DFFH: Improving Strategic Alignment and Risk Management

Managing Breadth, Complexity, and Strategic Alignment

As part of the Victorian State Government in Australia, the Department of Families, Fairness, and Housing (DFFH) supports 14 ministerial portfolios, seven different ministers, and works with 900+ community service organizations to deliver public housing, child protection, disability services, and more. 

This vast scope created several key challenges:

• Highly Complex Business Ecosystem: With 60+ strategies across different domains, understanding interdependencies was difficult. This was further complicated by the need to also coordinate with other government departments across Australia.
• Lack of Business-Centric EA: The EA team needed to focus on strategy and outcomes rather than IT infrastructure. They needed to show which initiatives were delivering on Victoria's strategies and mission.
• Poor Visibility of Relationships: Traditional tools (Visio, PowerPoint, Excel) lacked structured insights into service delivery overlaps. This made it difficult to coordinate technology and teams for execution.
• Collaboration and Usability: With a small EA team, enabling “citizen architects” across IT and business functions was essential for building a knowledge repository that would support the organization.
• Evolving from “Order Takers” to Strategic Advisors: Historically, the IT organization took orders and had little input into Victoria's strategic approach. The CIO’s vision was for EA to actively shape demand and influence strategy.

“We needed a tool that could model our entire business ecosystem, not just IT systems. Ardoq gave us that visibility.”
— Paul Monks, Head of Enterprise Architecture at DFFH

How Ardoq Helped Them To Shape A Business-Focused EA Approach

DFFH partnered with Ardoq to create a dynamic, outcome-driven EA practice that would enable them to deliver better services for citizens. To achieve this, they would need to model strategies, programs, and partnerships at scale.

Key initiatives included:

• Modeling the Business Ecosystem: Capturing 900+ community service providers, their programs, and strategic objectives to create a clear, structured view of how services interconnect.
• Visualizing Social Outcomes: DFFH focused on visualizing priority areas that support systemic change. Mapping outcomes, strategies, and measurable outputs to drive transparency in how initiatives align with government goals.
• Enhancing Risk Management: Modeling the funded agency risk profile to identify security vulnerabilities, potential impact, and data risks across partner organizations. Mapping information security risk was of particular importance to DFFH as they handle very sensitive and delicate personal information. 
• Empowering “Citizen Architects”: Enabling non-EA stakeholders (IT teams, program managers) to self-serve insights and contribute to the EA model.
• Moving Beyond Static Documents: Transitioning from Excel and PowerPoint to interactive, real-time architectural insights powered by Ardoq.

Key Outcomes With Ardoq: Strategic Alignment, Risk Reduction, and Business Buy-In

We were able to quickly create useful visualizations that mapped how our business ecosystem supported the execution of Victoria's strategies, showing stakeholders the value of EA.
- Paul Monks, Head of Enterprise Architecture at Victoria's DFFH

• 📊 Improved Visibility of Complexity: Ardoq helped visualize relationships across strategies, programs, social outcomes, and community partners.
• 📈 Stronger Strategic Alignment: By linking initiatives to measurable social outcomes, DFFH improved decision-making and resource allocation.
• 🛡 50% Faster Risk Identification: The funded agency risk model helped identify and mitigate vulnerabilities related to data security and compliance.
• 🤝 Increased Stakeholder Buy-In: DFFH's new knowledge repository also helped increase engagement with ministers and advisors. Simplified, business-friendly visualizations helped non-architects engage with EA insights and see its value. 
• ⚡ Shift from “Order Takers” to Advisors: EA is now a strategic enabler, helping leadership shape demand rather than just respond to IT requests.

Top Takeaways for Business-Centric Enterprise Architecture

• Model More than IT: EA is not just IT; mapping strategies, outcomes, and partnerships to show decision-makers and stakeholders the complexity that exists within the organization is often a useful first step to showing the real business value of EA.
• Prioritize Clear Communication: Use plain language and interactive visuals that anyone in the business can understand, not just EAs.
• Deliver Value in Vertical Slices: Avoid analysis paralysis by going too wide with modeling; start small with the highest priority areas, iterate fast, and focus on quick wins. Don't implement more than is needed for immediate priorities. In the case of DFFH, risk posture was critical, and so the first vertical slice they tackled was to show the value of EA before moving on to other areas.
• Balance Flexibility with Governance: Customizable metamodels should align with structured data management best practices.
• Enable Self-Service Insights: The more business users can access EA data themselves, the more impact EA will have.
• Using Standards as a Starting Point for Evolution: Having foundational knowledge of business architecture standards is helpful to jumpstart the process but should not limit EA teams. Evolve and adjust the approach according to what your organization needs.
• Incorporating Project Management Into the EA Function: Architects often fall into the trap of spending a lot of time on the architecture instead of a useful deliverable with value to stakeholders. Having a project manager as part of the team can help focus delivery.

About Victoria's Department of Families, Fairness and Housing

Victoria's Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) delivers policies, programs, and services that support Victorians and help them thrive. They serve 6.9 million citizens and are part of Australia's second-largest state government. The department offers diverse and meaningful career opportunities for professionals who want to help people build better lives and achieve their full potential. The work they do impacts thousands of Victorians, particularly those who are disadvantaged and vulnerable.

With Ardoq, DFFH has built a business-focused EA practice that aligns strategy, improves visibility, and enhances risk management. For government agencies and large enterprises, DFFH’s journey highlights how modern EA can move beyond IT to drive meaningful business transformation.