The Challenge
The Wildlife Trade teams within the Department are responsible for implementing wildlife trade requirements under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and national environment law (the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999). This includes assessing applications and issuing permits for international trade in Australian native species and wildlife protected under CITES.
The Department was using several bespoke systems for receiving, evaluating and processing wildlife trade permit applications, which included both legacy and modern systems. This framework did not enable full functionality, was disconnected from other department systems, and constrained officers’ ability to identify, manage and resolve wildlife trade regulation.
The Solution
In order to consolidate existing systems and enable a more consistent and comprehensive relationship with stakeholders, the Department worked with Datacom to implement a Dynamics CRM solution.
Given the complexity of Australia’s wildlife regulation requirements, the scale and complexity of the project was significant and required a high level of technical expertise. A staged approach was needed to ensure all requirements were met and delivered to the highest standard, with minimal disruption to daily operations.
Datacom embedded a full Scrum team within the Department full-time for over a year to enable greater collaboration, understanding and to deliver an exceptional product.
Outcome
Datacom has worked closely with the Department to design a tailored, responsive, and intelligent solution. The new system includes a range of features to allow greater efficiencies in processing applications, developing custom reports, and a full data migration.
Datacom’s engagement with the Department has shown how Agile practices can be successfully applied within a government environment to achieve more accurate cost forecasts, better managed scope, and establish productive collaboration.
“The wildlife trade permits project has been an outstanding example of collaboration in terms of business requirements, technical expertise and creative partnership. An important part of the project’s success has been the opportunity for technical experts who were responsible for designing and tailoring the business platform to work day-to-day alongside those government officers who will be using it. This has allowed for the development of a deep understanding of needs and constraints by technical experts and government officers alike. Continuity of highly skilled and responsive project staff (both technical and business) has also been fundamental to the iterative, creative journey which has led to positive solutions beyond any of our expectations.”
Ilse Kiessling - Director, Wildlife Trade Regulation