was enhanced and all necessary factors (like potentially unhappy customers) were considered early in the design process.