CASE: Municipality of Amsterdam. Agile Implementation of the Environment Act.

‘Connect, fill, practice’ (AVO) will be the motto in 2020 for all governments in the Netherlands when the Environment Act is introduced on January 1, 2021. How do you tackle something like this Agile? And will it eventually work?

Environment Act

Starting in 2021, the Environment Act will take effect. The law stands for a good balance between protecting and utilizing the physical living environment. The Environment Act offers municipalities the opportunity to organize the living environment more coherently with clear rules. It also offers more room for local customization and leads to faster decision-making. With the Environment Act comes, of course, digital support. That is the Digital System for the Environment Act (DSO). Digital information about the living environment in one place … How do you get that Agile in practice?

Launch

Three directors (permits, information provision and spatial development) noted that all kinds of components are being developed for the new Environment Act, which are inextricably linked. It is therefore important to develop products together and test dependencies regularly. So a team was formed with all disciplines represented. Broadly represented and transparent.

“Gemeente Amsterdam works Agile in two-week sprints and actively involves the suppliers of legal question trees and software in the process. The question trees are stored in a registry and can be consulted.” — Peter Lans, Product Owner Omgevingswet

And Agile by…

Along practical trials, going through chains, legal rules and different test phases: Municipality of Amsterdam is ready. “We have to keep the overview, direct and work very hard. Smart cooperation within the municipality, between municipalities, other governments and the developers at the national digital system, is necessary to be able to bring the ship into service on January 1, 2021,” said Peter Lans.

Concrete result

– Amsterdam is now ahead of all municipalities in the Netherlands
– Multiple Agile teams working in a coordinated fashion;
– Agile transition from traditional waterfall to iterative and incremental;
– From opinion-driven to fact-based development;
– More active and creative teams;
– Program-wide focus and harmonization of objectives.