The Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science recognises the value of a clean environment, innovative society, and vibrant culture, and aims to support these goals through a range of project initiatives.
Project SALI (Soil and Land Information) had been underway for over a year, aiming to transform the access, usability, and data-value of Queensland’s soils and land information, through three web applications, and the creation of two API services.
One of the applications had already been built to help with the collection of data in the field, but internal infrastructure challenges prevented the team from deploying their work into production. With no demonstrable value for stakeholders or project sponsors, the project was at risk of not meeting business expectations.
To deliver on these aspirations, the team needed to be able to organise their work and technical teams around products, share knowledge freely throughout the department and create predictability around delivery. Together with ThoughtWorks, they embarked on an agile transformation journey, choosing a pilot project from a larger program of work, as a foundation for scalable change.
We conducted a series of interviews and workshops to map the current processes and challenges, before designing a transformation roadmap for the SALI team. With ThoughtWorks' coaches to train and support the team, we began to implement the roadmap recommendations; including setting up collaborative team practices and clear communication channels to increase the visibility of remaining work for the remaining two applications.