Agency (AG) Suit

The Agency (AG) suit is a clustering of threats around claimants' interactions to achieve beneficial outcomes.

All six suits are broad groupings of threats which, while useful for game play, should not be allowed to restrict thinking about either where and how the threats defined on each card could or do arise, nor the types and locations of harms occuring. If suits overly dominate thinking, it can be useful to think about 'what would be revealed if this threat card was in a different suit?'.

The other suits in the deck are: Scope, Architecture, Trust, Porosity and Cornucopia (plus Jokers).

Thirteen Cards in the Agency Suit

Each suit is a broad grouping of threats, and are relevant to all sort of implementation team roles and stages of the service lifecycle. The suit names should neither constrain thinking about implementation choices which may cause the threat, nor restrict the types of harm identified.

Charles enacts features resulting in the reduction or removal of opportunities for claimants to learn/develop new or improved personal capabilities (e.g. new digital skills, gain bureaucratic competence, increase written language skills)

AG-2

Kai produces a system which leads to deterioration or loss of existing knowledge and skills by claimants (e.g. reduced knowledge about the welfare benefit, become less able to use other e-government services)

AG-3

Grayson builds the system with limited ways, or making it difficult, for claimants accomplishing tasks to achieve their goal of claiming an award successfully

AG-4

Emma enforces a high degree of precision for numerical information provided by claimants (e.g. rental amount, wage income, emergency savings) catching claimants out when they only know the approximate numbers

AG-5

Archie enacts restrictions on data input field types, and/or labels, and/or length, and/or choices/options, and/or data filtering which prevent claimants from providing all relevant information correctly, and/or there is no way for claimants to provide some relevant information at all

AG-6

Lyra fashions the service in ways that do not allow claimants to undo mis-steps (e.g. following a link, clicking on a button), and/or to check and to correct data mistakes, errors and omissions, and/or to improve information provided previously

AG-7

Sophie yields processes which provides claimants with little or no flexibility in timings and deadlines, and/or time limits are unreasonably short for claimants to undertake actions fully and accurately in their situations and circumstances

AG-8

Maria brings about occasions where the status of an activity is not updated despite a claimant having completed what they were asked to do (e.g. confirmation of receipt not provided, remains indicated as pending, reminders still being sent, no progression to next step shown)

AG-9

Emilia engineers insufficient checks of fraudulent activity directed against claimants (e.g. authentication credential cracking, identity theft, suspicious system activity, payment redirection, additional costs and charges)

AG-10

Rupert cultivates system experience so bad that it puts people off using other digital systems (governmental and/or non-governmental)

AG-J

Evie causes the service`s government officials not to be held to the same standards of behaviour and censure as claimants (who are penalised for often minor and/or accidental mistakes, errors, omissions, unresponsiveness and delays)

AG-Q

Carter brings to pass a system that does not prioritise claimants` needs and/or assist claimants to achieve their best outcomes

AG-K

You have invented a new implementation decision related to claimant agency that is harmful to claimants

AG-A

Note About Card Values

Card values (e.g. 3, 8, King) are for game play and are not correlated with the severity of harm. This is because threats cannot be ranked directly since they can affect individuals in different ways due to situations and circumstances, or affect fewer or more claimants, or the harms can arise in claimants' support networks and wider society.