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Glossary

Australian Government Architecture (AGA)

The AGA is a collection of digital artefacts and guidance to help agencies align with the digital direction of government.

Identifying the AGA capability relevant to your initiative enables you to:

• confirm the policies and standards that apply, including any requirements or recommendations to ensure components you create are reusable
• review designs and patterns associated with your initiative's capabilities, ensuring you have appropriately explored opportunities to reuse existing technology and architecture.

Data and Digital Government Strategy (the Strategy)

The Strategy sets the vision for the Australian Government’s use of data and digital technologies to 2030. The Strategy puts people and business at the centre of the Government’s data and digital transformation. 

The Strategy sets out the Australian Government’s 2030 vision:

To deliver simple, secure and connected public services for all people and business through world class data and digital capabilities.

The Strategy sets out 5 key missions to guide the APS’ data and digital transformation.

Defining digital services

The Digital Service Standard (DSS) establishes the requirements for the design and delivery of digital government services.

Digital services must be user-friendly, inclusive, adaptable and measurable.

The DSS defines digital services as:

Informational services provide information, such as reports, fact sheets or videos, to users.

Transactional services lead to a change in government-held records, typically involving an exchange of information, money, licences or goods.

Staff-facing services provide information or support transactions to government employees.

Defining legacy

A collection of information and communications technology (i.e. hardware, software, services, protocols, and/or systems) is ‘legacy’ when it meets one or more criteria in both Category A and Category B.

Category A

• Considered an end-of-life product, or
• Out of support, and extended support from the manufacturer, vendor or developer.

and

Category B

• Impractical to update or support within the entity, or
• No longer cost-effective, or
• Considered to be above the current acceptable risk threshold, or
• Offers diminishing business utility, or
• Prevents or obstructs fulfilment of the entity’s ICT strategies.

Dependency

A dependency is the relationship between activities such that the completion or the initiation of one is reliant on the completion or initiation of the other.

Digital Capability Assessment Process (DCAP)

The Digital Capability Assessment Process (DCAP) is a set of whole-of-government digital and ICT policies and standards that all new digital and ICT investment proposals will need to demonstrate a level of alignment and compliance with, prior to consideration by Government.

Digital Experience Policy (DX Policy)

The Digital Experience Policy (DX Policy) supports a whole-of-government focus on improving the experience for people and business interacting digitally with government information and services, setting a benchmark for good digital services and integrating data based on real-world use. This will strengthen the government’s Investment Oversight Framework (IOF), further assuring that investments deliver on their commitments and are aligned to whole-of-government strategic objectives.

Digital and ICT Investment Oversight Framework (IOF)

The IOF is a six-state, end-to-end framework providing a way for the Government to manage digital investments across the entire project lifecycle.

State 1 – Strategic Planning (pre-budget):

Defines the Government’s digital and ICT-enabled investment portfolio, it’s future objectives and identifies capability gaps.

State 2 – Prioritisation (pre-budget):

Prioritises, plans and advises on investments to deliver on the Government’s digital and ICT objectives.

State 3 – Contestability (budget):

Ensures proposals are robust and meet whole-of-government digital standards immediately prior to government consideration.

State 4 – Assurance (implementation):

Provides assurance to the Government that investments are on-track to deliver expected benefits/throughout delivery.

State 5 – Sourcing (implementation):

Ensures Government obtains the best value for money from digital and ICT-enabled investments.

State 6 – Operations:

Regular data collection provides intelligence on the size, health and maturity of the Government's Digital and ICT investments.

Digital Service Standard (DSS)

The Digital Service Standard (the Standard) establishes the requirements for designing and delivering digital government services. The Digital Service Standard puts people and business at the centre of government digital service delivery. It guides digital teams to create and maintain digital services that are: user-friendly, inclusive, adaptable and measurable.

End-of-life

A system that has reached the end of support and is in the process of being retired. 

End of support

When a company ceases support for a product or service. The is typically applied to hardware and software products when a company releases a new version and ends support for certain previous versions.  

Essential Eight

Organisations are recommended to implement eight essential mitigation strategies from the Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents as a baseline. This baseline, known as the Essential Eight, makes it much harder for malicious actors to compromise systems.

The mitigation strategies that constitute the Essential Eight are: patch applications, patch operating systems, multi-factor authentication, restrict administrative privileges, application control, restrict Microsoft Office macros, user application hardening and regular backups.

Key Workforce Roles

Core Digital and Data Roles

These are roles required to perform the work essential to delivering the 
enduring functions of your agency on a regular and ongoing basis. These are 
roles you expect to remain important over the next 5-10 years.

Emerging Digital and Data Roles

These are roles that might be relatively new (i.e., in response to new technologies) or have changed significantly from what they have been previously and for which you expect agency demand to increase over the next 5-10 years.

Hard to Fill Roles

These are the roles that are difficult to fill with APS staff. This could be due to high demand, niche skills, intermittent work, or high training needs (or requiring large amounts of time to maintain currency). 

Legacy Skill Needs

These are the skills and/ or expertise needed by your agency to support legacy systems over the next 5-10 years.

Secretaries’ Digital and Data Committee (SDDC)

The purpose of the SDDC is to provide strategic leadership to promote an APS-enterprise approach to the planning, coordination, investment, assurance, and delivery of trusted and secure digital and data capabilities across government. 



 

Digital Investment Plan (DIP) Guidebook

The Digital Investment Plan (DIP) Guidebook supports Australian Government agencies to prepare their DIP in line with the key requirements outlined in the DIP policy and the six minimum standards defined in this guidebook.

The guidebook is not a template, but a flexible planning resource. Agencies can adapt the format, language, and level of detail to align with existing planning processes and documents. It is intended to support meaningful strategic thinking while ensuring the six minimum standards are addressed. 

The guidebook is supported by a detailed policy, which sets out the key requirements agencies must meet when developing their DIP.

The guidebook provides practical guidance on how to meet those requirements. It is intended to support, not replace, the DIP Policy. Agencies should refer to the policy for compliance obligations.

What this guidebook covers

Guidance and resources

• Data and Digital Government Strategy
• The Delivering Great Policy model
• Introduction to human-centred design - Victoria State Government
• Agile Manifesto