Ireally don’t know what the world is coming to. I’d barely done some days ofinternet search for travel to and stay in Hong Kong when my inboxes wereinundated with messages about the best airfares and hotel rates for Hong Kongand for many other places. One of the messages read – ‘Dear Parag, if life is pakau(read boring) then head to Hong Kong and Macau … blah blah blah’ !Withsome effort and determination, I ignored the cyber gazes that were directed atme and continued with more internet searches to plan and make arrangements forour vacation. One day, while we were debating over the right choices of dates,itineraries, things to see and do, etc, my wife had a sneaking suspicion thatthe passport of our younger daughter might be nearing its date of expiry. Wechecked and found that it was indeed the case. That was hardly a setback. Wecould apply right away for a re-issue, and get her passport in a few days. We’dheard that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a private sector technology major,had done their bit to IT-enable the passport related services of the Ministryof External Affairs (MEA). And therefore we expected to experience a faster,simpler and better process.Wesearched on Google and found two probable sites to apply for a passport. One, ‘IndianPassport, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India’, that we had usedbefore, and another one, ‘Passport Seva Portal’. In our country, there’s hardlya new process or a process improvement initiative that is not christened with aname steeped in our culture and tradition, and hence we knew that the latterone was the site intended for us users. After all, neither TCS nor the MEAcould’ve possibly ignored this customary and popular practice. I clicked on thelink and two options flashed on the screen – ‘a) click here to close thiswebpage’, and, ‘b) continue to this website (not recommended)’. Paranoid that Iam about security and privacy issues unleashed by the net, I closed thewebpage. I then clicked on the link I had used earlier and was familiar with.Same security warning ! Wow, that’s some start these guys have made with userefficiency and effectiveness, I thought.Bracingmyself, and holding on to my belief in public-private participation for thegood of our country, I returned to the ‘Passport Seva Portal’ and clicked onthe ‘continue to this website’ despite the warning. It took me to a home pagethat looked cleaner and fresher than the old one, and had the photograph of ourcurrent Minister for External Affairs when he was ten or fifteen years youngerthan he is today. Use of the appropriate photograph would’ve been a key item onthe project checklist and I was convinced once over that this had to be theright portal to use. There were two links on the home page – one, to apply fora new passport, and two, to apply for a re-issue. It brought forth a smile fromme since this was genuinely a low-hanging-fruit kind of improvement over theearlier process that had a third action – apply for a duplicate passport. Youeither had to be working for the passport office, or a genius, or ready to readthrough a lengthy instruction sheet to know the difference between ‘re-issue’and ‘duplicate’ and to know which form to fill for what. With this basiccorrection done in the new process, I felt heartened that the magic wasbeginning to unravel. That some people were thinking like users do, and that moregood things were to follow therefore.WhenI clicked on ‘re-issue of passport’, I discovered a real beauty. There werethree choices instead of the earlier two. Not only could you apply withphysical copies or apply online, but you could also now download an e-form,fill it offline on your computer, and upload it on the portal. At the click ofa button, you could save the form as an XML file for upload and subsequentlysave it as a PDF for your own record-keeping. The relevant instructions saidthat the part online and part offline way of the e-form was recommended overthe totally online submission, since the former didn’t need an active internetconnection for the entire duration of activity. In our country, where one isn’tsure when the internet connection would break and put paid to critical onlinetransactions underway, this was a great display of customer orientation. Oneand a half cheers for it.Therewere other low hanging fruits plucked by the project stakeholders. One was theelimination of the requirement to fill in the same details in multiple copiesof the main application form and in multiple copies of the police verificationform. Why this was even required for online submissions in the earlier days, Ican’t fathom, but now, only one set of details needed to be filled, and thepassport office could get as many copies and types of forms auto-populated atthe back-end for their own use. The other simple improvement was that an applicant’sdigital photograph, fingerprints and signatures (maybe even retinal scans, Idon’t know yet) would be collected by the passport officials on the day theapplicant was called to their office for a verification of