We were engaged by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) to aid in establishing an enterprise architecture capability and confirming the direction of a major change program to reform AIHW’s ICT systems.

AIHW has grown significantly in a short period of time in response to increased demand for business outcomes to meet key stakeholder expectations. Coupled with this growth, AIHW were in the planning stages of a large body of transformational work to upgrade and integrate key ICT systems while also addressing concerns around information and data management, security and governance. AIHW required guidance on alignment between ICT and the business to ensure work undertaken in reforming ICT systems addressed challenges faced and catered for future demands.

MXA developed a series of key business architecture views to document the requirements and priorities of ICT and to ensure alignment with AIHW’s strategic goals. To do this, MXA followed our Design Thinking and User-centred Design (UCD) methodologies. This included conducting workshops with key stakeholders from the Institute to gain an appreciation of their wants, needs and challenges. MXA then worked closely and collaboratively with AIHW’s ICT Team to develop several artefacts including:

• Data and InformationArchitecture – describing the conceptual data items and the flow of data and information around AIHW.
• Application Architecture – including the products and capabilities they deliver.
• Current State TechnicalArchitecture – describing the AIHW network, infrastructure, platforms. These views also identified challenges and opportunities.
• Future State TechnicalArchitecture – defining a vision and Roadmap for how the AIHW network, infrastructure, platforms and applications could leverage new technologies and reduce the overall risk profile for the Institute.

MXA provided AIHW with the foundations of an Enterprise Architecture capability to provide a more systematic, standardised and wholistic approach to delivering ICT to support AIHW’s core business.

The artefacts delivered provided the Institute with a shared understanding and a documented view of their ICT landscape (both current and future), the challenges faced and the need for improved data governance and security. The Roadmap towards a future state provides direction for AIHW as they commence the journey to improve their ICT systems.