Tunnel Operations Transition Discovery
Senior BA discovery engagement supporting NZTA’s Waterview Tunnel operations transition. Produced a discovery pack, functional map, stakeholder interview structure, and gap log to distinguish confirmed operating evidence from assumptions, dependencies, and validation questions across safety-critical tunnel operations.
Context
NZTA was preparing for a future operating model transition for Waterview Tunnel operations, with early discovery needing to make sense of alliance roles, contractor responsibilities, safety-critical operating routines, and system dependencies before full operational documentation and site-level evidence were available.
Challenge
Create a clear, executive-readable view of “what is known, what is assumed, and what still needs to be validated” in a complex tunnel environment where current-state process evidence was incomplete and several critical operational dependencies sat with incumbent alliance partners and specialist systems.
Role
Senior Business Analyst — discovery, functional mapping, stakeholder interview preparation, and transition artefact development.
Actions taken
- Analysed available organisation charts, position descriptions, meeting notes, and early discovery material to establish a “what we can evidence” baseline
- Produced a high-level functional map of tunnel operations without over-aggregating role terminology or masking evidence gaps
- Created stakeholder interview notes and question sets for alliance, operations, maintenance, traffic, training, HSEQ, and commercial leadership streams
- Separated confirmed findings from assumptions, gaps, dependencies, and validation questions to protect delivery integrity
- Summarised safety-critical, time-critical, and transition-sensitive areas for PM and stakeholder playback
- 2-week discovery pack produced for PM playback and transition mobilisation
- 15+ role and leadership documents synthesised into a usable functional view
- 6 priority stakeholder interview streams shaped for targeted follow-up
- Key unknowns surfaced early across operating model, board/reporting lines, SIDERA dependency, incident response, training, HSEQ, commercial governance, and asset-maintenance interfaces
- Discovery artefacts gave the incoming transition team a structured starting point before full site documentation and operational access were available
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