The pain points

Business and enterprise architects often work in isolation from their peers in other agencies. Skills and techniques are learned the hard way, opportunities are few, and it can be difficult to get comprehensive information about government platforms and services.

Steps toward a solution

Through building a new government architecture community of practice, we believe everyone will benefit from a shared understanding of government capabilities. Members will be able to influence the government architecture ecosystem and contribute to the design of better government services.

Benefits include:

• shared expertise and information
• advice from peers
• development and review government architecture products
• opportunities to help government deliver simple, clear, and fast public services

Shared expertise

There is no doubt that other agencies have faced similar challenges, solved similar problems, or developed better techniques. It’s time to share what we know. The community is a place where you can ask questions, discuss challenges, and learn from others.

Lively discussions will lift the quality of architectural practice across government and help us collectively develop an architecture that delivers value.

Explore new opportunities

Government agencies can be siloed, which can be frustrating for users of government services. A user-focused perspective and a broader, ecosystem-based approach to architecture will remove barriers between agencies and deliver a better experience for users.

This is an opportunity to design new ways of using what government already knows. We will explore ways to streamline the user experience by ‘joining up’ services that flow across agency boundaries.

We will also make information about government platforms more widely available. Members will have opportunities to contribute their ideas about how government capability can be improved for everyone.

Help to develop architecture products

Community members can contribute to the whole-of-government architecture products currently being developed. This includes:

• reference models that define standard terms and frameworks
• a catalogue of government platforms and services to improve visibility and reuse
• views of government services that show how many different elements work together to deliver value
• methods to assess the alignment of a proposed investments with the future-state government architecture

Community members will be invited to help test our hypotheses and comment on products as they are developed and released.

Join the community

In addition to the online community of practice, members will be able to contribute to products and influence the design of government capabilities and services by participating in virtual showcase events.

Anyone with a gov.au email address and an interest in government architecture, service design or strategic investment can join the new community. Become a member by contacting architecture@dta.gov.au.