A Day in the Life of a Digital Leader: David Heacock, Spokesperson and Coordinator, Australian Digital Delivery Alliance

Government is getting tired of being held to ransom on large technology procurements and programs that have failed to deliver, according to David Heacock, Spokesperson and Coordinator at the Australian Digital Delivery Alliance.

Heacock, who is representing small consultancies that banded together to form the alliance, tells ADAPT that core changes to procurement practices are a big lever that can improve the way government buys IT.

In his new paper, ‘Recoding Australia, A playbook for better digital delivery’, Heacock addresses decades of poor government IT spending.

He identifies several root causes for government project failures, including the illusion of control that creates a false sense of security, prioritising process over outcomes, waterfall budgeting and complex monolithic architectures.

These root causes, he says, have created two popular but problematic procurement models – the ‘big vendor model’ and the ‘contractor tent city model.’

He argues that governments in Australia understand that…