documents andidentity. A neat way to reduce the chances of fraud, collect more unique identityinformation about the applicants, as well as reduce the time and effort requiredfrom them. I’d give the TCS and the MEAfolks only half a cheer for these, since the lack of clear and conciseeducation about these matters on the portal left me very confused and uncertainas a user.Iwas left searching the portal frantically for what needed to be done regardingmy child’s photograph and fingerprints that were so obviously critical to anypassport application. While I found my answer about the photograph aftervisiting many different pages, the portal remained quite silent on the matterof the fingerprints. I found and downloaded a ‘Police Clearance Certificateform’. Police verification or police clearance, how did it matter to me ? Iassumed that the enthusiastic project redesign folks must’ve re-named this partas well. Neither on the form, nor anywhere on the portal, did I findinformation about what to do with this form. Finally, I did what I don’t liketo do. I called the help-line, wriggled my way out of the maze of options andrecorded messages, spoke to the customer service representative and got myanswers. I also got to know that the Police Clearance Certificate did not applyto me. Phew !Therewas more good stuff that got clouded by the bad accompanying stuff, or becauseof improvement that was half-hearted. The irritation over the address field sorestricted by the character limit triumphed over my pleasure of seeing manyunrequired fields disappear from the form depending on my choice of a ‘yes’ ora ‘no’ to simple questions. The opportunity of integrating the instructionspage with the application page, for every line item of the application, wastotally relinquished. Neither did it strike people that an addition of ‘previewyour submission’ button before the ‘submit’ button could’ve helped to reviseerrors and added to user confidence.Aftercompleting the form offline and uploading it online, I found two more things whichdeserve some cheer.I could now schedulean appointment with the authorities from the displayed available slots. Forsome reason, if it looked like I couldn’t make it on the due date and time, Icould cancel and reschedule the appointment. I could also upload PDF copies ofthe documents and annexures required of me. Both, a far cry from the earlierdays. What took away the cheer, is that, like in the past, you still couldn’tapply for a re-issue of a passport for more than one reason. For example, ifyour passport was about to expire and you had also changed your place ofresidence, you couldn’t choose both as the reasons you needed the services for.Nowto the big daddy of all duds that the project stakeholders could’ve easily donewithout. Earlier, we had to go to our Regional Passport Office (RPO) to getstuff done. Now our district has the earlier RPO as well as a new Passport SevaKendra (PSK). The introduction of the many PSKs across the country is accordingto the project charter of taking the services closer to the users and of havingthe users visit more comfortable office-spaces. I discovered too late in theday, and after some grief, that if I needed a passport urgently, I had to visitthe earlier RPO portal and interact with the RPO officials, while if I needed apassport under the normal process and timelines, then I had to visit the new PSKportal and interact with the PSK officials. The first step for me as a user hadchanged without the consequent reflection in the application process or in the applicationform. From, ‘do I need a fresh passport or another passport ?’, the decisiontree for me now began with, ‘which place is my nearest RPO ?’, followed by, ‘doI need a passport urgently or in the normal course ?’. For an urgent passportin my city I needed to be redirected to the RPO portal. And if I needed thepassport in the normal course, I could continue to fill and submit the form onthe same PSK portal.Whathappened instead ? I clicked on ‘need passport urgently’ and proceeded tocomplete and submit the application. When I tried to schedule an appointment atthe PSK, the system didn’t allow me to, citing non-availability of ‘urgent’slots at the concerned PSK. I did the next best thing, and tried to getourselves a ‘normal’ appointment. This time, the system allowed me to.Thankfully, I asked the guy at the help-line about this matter too, and he warnedme that on the appointed day I would be turned away due to the discrepancy ofan ‘urgent application’ with a ‘normal’ appointment. He advised me to redo theentire thing ! Which I did. You tell me how many cheers to take away for that.Thisis very familiar. It’s not just TCS and the MEA. We do it all the time in ourworkplaces. We forget to verify if the process flow would change with everychange in the process-ecosystem or in the process-steps. We forget that processredesign is iterative.Earth calling TCS and MEA : change a bit …check all … change a bit … check all … change a bit … check all. Don't hear me if you don't wish to. It's April Fools Day anyway.
