Glossary
- Insights
- Glossary
Digital transformation glossary
A - c
Making sure everyone who needs your service can reach it, use it and understand it.
A technique to find patterns in data. This involves taking raw data and forming groups based on similarities.
Agile is a set of principles, behaviours and approaches to delivering work iteratively. It allows teams to deliver value quickly and often.
The experimental stage of the service design and delivery process. The team builds prototypes, learns and iterates quickly. This helps find the right solution.
A communication tool based on user research. It supports the development of a service or product. Artefacts include:
- service maps
- journey maps
- user stories
- prototypes
An expert or practitioner in a digital discipline. They sit on a panel which assesses services against the Digital Service Standard.
The building and iterating stage of the service design and delivery process. The team builds a minimum viable product from the solution identified in Alpha. It releases this to users and keeps improving the service.
A way to make sure services meet the Digital Service Standard. A team of experts checks in regularly during design and development. It focuses on continuous improvement.
A group of people who share a discipline or work focus. This community allows them to work together on best practice. It also lets them showcase ongoing work and solve common problems together.
A process to understand the quality and amount of content on a website, product or service.
An approach focusing on content that best serves users’ needs. It may include:
- text
- images
- videos
- charts
- calculators
- infographics
A guide to help teams design and write simple, clear and fast digital content. It helps teams design content that is accessible for all users.
A practice focused on creation, delivery and management of content. It sets the foundation for creating useful, usable content.
Working on a product or service every sprint to better meet user needs.
D - F
13 best-practice principles to design and deliver services. It helps teams build services that are simple, clear and fast.
A way of working that transforms experiences for users. It keeps the whole service in mind while considering new approaches, tools and technology.
The exploring and learning stage of the service design and delivery process. The team researches user needs. It also maps the service landscape.
Designing products or services to ensure they are fit for purpose. They should also meet the intended need and criteria for success. For example:
- operation
- performance
- safety
- readability
- quality
A communication tool to visualise research. It helps the team keep users in mind when they are designing.
A type of user story that is usually too big to do in one iteration. These can break down into smaller stories or tasks.
A set of methods used to test whether a design meets user needs and is easy to access and use. An example is usability testing.
G - I
An informal assessment of a product or service against the Digital Service Standard. It shows the team how it’s progressing before a stage assessment.
A process to gain understanding between a user researcher and participant. It details the purpose of the research. It also explains the intended use of the information collected. Informed consent includes getting a record from the participant. This is to show they agree to take part.
To deliver more value to users through an update to a product or service.
J - L
A map showing all interactions and pain points a user has with a product or service.
A tool to visualise and optimise the flow of a team’s work. A basic board has a 3-step workflow: to do, in progress and done.
The continuous improvement stage of the service design and delivery process. The team releases and maintains the new service. It retires any prior service or product.
M - O
Information about data, such as its size or creation date.
The minimum solution the team can build that meets user needs. It delivers value quickly and can be iterated and tested for improvements.
A team with all the skills required to deliver products and services based on user needs. They work in agile ways and apply user-centred design practices. The team works together on the same part of the service at the same time. They change and adapt and have authority to make quick decisions.
A type of data available to all. It is:
- discoverable
- accessible
- machine readable
- reusable
It gives people information to deliver better services.
Open source code can be used, redistributed and modified by anyone. Open source helps to:
- reduce costs
- avoid lock-in
- stop duplication
- increase transparency
It also adds benefits from improvements by other developers.
P - R
This tool collects data and reports on the performance of government services. It makes this information open and easy to access.
A simple model that shows how a service or product could work. It can be on paper or in code and is used to seek early feedback from users.
A free or paid application or system that the general public can access.
A visual way of communicating the vision and direction of your product or service over time. It shows what is being built and why.
S - U
A system, program or service is secure if it has been:
- security tested
- uses best-practice security
- complies with relevant policies
A process to design and deliver government services that focus on user needs. It helps teams start small, learn fast and deliver quickly. This reduces costs and service failures. The process is part of meeting the Digital Service Standard.
