About Us

Global Digital Assurance (or GDA) has developed the global standard for assurance and the verifiable accreditation of assurance review professionals, and has supported this with innovative and on-demand accreditation training courses, specifically designed for assurance review professionals, governments and service delivery organisations – in the modern, fast-paced and digital age.

GDA was established through the need for a more modern, holistic and best practice approach to assurance reviewer accreditation training, while providing a recognised best practice accreditations and verifiable credentials.

The GDA accreditation training courses and accreditation programs, have been designed to support the flexibly and agility of present-day programs and projects – in a fast-paced and modern digital environment.

Our accreditation training courses have been developed through broad collaboration, and in working partnerships with leading public and private sector assurance advocates, governments, PMO’s, portfolio owners, program managers, project managers, peak professional bodies, agile organisations, and over 30-years of in-house, top-tier assurance experience.

The accreditation training courses equip assurance review professionals with modernised accreditation training programs, that are aligned to a refreshed best practice for modern Gateway Assurance and Agile Assurance reviews.

GDA has introduced a formal CPD Program for the re-accreditation and ongoing verification of assurance professionals and their digital badges, which is mandatory across Gateway, digital and Agile Assurance accreditations.

To further support our best practice assurance accreditations, and to continually improve our on-demand accreditation training courses, we have refreshed and modernised assurance reviewer support guides and individual review and gate guides – delivering a more relevant alignment to modern program and project delivery environments.

GDA accreditation training courses, are supported by the only best practice Agile Assurance methodology, and modernised Gateway Assurance, each with enabling models and guides, which have been co-developed to service the assurance needs of agile and conventionally delivered projects, while supporting the global movement towards ‘more agile ways of working‘.

Digital Age Assurance

History

A conventional gated assurance review method has been utilised in the United Kingdom since 2000, since it was originally initiated by the now defunct (2010-11) UK Office of Government Commerce. Since that time, ‘gateway-style’ assurance has been adopted by other countries including Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Singapore. In 2003, the Australian state of Victoria was the first jurisdiction to adopt the ‘gateway-style’ assurance method, with the Australian Commonwealth Government developing its own ‘gateway-style’ assurance in 2006, with New Zealand Government’s developing and adopting its own bespoke ‘gateway-style’ assurance process in 2008.

By late 2008, most of the above mentioned governments and jurisdictions had adopted a form of gated assurance, and its has been estimated that since 2003, that more than 25,000 gated reviews have been undertaken on over 5,500 programs and projects, within those governments and jurisdictions . Over this period, organisations reported that since the inception and adoption of formal gated assurance processes, it has improved:

  • on-time program and project delivery objectives
  • on-budget program and project delivery objectives
  • organisational cost effectiveness of undertaking programs and projects
  • positive feedback from program and project owners, business owners, program/ project teams and assurance reviewers

Problem

Over the last 30-years, governments and non-government organisations, have made significant inroads on their journey to modernise their services, whilst at the same time, citizen and customer expectations of governments and service delivery organisations have continued to increase significantly. Today, all organisations have been asked to deliver more outcomes, faster, better and for less. Organisations are meeting this challenge by adopting agile delivery and more agile ‘ways of working‘ approaches to transform their services and their operations.

However, current gated assurance methods, models and practices have not responded to this fast-paced, agile and customer centric environment. Feedback from modern business owners, program and project owners, assurance business units and PMO’s, has consistently identified that the outdated ‘gateway-style’ assurance processes, and the prescribed practices, have an ever-growing number of shortcomings, in their relevance for modern, agile and digital environments, more specifically they responded that:

Outdated methods… “current Gateway assurance methods, models and practices do not compliment agile delivery environments – in fact, they work against them!”

