Planning permissions ‘Single register of planning’ discovery: Sprint notes 29 Jan - 12 Feb 2019

Emily Robertson-Knowlton — 2019-02-12

Headlines

  • Wrapping up the Discovery phase user research interviews and analysing the findings.

Last sprint we…

  • Talked to OpenAustralia about their PlanningAlerts project, as well as the folks at PlanningPortal and the PlanX team.
  • Went to the Show & Tell by Southwark Council / Unboxed about their 8-week project to build a back-office planning system.
  • Conducted a further 10 user research interviews!

This sprint we will…

  • Present our Discovery phase findings at a session with the Digital Land team.
  • Plan our first series of Alpha phase prototypes and tests.
  • Create more refined maps of the processes and flows around site plans and planning submissions.
  • Adjust our early draft models of how to link the data around the site and the submissions together.

What we’re thinking…

  • What are the areas where our user research shows that there is the highest user need around tools and registers for planning submissions?
  • How can we get more Local Authorities involved in this discussion, especially Local Authorities who have not been involved in MHCLG Planning or Digital Land projects previously?
  • What are the main challenges to a central register of planning permissions, based on what we’ve learned from talking to those who have done innovative work in this area for many years?

And finally…

One of our goals on this project is to create prototypes that could scale nationwide. As we plan for our first Alpha prototype ideas, finding and analysing this scalable potential is going to be a big challenge! This is one of the key factors in our Alpha planning next sprint.