A formal assessment of a service against the Digital Service Standard. It it used to move from one stage of the service design and delivery process to the next.
Someone with a deep understanding or special skills in an area of expertise. They share knowledge to help the team design and deliver services that meet user needs.
The ways a person or business interacts with government to complete a task. This includes contact by:
- accessing a website
- visits in person
- phone
Services that affect records held by government. These are usually an exchange of:
- information
- money
- licences
High-volume services are defined as those having more than 50,000 transactions a year.
All people who interact with a service including:
- the users of the service
- the people delivering the service
- anyone who supports end users to access the service
A way to learn more about users. It helps you understand their experiences, needs and motivations. Each interview involves only one participant. The researcher guides the session based on the research objectives.
An ongoing process to understand user behaviours, needs and motivations. It supports the team to understand the people they are designing for. This helps make services that meet user needs.
A user story describes why and how a user interacts with services and information.
An approach to solving problems that revolves around users and their needs. It focuses on understanding users and their needs at every step of the service design process.
V - X
Recommendations and guidelines to make web content accessible to people with access needs.
All people who interact with a service including:
- the users of the service
- the people delivering the service
- anyone who supports end users to access the service
A way to learn more about users. It helps you understand their experiences, needs and motivations. Each interview involves only one participant. The researcher guides the session based on the research objectives.
An ongoing process to understand user behaviours, needs and motivations. It supports the team to understand the people they are designing for. This helps make services that meet user needs.
A user story describes why and how a user interacts with services and information.
An approach to solving problems that revolves around users and their needs. It focuses on understanding users and their needs at every step of the service design process.
Data Management Glossary
A - c
The track chosen by a database management system to collect data requested by the end-user.
The examination of data using sophisticated tools, typically beyond those of traditional Business Intelligence, allowing for deeper insights or predictions to be made.
Data that helps a data warehouse administrator manage a data warehouse. This data typically includes user profiles and warehouse history.
Data that is the end result of applying a process to combine data elements, usually taken collectively or in the form of a summary.
The discovery of meaningful patterns in data, usually revealed by an analytics software solution.
A subset of Business Intelligence that focuses specifically on how and why users behave the way they do, using the data that is connected for analysis.
Extremely large data sets that may be analyzed to reveal patterns and trends and that are typically too complex to be dealt with using traditional processing techniques.
A mechanism, usually software-based, which is designed to move large data files, supporting compression, blocking and buffering in order to cut down on wait times.
A process for analyzing data and presenting actionable insights to stakeholders in order to help them make more informed business decisions.
Business analysts and other personnel that may have experience working within an organization’s data architecture and using software tools to derive valuable business insights from stored data.
A means of storing data together from multiple tables when the data contains common information that is needed for analysis.
Conforming to a set of rules, usually established by a governing body. In terms of Data Management, compliance refers to the following of collection and usage techniques which safeguard private data, and is often used in highly-regulated industries.
D - F
A tool that is used to create, deploy and analyze information. Typically, a dashboard will consist of a single screen and show various reports and other metrics that the organization is studying.
A collection of data that is purposefully arranged for fast and convenient search and retrieval by business applications and Business Intelligence software.
Provides a fast and straightforward way to extract value from multiple data sources to find patterns without the deployment of a traditional data warehouse architecture.
Transforming data in its native state to a pre-defined standardized format using vendor software.
A database structure with multiple dimensions which can be stacked, combined and manipulated to enable browsing.
Provides users across an enterprise with access to data, allowing them to run analysis at any time to answer any question.
User-driven process of searching for patterns in a data set, providing self-service and data democratization. Data Discovery has been labeled by Gartner as “modern Business Intelligence.”
The management of the availability, usability, integrity and security of the data stored within an enterprise.
