Moderate release approach leads to succesful IT project for Rijkswaterstaat

22 June 2009 - Rijkswaterstaat (The Dutch water authority) aims to become a more public-focused organization and to better streamline its operations to create further efficiency. To accomplish this and to better inform citizens, Rijkswaterstaat launched an entirely new user-friendly and better structured website. Since the launch, the website has been overdue for maintenance. HintTech, content management software firm Tridion’s consulting partner, was hired by Rijkswaterstaat to get rid of the backlog. HintTech and Rijkwaterstaat chose for a moderate release where the project was within Rijkswaterstaat from pilot phase until its completion.

‘Due to a need for IT resources in the last year, there was a noticeable backlog in the upkeep and management of the Rijkswaterstaat website. The website is crucial for outside communication. It is problematic if certain functionalities cannot be accomplished because of a shortage of resources.
Until this project, Rijkswaterstaat paid per change. In order to make the project more controllable, to save capacity and to accomplish a shorter though put time, they chose for a moderate release approach where a maximum of 10 changes per release were picked,’ said Gerard van Oel, project leader and release manager with RWS.
HintTech supported Rijkswaterstaat with the whole release cycle; from the laying out of the specifications, the functional and technical design, the implementation, the documentation, the text and the rolling out of the new functionality in regards to the Test Acceptance and Product environment.
HintTech delivered the releases according to plan and worked through RFC’s backlog and defects within a half year. Both Rijkwaterstaat and HintTech are satisfied with the results of the project. This pilot project proves that, together with a moderate release approach, IT projects within the government can end successfully.

About HintTech

HintTech is a specialist in e-business technology (.Net, Java platform, Tridion) and IT projects (development, testing, implementation, application management and quality assurance). The company was started in 1997 and works with innovative and proven technologies and methods. HintTech provides qualitative custom solutions for its clients. For Tridion, Microsoft, Sun J2EE and IBM WebSphere, HintTech is an advisor as well as partner. HintTech counts Shell, Nuon, Fortis, ING and KLM as clients. It currently employs 113 people and has offices in Delft (Netherlands), San Francisco (US) and Novi Sad (Serbia). For more information: www.hinttech.nl.