Service Review Guide
The Service Review Guide from Focus provides a structured approach to improve the delivery of services within departments and faculties
What is a service review?
Service reviews provide a structured, proactive and comprehensive approach to understanding and improving all aspects of the delivery of our services and adapting them to stakeholders’ changing needs. Service reviews are an important part of Professional Services Together.
For the purposes of a service review, a service is activity provided through a combination of processes, policies, procedures and advice. Typically, a service is managed or provided by professional services staff for definable users or beneficiaries – such as faculty, students, donors, the public, other professional services staff - or to meet compliance or other regulations placed on the entire organisation.
The service review methodology consists of seven of stages to work through in turn. The Service Review Guide will layout what is required at each stage.
The seven stages of a service review are:
- Idea: lay the way
- Scope: define and agree how the review will run
- Engage: identify and communicate with participants
- Diagnose: get into the detail to understand the current situation
- Design and Test: agree and test out proposed improvements
- Implement: introduce changes
- Sustain: embed Continuous Improvement (CI)
Getting started
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Idea | The Idea stage is when you decide which service is to be reviewed, what you want to achieve and who will need to be involved. You will also need to identify and secure senior support for your review at this point. |
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Scope | Scope is when you develop your thinking about what will be included in your service review and the approach you will take. This includes governance arrangements, timescales and planning, identifying stakeholders and how you will communicate with them. It is also the stage that you develop your Service Assessment Model (SAM). |
Involving stakeholders
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Engage |
Throughout the engage stage, you will be making people aware of your service review plans and seeking feedback on your Service Assessment Model (SAM). You will be further developing and refining your approach to communications and planning the Diagnose stage activities. |
Reviewing your service
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Diagnose | For the Diagnose stage, you will be using your Service Assessment Model (SAM) to guide you in collecting information and data from a range of sources including input from service users and stakeholders. This will help you to gain a full understanding of the current state of service operations. You will also gather their initial improvement ideas that will be developed in the Design and Test stage of the review. |
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Design and Test | Throughout the Design and Test stage, you will be working with users and stakeholders to design and test out new approaches. Your aim will be to get approval for the review recommendations and an implementation approach after which an implementation plan can be developed. |
Introduce and embed changes
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Implement | At the Implement stage, you will be implementing your changes and measuring the benefits of the changes you introduce. You will be continuing to communicate and engage with stakeholders, preparing them for and supporting them through the changes and asking for feedback on the impact of changes. |
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Sustain | Throughout the Sustain stage, you will be using a range of Continuous Improvement tools to help ensure new working practices are embedded as ‘business as usual’, (using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)) etc and sharing the outcomes of your service review and any lessons learned. |
Key documents
- Service Review Guide (PowerPoint)
- Service Assessment Model (SAM) Guide (PowerPoint)
- Review plan template (Excel)
- Service Review Charter template (PowerPoint)
- Service Review Charter template (Word)
- Service reviews at Oxford team discussion guide (PowerPoint)
