Platform+Agile = Business Systems+Data+Insight

I have written previously about the benefits of a Platform+Agile approach to application development. The goal is to deliver more business systems more quickly, at less cost and risk, by leveraging existing proven platforms and in-house skills and by adopting an agile, incremental, approach.

What is the simplest thing that could conceivably work? Do that! Start small. Iterate quickly. Learn fast.

This approach is starting to deliver results in DHHS, with three new business systems delivered last year in a Platform+Agile manner: the Housing Register Online, the Family Violence Referral & Triage Portal and the RAMP Information Sharing System. More projects are underway (so stay tuned this channel).

So far we have tended to focus on the direct functional benefits of these systems i.e. the way the system supports people to apply for public housing or the way the system supports social workers to triage and manage requests to assist women and children in a domestic violence situation.

As these new systems become operational, however, we are also discovering the value of the new data that they produce. New business systems generate new sources of data which can be consumed by modern analytics platforms.

The Family Violence Referral & Triage Portal, for example, automates a referral process which was previously carried out by the faxing of L17 referrals from Vic Police to the social services sector. Over 70,000 faxes per year. Putting aside the inconvenience of faxes, a key problem was that there was no practical way to track the faxes or analyse the data that they contained.

Even the past two months of data has produced useful insights. Analytics tools can now show the location of incidents and people on a map. Previously invisible relationships between the people involved (victims and perpetrators) can be revealed. Trends and patterns of activity and behaviour over time can be visualised and studied. This information will enable improvements in front-line responses and also provide insights for service design and further system enhancement.

Advanced analytics platforms can potentially generate real time alerts from the data - warning front-line workers of risk situations that may otherwise go unnoticed.

This is digital transformation in action. Delivery is strategy. The key innovation of the Platform+Agile approach is speed. The more quickly the first iteration of a new business system is delivered the sooner the new functionality is in the hands of front-line workers and the sooner new data starts to accumulate and new insight emerges.

The result is to achieve pragmatic tactical benefits (the new business system) as well as incremental strategic benefits (the accumulation of new data). These combine to boost our digital self-confidence as well as our understanding of the ‘art of the possible’.

The point of Platform+Agile is to spark compounding organisational learning. One good idea leads to another idea and another … each idea a little bigger than the one before ... like interest compounding in a bank account.

A new business system leads to new data ... which leads to new insights ... which lead to improved services ... which (in the health & human services sector) can transform, and even save, lives.