Who's behind Tollgate
Softwired
Section titled “Softwired”Tollgate comes from Softwired — a digital transformation, delivery and business change consultancy. We are proudly Australian, with twenty years of experience across industries as diverse as mining, financial services, education and health.
Tollgate is distilled practice, not a rulebook
Section titled “Tollgate is distilled practice, not a rulebook”The SAM methodology and the Tollgate app distil our collective experience across that scope of work. They are by no means comprehensive of everything we know. They hold the core principles we found fundamental to all successful delivery by experienced practitioners. That handful stays true whether you run a core-banking replacement, a student-management rollout, or a mine-site systems programme.
Because those principles are few and deep rather than many and shallow, SAM stays opinionated about what matters and quiet about almost everything else.
Why it flexes
Section titled “Why it flexes”That is why SAM flexes: to leave room for human judgement of circumstance, client appetite, team capabilities and operating environments. A method that tried to specify every move would be wrong the moment it met a real programme. Tollgate therefore scaffolds the work — it gives you the shape of good governance — and leaves the judgement calls to you. (See Scaffold, don’t dictate.)
The method doesn’t deliver — people do
Section titled “The method doesn’t deliver — people do”Tollgate does not assume that a template, or a method on its own, guarantees success. Quite the opposite. The people doing the work — thinking, taking accountability, with skin in the game — deploy these tools. They use them to accelerate and govern their investments and their delivery. SAM puts the right things within reach and makes the important things hard to lose. It does not make the decisions, and it does not pretend to. That is, and remains, the job of an accountable human.
A living method
Section titled “A living method”SAM and Tollgate are not finished, and aren’t meant to be. We will add to the methodology and the application as we see opportunities that add value — for us, for our clients, and for our customers. The growth keeps one shape: new depth where it earns its place on the investment-governance surface, never configurability for its own sake.
Related reading
Section titled “Related reading”- The SAM methodology — the principles this experience distilled into.
- Scaffold, don’t dictate — where the opinion is firm, and where it flexes.
- Above the line — the altitude Softwired governs at.