Ireally don’t know what the world is coming to. I’d barely done some days ofinternet search for travel to and stay in Hong Kong when my inboxes wereinundated with messages about the best airfares and hotel rates for Hong Kongand for many other places. One of the messages read – ‘Dear Parag, if life is pakau(read boring) then head to Hong Kong and Macau … blah blah blah’ !Withsome effort and determination, I ignored the cyber gazes that were directed atme and continued with more internet searches to plan and make arrangements forour vacation. One day, while we were debating over the right choices of dates,itineraries, things to see and do, etc, my wife had a sneaking suspicion thatthe passport of our younger daughter might be nearing its date of expiry. Wechecked and found that it was indeed the case. That was hardly a setback. Wecould apply right away for a re-issue, and get her passport in a few days. We’dheard that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a private sector technology major,had done their bit to IT-enable the passport related services of the Ministryof External Affairs (MEA). And therefore we expected to experience a faster,simpler and better process.Wesearched on Google and found two probable sites to apply for a passport. One, ‘IndianPassport, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India’, that we had usedbefore, and another one, ‘Passport Seva Portal’. In our country, there’s hardlya new process or a process improvement initiative that is not christened with aname steeped in our culture and tradition, and hence we knew that the latterone was the site intended for us users. After all, neither TCS nor the MEAcould’ve possibly ignored this customary and popular practice. I clicked on thelink and two options flashed on the screen – ‘a) click here to close thiswebpage’, and, ‘b) continue to this website (not recommended)’. Paranoid that Iam about security and privacy issues unleashed by the net, I closed thewebpage. I then clicked on the link I had used earlier and was familiar with.Same security warning ! Wow, that’s some start these guys have made with userefficiency and effectiveness, I thought.Bracingmyself, and holding on to my belief in public-private participation for thegood of our country, I returned to the ‘Passport Seva Portal’ and clicked onthe ‘continue to this website’ despite the warning. It took me to a home pagethat looked cleaner and fresher than the old one, and had the photograph of ourcurrent Minister for External Affairs when he was ten or fifteen years youngerthan he is today. Use of the appropriate photograph would’ve been a key item onthe project checklist and I was convinced once over that this had to be theright portal to use. There were two links on the home page – one, to apply fora new passport, and two, to apply for a re-issue. It brought forth a smile fromme since this was genuinely a low-hanging-fruit kind of improvement over theearlier process that had a third action – apply for a duplicate passport. Youeither had to be working for the passport office, or a genius, or ready to readthrough a lengthy instruction sheet to know the difference between ‘re-issue’and ‘duplicate’ and to know which form to fill for what. With this basiccorrection done in the new process, I felt heartened that the magic wasbeginning to unravel. That some people were thinking like users do, and that moregood things were to follow therefore.WhenI clicked on ‘re-issue of passport’, I discovered a real beauty. There werethree choices instead of the earlier two. Not only could you apply withphysical copies or apply online, but you could also now download an e-form,fill it offline on your computer, and upload it on the portal. At the click ofa button, you could save the form as an XML file for upload and subsequentlysave it as a PDF for your own record-keeping. The relevant instructions saidthat the part online and part offline way of the e-form was recommended overthe totally online submission, since the former didn’t need an active internetconnection for the entire duration of activity. In our country, where one isn’tsure when the internet connection would break and put paid to critical onlinetransactions underway, this was a great display of customer orientation. Oneand a half cheers for it.Therewere other low hanging fruits plucked by the project stakeholders. One was theelimination of the requirement to fill in the same details in multiple copiesof the main application form and in multiple copies of the police verificationform. Why this was even required for online submissions in the earlier days, Ican’t fathom, but now, only one set of details needed to be filled, and thepassport office could get as many copies and types of forms auto-populated atthe back-end for their own use. The other simple improvement was that an applicant’sdigital photograph, fingerprints and signatures (maybe even retinal scans, Idon’t know yet) would be collected by the passport officials on the day theapplicant was called to their office for a verification of