No focus on agile… “there is not a best practice dedicated agile assurance method, nor aligned reviewer practices for agile assurance reviews”

Unaligned to modern delivery… “current gated assurance practices are not aligned to modernised and digital program and project delivery approaches”

Outdated Gateway assurance… “current ‘gateway-based’ based assurance has not been reviewed, nor updated in over 16-years, and do not meet the needs of modern delivery environments”

Unverifiable assurance reviewers… “at present ‘gateway-style’ assurance reviewer certifications are uncontrolled, unable to verified, are unmeasured, with some being obtained over 24-years ago”

The Opportunity

Through a recent private Australian based survey, 90% of program and project owners agree that, the recommendations provided through current gated assurance methods, noticeably improved program and project outcomes. With a solid foundation of assurance value well entrenched, there was an opportunity to leverage the current outdated Gateway methods, models and processes and modernise it, establishing a best practice, contemporary digital assurance review process, that supports governments and organisations to successfully assure the delivery of their business critical and transformational initiatives – in a modern, agile, fast-paced and customer centric environment.

Assurance for the Digital Age

GDA has reinvented the standard for professional assurance reviewer accreditation, supported by best practice, innovative and on-demand accreditation training programs, specifically designed for modern assurance reviewer professionals, governments and delivery organisations – in a fast-paced, customer centric and digital age.

A lens on agile

The GDA Agile Assurance accreditation program has rapidly introduced a best practice accreditation standard, that until now, has not been present, nor available, for agile delivered digital projects and their overarching transformational programs. The Agile Assurance accreditation training courses provide assurance review professionals with the modernised skills, techniques, capabilities and best practice knowledge to confidently deliver Agile Assurance reviews. Organisations, government departments and agencies have access to a talent pool of Agile Assurance accredited professionals – with verifiable and up-to-date accreditation credentials.

Modernising Gateway Assurance

The GDA Gateway Assurance accreditation training program incorporates the learnings of 6 countries, 19 agencies and jurisdictions, and 16 bespoke assurance review methods and frameworks. This has resulted in an modernised, relevant and improved best practice accreditation and training program for Gateway Assurance review leaders, teams and the organisations that utilise a form of outdated Gateway Assurance. This includes more holistic Gateway Assurance gate guides, with targeted reviewer techniques training materials, in-depth reviewer and organisational support guides – specifically developed for Gateway Assurance in modern environments.

Formalising accreditation

To support GDA accredited assurance reviewers, and the organisations they provide assurance to, we developed the CPD Program for the re-accreditation of assurance reviewers and professionals with verifiable digital badges. The CPD Program, ensures that GDA accredited assurance professionals remain current with modern assurance best practices, while continuing to prove their assurance review capabilities, refreshing their assurance reviewer techniques, and continue to utilise new tool sets and guidance materials – so as to maintain their GDA digital badge and it’s verifiable assurance reviewer accreditations.

Supporting assurance professionals

We did not simply stop at user-friendly, intuitive, on-demand and highly cost effective accreditation training programs. We provide accredited assurance professionals with access to a wealth digital assurance knowledge, continuous professional development opportunities, and a secure and optional inclusion of their pertinent reviewer experience information and making it accessible to the those who organise assurance reviews for their organisations, programs and projects.

Accessible, fast and cost-effective

Until now, modern and on-demand assurance training and verifiable accreditations, were unavailable to the wider assurance community. Organisations were unable to verify the currency and validity of assurance credentials, and assurance professionals were unable to access cost and time effective, readily available assurance training – that recognised their acquired assurance delivery knowledge and capabilities.

Through over 30-years of current in-house experience, and through the contribution of leading assurance, agile, program and project advocates, GDA has made available the most comprehensive, best practice aligned, on-demand assurance accreditation training courses.

Instantly available through any internet enabled browser, delivered at a ‘pace, time and place‘ that suits you best, with no more classroom based workshops, no insecure or unverifiable accreditations, and the elimination of costly downtime waiting for training workshops or sessions in your area. We have made best practice, modernised assurance accreditation effective, intuitive, secure and fast.

Accredited, secure and verifiable

With the largest verified and accredited assurance reviewer database currently available, GDA provides partnering organisations with a simple, effective and a highly manageable solution for assurance reviewer selection and administration, via our assurance reviewer management system (ARMS).

ARMS is empowered with automated reviewer accreditation updates, real time alerts to changes, certified 2-factor authentication security and data protection, with the in-built functionality to customise databases to meet statutory and regulatory requirements. The GDA client dashboards removes the need for expensive panel or cumbersome SOA procurement exercises, time consuming database administration, while ensuring real-time access to a database of formally accredited and readily verifiable assurance review professionals.