
Development Approach
Socio-technological co-production
The aOS platform has been created in conjunction with citizens of all sorts, in many circumstances and with all kinds of people who help them
Every function & feature was created to support the highest priority functionality required by a collaboration. Nothing was created because we thought it would be cool, useful or distinctive
Both the new ways of working & the supporting technological tools were co-produced within 2 week agile co-production cycles
Generic apps & flexible building blocks are easily understood by all & required functionality is easily specified in terms of using & extending these to meet each new requirement
Groundwork
The aOS platform is the product of 6 years work at the coal face with real people, as opposed to their proxies or so-called experts, who are too often out of touch with the practical real world issues they face
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Types of citizens involved include:
- Probation service users
- Carers & their cared for
- Gypsy Travellers
- BME community members
- Older People
- People being intentional about diet & exercise others helping them, included:
- Peer mentors, probation staff, education, training & employment staff
- Council, housing NHS, police, universities
- a wide range of third sector organisations
- e.g. Citizens Advice Bureaux, volunteer agencies, alcohol & drug charities, housing associations, homeless charities, older age charities, carers organisations
- Local associations & faith groups
- Care agencies
- Drug companies
- Premiership rugby club & Rugby Football Union
- Gyms & local sports clubs
Agile component-based development
As the platform is so fully functional & all it components so generic & extensible, application development is extremely rapid, in most cases only requiring customising, extending & connecting components together in different ways
Users are really engaged at every point & gain confidence quickly as they see what they have design delivered within weeks
Reduced Risk
People, process & technology elements are co-produced contemporaneously & new ways of working together are tested in the field after a couple of weeks
What works well can be built upon & what does not can be altered or discarded.
In this way, risk is low, because feedback is reallyrapid & expensive white elephants are avoided
Co-creation
We don't presume to know what you need & want
We work alongside you where we are needed to help you craft all aspects of your solutions
You are self-sufficient within weeks, but 1:1 support is always close by when you need it