Our agile journey in GovTech so far
W00t! An awesome way to start October 2016 with two key events! — Agile Singapore Conference on the 6th, followed by GovTech launch on the 7th.
October also marks my birthday and is the first irregular prime month since I joined Government Digital Services (GDS). Feel like taking a moment to pause, enjoy some cakes and tea, and share some achievements of our agile journey in the government with everyone! :)
All credit goes to my team mates, mistakes are mine.
Agile Contracting
Here’s some context — We have about a hundred government agencies and there’s only a hundred of us in Hive. It is impossible for us to develop everything in-house and it has never been our intent to do so. The only way to help as many government agencies as possible, is to partner our agile community, to influence and grow the agile mindset within the tech industry and government. Agile contracting is a necessity, that’s why we have initiated the following:
- Agile contracting for fixed cost project. This agile procurement framework has a pool of pre-qualified agile suppliers that government agencies may procure from.
- Agile contracting for co-sourcing model. We use this contract to procure professional services from a pool of pre-qualified agile specialists, to augment our team and co-develop digital services with us.
- Brown bag sharing on how to use agile contracting. We conduct agile sharing sessions as part of our new hires onboarding programme, as well as per government agencies request.
Talk is Cheap. Delivery is Everything
The most effective strategies are often simple to understand, hard to execute
We believe the best strategy to drive digital transformation is superb delivery. Looking back, we have been fortunate to partner with many progressive government agencies — those are forward-looking and open-minded to new ways of doing things. Their progressive mindset allows us to focus on delivery and let results speak for themselves, instead of constant approval-seeking and over-justifying our actions. Together with them, we deliver the following digital services for our citizens and businesses:
- MND’s OneService. Uber of municipal services app 👷🏼
- SCDF’s myResponder. Uber of lifesaving app ⛑️
- LTA’s Beeline. Uber of bus services app 🚌
- MTI’s Business Grants Portal (BGP). Scaling agile delivery with co-sourcing model. 🏆
- GovBuy, a micro-purchase platform. An experiment to co-create with the tech community and spread the use of open source software in the government. 🈺
Nov 2016 — May 2018
- MOM’s Workpass Integrated Systems (WINS). Our first and powerful 💪satellite team at Ministry of Manpower! :)
- WSG’s MyCareersFuture (MCF). Helping local experienced PMETs regain employment. 👨💻
- APEX. API gateway for government agencies.
- Hive Agile Testing Solution (hats). Award-winning test-automation product for government agencies. 🎩
- Blockchain PoC for academic credential and copyright registry ⛓️
Jun 2018 —Feb 2020
- Moments of Life for Families and Parent Gateway
- MCCY’s Grants Portal. Similar to MTI’s Business Grants Portal but for community and social causes.
- OpenCerts. Verifiable digital education certificates and more…
- Financial planning. To support citizens with retirement adequacy
- TradeTrust. Verifiable digital trade documents such as bills-of-lading.
- GoBusiness Licensing, starting from food services sector.
Mar 2020 — Present (Covid-19)
- TraceTogether & BlueTrace. Collect proximity data to support contact tracing.
- SafeEntry. Collect location data to support contact tracing.
- SupplyAlly aka Sally. Distribute masks, laptops, tourism credits, food credits, and some more…
- Temporary Relief Fund and Covid Support Grants. Financial support to help Singaporeans affected by COVID-19
- SafeTravel. Travellers from reciprocal green lane countries
- HealthCerts, Verify and Notarise. Covid-19 test results, serology test results and vaccination certificate.
- Government-paid leave system. For self-employed and companies to submit claims for pro-family leave. Here’s how we replace the mainframe.
Coming this way
- GovWallet
- Financial assistance disbursement for citizens
- Government-paid leave system
- Construction & Real Estate Network
- Medical claims
And many others in the pipeline... 🤫
Tech Culture and Capability
Culture is what happens when no one is watching. Culture is when there’s congruence between our words and deeds.
To build an organization that amplifies our impact, we need the right culture and right capabilities. While capable people can deliver the goods, we need the ‘right’ culture to allow such capability to ‘stick’ in the organization, instead of relying on heroic attempts of a few individuals. Here’s how we build the right culture:
Without the right culture, none of your fancy processes or tools are going to work
- GovTech’s core values — Agile, Bold and Collaborative
- Hive@Sandcrawler, an agile environment for our engineers, designers and data scientists
- Hire the right people and give them space to grow
- Build in-house tech capability
- Scale our agile delivery capability
- Establish technical career track
- Smart Nation Fellowship
- Support the tech community. Pay it forward.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it — Alan Kay
If this article interests you, you might like to know more about how we operate and roles we are hiring. ;)
We’re always looking for great team players with solid technical chops. If what we do resonate with you, join us to build awesome digital services for our fellow citizens and businesses together!
CV -> steven_koh@tech.gov.sg.
Cheers! 😉
