11 November 2024

Bass Coast Shire Council sets new benchmark for digital transformation success

Bass Coast Shire Council is setting new standards in efficiency, outperforming much larger local authorities with an impressive software upgrade that delivered value in record time. In just four weeks, Council completed a major update – including rigorous user acceptance testing (UAT) – with minimal disruption to operations and services.

Local Software-as-a-Service provider TechnologyOne’s latest software update offers a range of benefits including improved data management, scalability and reporting, workflow automations, enhanced performance and strengthened security.

Bass Coast Shire Council’s Manager Transformation and Technology Keith Ludowyk said: “The team was excited to unlock improvements for our customers such as simplifying recurring bookings for maintenance and registration processes. A key opportunity was the new Voter’s Roll functionality, enabling Council to meet our legislative requirements going into elections this year.”

Recognising the importance of a proactive UAT approach and staff engagement post upgrade led us to gamify the process.

“By staying ahead with the latest software updates, we are providing a secure, compliant and productive environment at Council. We knew from previous software implementations that poor UAT results in software that isn’t calibrated to the needs of our team lead to disruption in the long-term. Once the system leaves the testing phase, issues are also more expensive and time-consuming to fix, so getting it right the first time around was paramount,” Mr Ludowyk said.

“Buy-in across the entire organisation was key, so we introduced a governance committee consisting of members from end-users to executives to communicate the benefits of the software and motivate testers to actively engage in the process.

“Gamifying and visualising the UAT process enabled us to achieve a rapid turnaround - three-weeks. We used posters of thermometers to illustrate the progress of each team, which also helped create some healthy competition. It also made people curious about what their colleagues were doing and why – generating more excitement for our digital transformation journey,” he said.

Bass Coast employed a range of strategies to foster engagement and maximise the value of the testing period including:

• Roles and responsibilities: Accountability for the final software rested with the end users and communications emphasised the goal of delivering on the needs of their department.
• Training and in-person support: Testers were provided with information packs on their modules, links to test scripts and training on testing tools and methodologies. Each team was dedicated a time and space for testing which ensured a team focus on the priorities.
• Visualise progress: The thermometers provided a visual reminder on progress throughout testing and supported some healthy competition.
• Stay up to date: Currency makes regression testing a more efficient process as it builds the routine into the organisation. With buy-in comes an improvement in the quality of testing as it moves from a tick and flick exercise to an essential success factor.

TechnologyOne’s local government expert Ben Malpass said: “For many organisations the most complex part of their digital transformation is not the technology itself but empowering and engaging people. Bass Coast Shire Council exemplifies that regardless of size, all councils can drive innovation by fostering engagement at every stage of their digital transformation process.”