SA government’s ICT strategy to speed up project delivery

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill today officially released the state government’s strategy position paper, SA Connected, which sets out its plans to shorten project times and improve service delivery.

“From now on, we’re not going to start up any more big ‘ICT’ projects,” the draft position paper reads.

“We’re only going to have service/information/productivity improvement projects. Projects will be shorter, typically 90 days at most, and they will be planned and delivered by multidisciplinary teams, not just IT.”

The paper outlines the need to shorten huge drawn-out projects to help quicken service delivery and to spread projects across multidisciplinary teams, so that they are not too technology-focused.

“In the future, projects will be designed, from the outset, by multidisciplinary teams to ensure that people and process issues are given at least as much attention as technology issues,” the paper said.

The SA government plans to change its “big project” approach by prototyping small “chunks” of projects and scaling them up once they are proven to work.

ICT innovation is a key part in the strategy, with the establishment of a ‘Co-design Interchange’, which will see the SA government working more closely with the industry to solve problems and utilise new technologies, ‘SenSA’ which will see more data analysis and ‘DemoLab’, which will facilitate collaborate through a virtual laboratory.

The SA government will also “progressively integrate ICT” governance and gradually phase out legacy systems.

“Ripping out and replacing systems may seem like a straightforward and strategic response to dealing with so called ‘legacy’ systems. In fact, history teaches us that we may be just creating a legacy for the next generation to worry about,” the strategy document reads.

“Over time, data and processes can be progressively shifted to newer, more efficient platforms, an approach which essentially sees legacy systems atrophying, eventually being phased out.”

Sharing of resources and services is also on the SA government’s agenda for ICT. The strategy document said government agencies will be made to partner with other agencies with similar needs when acquiring new technologies, instead of competing against each other for budget.

The strategy document highlighted some of the SA government’s services projects it is working on. These include: real-time passenger information for Adelaide Metro that will be provided early this year, high speed connectivity and real-time access to information for all ambulance vehicles in South Australia and a state wide electronic health record.

In February this year, the Victorian Coalition government released its ICT strategy, which it claims will result in a 15 per cent cost reduction in the state’s annual $1.5 billion technology spend by the end of next year.