Digital Engineering: The Next Chapter

01 / Why now

DELT exists to give practitioners a voice and to build executive backed consensus. This session is where that mandate turns into direction.

Digital Engineering has matured across VIDA through the work of individual project offices. The opportunity now is to align that momentum behind a common vision.

This workshop will bring the leadership team and DE practitioners together to define that direction and establish shared ownership of the future state, creating lasting commitment rather than a strategy imposed from above.

02 / The horizon

A five year roadmap, held inside a ten year aspiration

We are asking the room to plan for what is genuinely achievable, while keeping sight of the destination that makes the effort worth it.

Deliverable and practical

A genuine five year roadmap

Real sequencing, real dependencies and real decisions about capability, standards and investment. Something the leadership team can stand behind and practitioners can recognise as achievable inside their delivery pressures.

This workshop begins that roadmap. Refinement and prioritisation follow in later sessions.

20262031

The destination

Model based delivery

Projects delivered entirely through digital models rather than drawings. The model becomes the source of truth for design, construction, handover and operation.

Ten years is the horizon that makes this credible. Naming it now keeps every five year decision pointed in the same direction.

20262036

03 / What we will cover

Three moves through the morning

Short, high impact showcases from project offices covering achievements, future ambitions and lessons learned, rather than a tour of what was built.
Cross sector examples to broaden thinking beyond transport, including health sector practices such as vertical builds and single model handovers.
The purpose is to help participants picture what good looks like before they are asked to define their own North Star.

Explicit space for people, process, methodology and organisational barriers, not only tools and systems.
An open invitation for practitioners to voice frustrations, ideas and aspirations while the leadership team is in the room to hear them.
A wider lens on value. Digital Engineering is not limited to specialist project teams, and the future includes people across the organisation accessing project information directly through Digital Engineering data.

Participants work in mixed groups to draft North Star objectives for Digital Engineering across VIDA.
Groups then identify the shifts required to reach them, covering capability, standards, data and ways of working.
Everything captured on the day carries into the next session, where the roadmap is prioritised and sequenced.

04 / What we will walk out with

Perspectives, Objectives and Way Forward

This first session is designed to open the aperture. Narrowing down happens once we know the full picture.

Outcome one

Shared priorities on the table

The priorities, concerns and aspirations held across the leadership team and the practitioner community, surfaced in one place and heard by everyone.

Outcome two

North Star objectives

An agreed set of objectives that describe what Digital Engineering is working towards, in language the whole group recognises.

Outcome three

The roadmap begun

The first shape of the roadmap required to get there, ready for refinement and prioritisation in the sessions that follow.

05 / Who is in the room

Eighteen to twenty people, mixed on purpose

DELT executives Digital Engineering practitioners

A deliberate mix of DELT executives and Digital Engineering practitioners, drawn from DTP and each project office. Around eighteen to twenty people in total.

Tables are mixed rather than grouped by project or by seniority, so the conversation crosses boundaries that day to day work rarely does. Every table should hear from more than one project office.

Andrew will open the session and frame its purpose, then take part in the activities alongside everyone else.

06 / Who is running it

One coordinated team on the day

Facilitated by the Hive team, with specialist support brought in where it adds depth.

Lead

The Hive

Designs and facilitates the session, holds the through line across the day and carries the outputs into the sessions that follow.

Specialist support

Opposite

Strategic facilitation and organisational psychology, focused on surfacing the people, process and cultural barriers alongside the technical ones.

Specialist support

Technical Digital Engineering Lead, GHD

Deep Digital Engineering expertise, bringing cross sector reference points and technical credibility to the roadmap conversation.

Both partners work as an extension of the Hive rather than as separate outside consultancies. Participants will experience one coordinated team guiding the day, combining strategic facilitation with deep technical Digital Engineering expertise.