Ed van Doorn

Algorithm transparency saves lives

Who does not use them: Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri? Smart voice recognition apps with intelligent software that learn from your questions and therefore come up with better and better answers. Unfortunately, the answers now are sometimes awkward, ignorant or even wrong.

Declining trend on the public business case: Think before you begin no longer necessary?

Society is changing faster and faster, as we all see around us. Is your organization changing fast enough? Is the technical basis for this change in place? Is digitization the solution to my employee shortage? Making choices is necessary, not everything can be done at once, how do I ensure a successful digital transformation? Large long-term transformations in the public sector have a low success rate or are not always successful. From experience, we know how digital transformation can succeed for your organization. Ed van Doorn and Joeri Olierook highlight some findings based on AcICT's advice in recent years. Remarkably, in the past year, the focus on the risk aspect of business cases has decreased and the number of findings on good procurement practices has increased. How do we explain this from our digital transformation practice?

How do I estimate my agile project?

Clients like to have an estimate of functionality (still) to be built, even if the work is going to be done "agile". This seems perfectly justified to me. To estimate, two approaches are common in ICT: working with function points or working with story points. Function points have been around since the 1970s. Working with story points is relatively new and has grown in popularity, especially through agile working. It is sometimes claimed that one method works and the other does not. But this is a lot more subtle. When does what work best? Here are my insights on that question and my tips from practice.

Four practical tips for Agile management

Agile working or agile software development is not new. Many types and forms of Agile software development have been used over the past 25 years. Each of these types brought a certain focus. Such as Rapid Application Development (RAD) in the 1990s with the bringing together of design and development and Extreme Programming with, among other things, the four eyes principle. Since the millennium, Scrum as an Agile approach has increased in popularity. Scrum is a form of incremental work in which working software is always delivered in small teams in a short time. A working piece of software then takes precedence over producing (a lot of) documentation.

Agile MSP: getting a grip on change

Darwin observed this 200 years ago: not the strongest or the smartest but the most agile survives. In times of disruptive technologies and changing business models, complex -and long-term- change requires a more agile kind of management. So is Agile Programme Management the solution for 'getting a grip' on these changes?

The digitization of trains

Whereas thirty years ago on every train the final destination was marked on the side of the train with a "course roll" that was manually turned by the conductor, today trains are increasingly digitized. "Telemetry data comes from hundreds of sensors spread across hundreds of trains," says Wim Liet, who has worked as an IT manager at NS (Dutch Railways) for 27 years. "We can use this telemetric data to create new possibilities all the time. NS is a company that constantly wants to stay up-to-date. Therefore, because we live in fast times, constant developments and innovations are needed.

Digitalization of Nuffic’s Operations

International society is digitizing, flexibility is increasing and so are the employees and education target group. Nuffic promotes internationalization in education and is active in eleven different countries among other things by issuing scholarships and foreign diploma comparisons. Director of operations Anton Biemans says: "There was a lot on paper, it became increasingly difficult to properly support the core objectives for internationalization of education." The goal is business operations with less paper, "any time, any place, anywhere," working effectively and efficiently. Nuffic desires a digitization, modernization and improvement of business management processes and systems.

Cadastre on track

Where is the boundary between your garden and your neighbor's? And which property belongs to whom? The Land Registry registers who owns which rights to all real estate (land and buildings) in the Netherlands. This legal task and data are available to everyone and the data help individuals, companies and (semi) governmental organizations in making important choices. The Land Registry has recently successfully completed a renewal of its Land Registry. In this project, Highberg advised with its method for making strategic projects succeed with IT.