How the Create phase works
Where a service goes from a problem to a working first version in users' hands. The team:
- works out what the problem actually is
- decides whether to reuse, buy, or build
- gets the service funded and approved
- delivers the first version
Most of what shapes the service is decided here.
Create is the part of a service's life with a clear finish line. That finish is launch, the day the service goes live.
It runs from the first idea to launch. In between, a team works out whether the service should exist at all, what it should be, and how to pay for it and stand it up. Create is delivered in three sub-phases, Discovery, Alpha, and Beta, from learning the need to a real service ready to launch.
After launch the work does not end. It changes: the one-time work of standing the service up becomes the years-long work of running and improving it, which is Live.
Think ahead to Live while you create. The service you are standing up will need to be kept running, growing, healthy, and responsive for years, and what that takes is decided now: the running team, the operating money, the support that answers for the service, and the room to keep improving it. The cheapest time to secure each of these is before the contract is signed and before the design settles.
THE OFFICIAL CHECKPOINTS
Create is where most of the official checkpoints fall. See where it sits in the whole lifecycle.
The work of Create
Create is three kinds of work, and it ends on the day the service goes live.
These are one-time decisions, made to get the service built. The business case is made, the money for building and running it is committed, and the design is signed off. After launch those same checks start coming round again, every release and every year, and that recurring rhythm is what makes Live different.
Create in three sub-phases
Create is delivered in three sub-phases, each with its own page. Approval and funding are not settled all at once before they begin. They build up across the sub-phases, and the big commitment, the money and sign-offs for the build, comes before Beta.
Launch is the crossing into Live: the service goes live and becomes the real one people use, in place of whatever they did before.
CAUTION
The cost of leaving it late
Everything in Create is cheapest the first time it comes up, and the price rises from there:
Exit rights missed at signature.
The one moment of leverage passes, and the department rents its own service for a decade.
Accessibility bolted on after the build.
In Canada the accessibility check happens when you buy, so a product bought without the clauses is paid for twice.
The authorizations started late.
The security authorization and the privacy assessment each take months, and the launch waits on the slower one.
The running team found after launch.
Nobody is staffed to operate the service, and it decays while the hiring catches up.
The operating money discovered late.
The build was funded but the running was not, and year one becomes an emergency request.
Assumptions this page makes
You are already working to the Government of Canada Digital Standards, design with users, iterate and improve frequently, work in the open, use open standards, address security and privacy, build in accessibility, empower staff, be good data stewards, design ethical services, and collaborate widely, and to the law on privacy, security, official languages, and accessibility. The standards say how the government works in the digital world. The six Government of Canada digital competencies say what every public servant has to be able to do to work that way, and the team page covers them. This guide builds on those.