documents andidentity. A neat way to reduce the chances of fraud, collect more unique identityinformation about the applicants, as well as reduce the time and effort requiredfrom them. I’d give the TCS and the MEAfolks only half a cheer for these, since the lack of clear and conciseeducation about these matters on the portal left me very confused and uncertainas a user.Iwas left searching the portal frantically for what needed to be done regardingmy child’s photograph and fingerprints that were so obviously critical to anypassport application. While I found my answer about the photograph aftervisiting many different pages, the portal remained quite silent on the matterof the fingerprints. I found and downloaded a ‘Police Clearance Certificateform’. Police verification or police clearance, how did it matter to me ? Iassumed that the enthusiastic project redesign folks must’ve re-named this partas well. Neither on the form, nor anywhere on the portal, did I findinformation about what to do with this form. Finally, I did what I don’t liketo do. I called the help-line, wriggled my way out of the maze of options andrecorded messages, spoke to the customer service representative and got myanswers. I also got to know that the Police Clearance Certificate did not applyto me. Phew !Therewas more good stuff that got clouded by the bad accompanying stuff, or becauseof improvement that was half-hearted. The irritation over the address field sorestricted by the character limit triumphed over my pleasure of seeing manyunrequired fields disappear from the form depending on my choice of a ‘yes’ ora ‘no’ to simple questions. The opportunity of integrating the instructionspage with the application page, for every line item of the application, wastotally relinquished. Neither did it strike people that an addition of ‘previewyour submission’ button before the ‘submit’ button could’ve helped to reviseerrors and added to user confidence.Aftercompleting the form offline and uploading it online, I found two more things whichdeserve some cheer.I could now schedulean appointment with the authorities from the displayed available slots. Forsome reason, if it looked like I couldn’t make it on the due date and time, Icould cancel and reschedule the appointment. I could also upload PDF copies ofthe documents and annexures required of me. Both, a far cry from the earlierdays. What took away the cheer, is that, like in the past, you still couldn’tapply for a re-issue of a passport for more than one reason. For example, ifyour passport was about to expire and you had also changed your place ofresidence, you couldn’t choose both as the reasons you needed the services for.Nowto the big daddy of all duds that the project stakeholders could’ve easily donewithout. Earlier, we had to go to our Regional Passport Office (RPO) to getstuff done. Now our district has the earlier RPO as well as a new Passport SevaKendra (PSK). The introduction of the many PSKs across the country is accordingto the project charter of taking the services closer to the users and of havingthe users visit more comfortable office-spaces. I discovered too late in theday, and after some grief, that if I needed a passport urgently, I had to visitthe earlier RPO portal and interact with the RPO officials, while if I needed apassport under the normal process and timelines, then I had to visit the new PSKportal and interact with the PSK officials. The first step for me as a user hadchanged without the consequent reflection in the application process or in the applicationform. From, ‘do I need a fresh passport or another passport ?’, the decisiontree for me now began with, ‘which place is my nearest RPO ?’, followed by, ‘doI need a passport urgently or in the normal course ?’. For an urgent passportin my city I needed to be redirected to the RPO portal. And if I needed thepassport in the normal course, I could continue to fill and submit the form onthe same PSK portal.Whathappened instead ? I clicked on ‘need passport urgently’ and proceeded tocomplete and submit the application. When I tried to schedule an appointment atthe PSK, the system didn’t allow me to, citing non-availability of ‘urgent’slots at the concerned PSK. I did the next best thing, and tried to getourselves a ‘normal’ appointment. This time, the system allowed me to.Thankfully, I asked the guy at the help-line about this matter too, and he warnedme that on the appointed day I would be turned away due to the discrepancy ofan ‘urgent application’ with a ‘normal’ appointment. He advised me to redo theentire thing ! Which I did. You tell me how many cheers to take away for that.Thisis very familiar. It’s not just TCS and the MEA. We do it all the time in ourworkplaces. We forget to verify if the process flow would change with everychange in the process-ecosystem or in the process-steps. We forget that processredesign is iterative.Earth calling TCS and MEA : change a bit …check all … change a bit … check all … change a bit … check all. Don't hear me if you don't wish to. It's April Fools Day anyway.