The combination of technical and business processes used to combine data from disparate sources into meaningful insights.
A storage repository that holds a large amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed.
Referred to as the data life-cycle, which includes the origins of the data and where it moves over time, describing what happens to data as it goes through diverse processes.
The development and execution of architectures, policies and practices to manage the data life-cycle needs of an enterprise.
A collection of reports, metrics and other stored data on a specific subject matter. Think of this as an organization of like information, making for easier discovery.
The process of moving data between two or more storage systems, data formats, warehouses or servers.
Extracting previously unknown data from databases and using that data for important business decisions, in many cases helping to create new insights.
Safeguarding vital business data from corruption or loss.
Refers to the contextually quality of an organization’s collection of data. The more relevant, available, complete and accurate the information, the better chance profitable business insights will be created.
The frequent copying of data from a database to another so that all users may share the same level of information, resulting in a distributed database that allows users to access data relevant to their own specific tasks.
A field of study involving the processes and systems used to extract insights from data in all of its forms. The pfofession is seen as a continuation of the other data analysis fields, such as statistics.
A temporary location where all data from outside resources are copied.
: A system used for Data Analytics. They are a central location of integrated data from other more disparate sources, storing both current (real-time) and historical data which can then be used to create trends reports. In multidimensional data sets, drilling is the process of navigating among levels of data ranging from the most summarized (up) down to the most detailed (down).
Transforming numerical data into a visual or pictorial context in order to assist users in better understanding what the data is telling them.
The process of navigating through different levels of data in multidimensional sets.
The integration of external Business Intelligence tools and capabilities into existing business software.
A database environment created to provide a single view of an enterprise and is considered to be a reliable source of controlled information for strategic planning and decision making.
Applications that are used for presenting and analyzing corporate data, typically used by high-level management.
This type of software allows a business or organization to manage a suite of integrated applications which are used to collect, manage and store data on a variety of business activities.
A data warehousing process that involves moving data from one location to another. These three functions are combined into one to allow faster migration.
G - I
A programming framework that supports the processing of large data sets in a distributed computing environment.
J - L
An old or outdated software tool.
BI feature that relates geographic contexts to business data and designed to turn data into insights for a host of business purposes.
M - O
A type of artificial intelligence that provides computers with the ability to learn without being specifically programmed to do so, focusing on the development of computer applications that can teach themselves to change when exposed to new data.
Incorporates processes, policies, standards, and tools that define and manage all of an organization’s critical data in order to formulate one point of reference.
Describes other data within a database and is responsible for organization while an end-user sifts through collected data.
A technology solution that is used to organize the databases of large businesses, supporting Business Intelligence.
Data Analytics that are focused on improving the internal operations of the enterprise.
A current and relevant store of data used to support tactical decision making within an organization.
P - R
BI solutions that help the user discover patterns in large data sets in order to predict future behavior.
The area of Business Intelligence dedicated to finding the best course of action for a given situation.
The ability to use all available enterprise data as needed and usually involves streaming data that allows users to make business decisions on the fly.
A system used to store data manged in relational tables, typically organized according to the relationship between different data values.
The collection of data from various sources and software tools for presentation to end-users in a way that is understandable and easy to analyze.
A mechanism for storing data defining a system at any point in its life-cycle.
S - U
The ability to increase volumes of data and the number of users to the data warehouse, which is critical for the data and technical architectures of the enterprise.
The structure that defines how data inside a database is organized.
A BI practice that enables business users to access and work with corporate data without a background in statistical analysis.
A contract between a service provider or vendor and the customer that defines the level of service expected. SLAs are service-based and specifically define what the customer can expect to receive.
The breaking down of large data sets into smaller portions so that they can be analyzed in different perspectives.
A software delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted and typically accessed by end-users using a client via web browser.
View of a data set at a particular instance in time.
The accepted standard for relational database systems, covering query, data definition, data manipulation, security and additional aspects of data integrity.
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