Beta Playbook
Note: Work in Progress
This playbook is a direct copy of the GDS agile guidelines and serves as a starting point for CPS specific implementations.
The beta phase is where you take your best idea from alpha and start building it for real. It also involves thinking about how your service will integrate with (or start to replace) existing services, and preparing for the transition to live.
Structure your beta phase so you can roll out the service to real users - while minimising risk and maximising the potential to learn and iterate the service.
Make sure:
- the service team has the capacity to sustain that learning and iteration throughout the beta period.
- support staff are able to cope with new users who might struggle to use the service in ways you have not foreseen.
You’ll start out in ‘private beta’. This involves inviting a limited number of people to use your service so you can get feedback and improve it.
Once you’ve improved the service and are confident you can run it at scale, you take an assessment to move into ‘public beta’. This involves opening up your service to anyone who needs it. If you’re replacing a legacy service, keep the legacy service running until your new service moves into its live phase.
You should book your assessment 6 weeks before you want to be assessed.
What to focus on during beta
By now you’ll have developed a strong understanding of your users’ needs and, by the end of alpha, chosen a way of meeting those needs.
During beta, focus on making sure that the solution you’ve chosen works as well as possible by carrying out user research and starting to gather data on how successful the service is based on the success metrics you identified in alpha. Iterate the service based on what you learn.
Work in Progress!
This site is a work in progress and any opinions contained here are intended to spark discussion within each discipline's community of practice.
Created: 2023-07-26