The council is a local government area in New South Wales with a population of over 200,000. The council was formed in 2016 from the merger of parts of other city councils.

Terra Firma and the council have jointly developed a new Digital Strategy outlining how the council will build its digital maturity and capability while supporting the delivery of council services to its stakeholders and community over the next four years.

Terra Firma supported and collaborated with the council in the following areas:

• Capability: Strategy Development, Digital Services and Transformation, Information Security, Customer Engagement and Experience
• Competency: Strategy Development, Business Continuity
• Service: Strategy and Roadmap Development, IT Governance and Framework Development, Requirements Management.

While developing the council’s new digital strategy, we faced issues surrounding the:

• Delivery of digital technologies that enable the council to be efficient and responsive to the needs of customers and the community.
• Effective and secure technology solutions supporting business, employee productivity, and wellbeing.
• Digital transformation – leveraging new and emerging technologies.
• IT Governance that generates business value and mitigates IT risks.

Our Terra Firma consultants worked with the council to develop the future digital strategy and roadmap with the intent purpose of uplifting the current digital landscape. This included leveraging the strengths, challenges, constraints, and capabilities of the current environment.

The strategy would align customer and community expectations with the council’s strategic plans and resource strategies. We identified opportunities for improvement to the council’s digital services within the new Digital Strategy.

We aimed to establish an IT Governance and Cyber Security Framework as an enabler for the council’s future digital services portfolio.

We undertook an extensive engagement process with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders, particularly the IT, Digital, Customer Service, and Marketing teams.
We conducted a Current State Assessment to provide a foundation for developing the Digital Strategy. This will be incorporated into the council’s Resourcing Strategy for the next four years.

Our client’s Digital Strategy aligns, integrates, and supports the council’s other strategic plans and business focus areas. The Digital Strategy builds on the existing technical environment, optimising the investment in the IT vendor and leveraging emerging technologies. The strategy was developed based on the work already established and the council’s current IT capability.

We cooperated closely with the IT vendor to include innovative IT services into the council’s capability plan and roadmap. The council’s future digital services were based on the latest technology trends.

Terra Firma assisted in developing a Digital Strategy, Detailed Portfolio of Strategic Projects based on the themes below, and the Stakeholders Expectations Map.

Six key themes emerged during the consultation with council stakeholders and from research conducted during the preparation of the strategy. The portfolio of projects in the four-year integrated roadmap were grouped into:

We identified and grouped a total of 37 strategic projects based on these themes. 21 of the 37 projects were considered a priority because they built key foundational capabilities and infrastructure on which the success of other projects depends on.

Terra Firma established a Governance Framework. Supported by executive leadership, the Digital Strategic Principles will be governed by the Project Management Office with oversight from a refreshed Digital Services Steering Committee (DSSC) with clear and updated Terms of Reference. The DSSC will be focused on funding and resourcing approvals, decision-making, change approvals, and benefits realisation aligned with business needs and priorities.

Our team established guiding principles for Digital Services and a vision for the council’s future based on the IT vendor’s roadmap.