Guidelines Process¶
Guidelines and principles are being developed by a task force composed of DHI experts and specialists in the relevant area.
When guidelines and principles are being developed, they follow a process to ensure that the guidelines will:
- be developed by key experts in DHI on the subject.
- contain the required scope and content.
- be reviewed by stakeholders.
- be rolled-out to the right audience.
The process outlined below must be followed during the development of guidelines.
flowchart LR
%% Overall layout is left-to-right
Col1 --> Col2
Col2 --> Col3
Col3 --> End([Implementation support,<br/>Reviews and Audits])
%% Guidelines setup
subgraph Col1[<b>Guidelines Setup & Scope</b>]
direction TB
B[Define guideline owner<br/>and task force];
B --> C{Architecture Board approves<br/>the task force?};
C --> |No| B;
C --> |Yes| D[Define scope];
D --> E{Scope approval};
E --> |No| D;
end
%% Write guidelines
subgraph Col2[<b>Write Guidelines & Review</b>]
direction TB
F[Initial Draft] --> G[Task force review<br/>and updates];
G --> H{Task force approval?};
H --> |No| G;
H --> |Yes| I[Stakeholder review<br/>and updates];
I --> J{Stakeholder approval?};
J --> |No| I;
end
%% Guidelines review
subgraph Col3[<b>Approval & Roll-out</b>]
direction TB
K{CTO/AB approves guidelines?};
K --> |Yes| L[Make Roll-out Plan];
L --> M{Architecture Board approves<br/>the roll-out plan?}
M --> |Yes| N[Roll-out];
end
style C fill:#c2f0c2,stroke:#2d8a2d,color:#000
style K fill:#c2f0c2,stroke:#2d8a2d,color:#000
style M fill:#c2f0c2,stroke:#2d8a2d,color:#000
style E fill:#f0e68c,stroke:#B58B00,color:#000
style H fill:#f0e68c,stroke:#B58B00,color:#000
style J fill:#f0e68c,stroke:#B58B00,color:#000-
Define guideline owner and task force
Assign a guidelines owner (driver) and set the task force, find stakeholders, and define the audience.
The work done by the owner and task force related to writing the guidelines can be registered on the Architecture Board project.
Defining the task force also means initiating the guidelines document specifying the task force, stakeholders, and audience on the DHI Developers.
The composition of the task force must be approved by the Architecture Board.- Guidelines owner/driver
The guidelines owner is responsible for setting up meetings and making sure that the guidelines are written and reviewed by the task force.
Guidelines work must be organized creating a feature in the Architecture Board project in the epic of the category and user stories for tracking the progress of the guidelines. - Task force
The task force is a group of experts who write the guidelines and approve them before the guidelines goes into stakeholder review.
The task force must be formed so that they have skills and the ability to define the scope.
The task force members must cover affected teams, projects and products within the scope. - Stakeholders
Stakeholders are key people within the area and the region that are supposed to use and apply to guidelines. The stakeholder group will assist in review and roll-out of the guidelines.
The stakeholder group must cover most T&I offices to ensure a smooth roll-out.
Consider staff in T&I: CZ, PL, US/CAN, DE, DK Projects, DK Products, Data Model Integration and Earth Observation Centre (if not already represented in the task force)
Stakeholders within GBUs should be considered on a case-by-case basis. If stakeholders are required, reach out to the GBU OpEx Directors to identify suitable candidates.
- Guidelines owner/driver
-
Task force Approval
Gate: The Architecture Board must approve the task force and stakeholders to ensure that specialists able to assist in defineing scope and writing the guidelines are available. - Define scope
The guidelines owner makes sure that a suggested scope/ToC including a short description for each section, to make it clear what the guidelines scope is.
While reviewing the scope, the guidelines could be split into multiple guidelines and tasks.
The scope must also identify dependencies on other guidelines. - Scope approval
The task force reviews and approves the suggested scope. - Initial Draft (guidelines owner)
The initial draft must be created and written based on the guidelines template as markdown (template in section below) created on DHI Developers.
Do not add the markdown(s) to the 'mkdocs.yml' page until they are published.
The draft document is written by the guideline's owner. Draft documents and/or documents in progress will be shared with the task force and the stakeholders identified.
The guidelines owner must organize work on guidelines creating a feature in the Architecture Board project in the epic of the category (Package) and user stories for tracking the progress of the guidelines. - Task force review and updates
The task force reviews, updates and approves the guidelines. This is done in the markdown file created on DHI Developers.
It is important that all task force members provide their input.
In case the guidelines owner or task force members does not have time for providing input for a specific deadline, contact a member of the Architecture Board to agree on next steps. -
Stakeholder review
Stakeholders get the guidelines document for review once approved by the task force. Once feedback from stakeholders has been considered, the guidelines are ready to be published.
Stakeholder review is done sharing guidelines previews on DHI Developers with the stakeholders.- The guidelines owner sets up an introduction meeting with all stakeholders explaining the objective and how to provide their feedback.
- Stakeholders should be given a one-week window to provide their feedback.
The task force must agree on changes suggested by stakeholders before updating the guidelines.
- The guidelines owner sets up an introduction meeting with all stakeholders explaining the objective and how to provide their feedback.
-
Guidelines Approval
Gate: The CTO and/or the Architecture Board must approve the reviewed guidelines before a guideline roll-out can start.
The CTO should, as a rule of thumb, approve mandatory guidelines, AI releated guidelines and Cloud/Azure related guidelines. - Make Roll-out plan and roll-out
The Architecture Board is responsible for roll-out and must approve the plan for rolling-out the guidelines.
The guidelines must be published on DHI Developers and Viva Engage (e.g. section Developers).
Guidelines must during roll-out be implemented in the DHI Playbook (contact jabh). It is important that the audience of guidelines gets notified about the new guidelines.
An important part of roll-out is to make sure that people know about the guidelines. This means that just publishing guidelines must be accompanied by alignment with key stakeholders.
A suggested roll-out template can be found in the Roll-out Plan Template section below.
Gate: The Architecture Board must approve the roll-out plan. - Implementation support, Reviews and Audits
Once guidelines have been published, supporting documents and actions will be taken. E.g. templates (Visual Studio etc.), step-by-step guides, guideline updates and a review and audit process.
Guidelines Template¶
Every set of guidelines must contain a mandatory set of sections.
# [Title]
## Version History
|Version|Date|Description/Updates|
|---|---|---|
|1.0|[Date]|[Description]|
## Introduction
Short introduction to the guidelines as a very short summary.
## Contacts
Section listing who are working on the giuidelines. The list must be approved by the Architecture Board.
|Guidelines Owner|[nn](mailto:nn@dhigroup.com "No name")|
|Task force|[nn](mailto:nn@dhigroup.com "No name"); [nna](mailto:nna@dhigroup.com "No Name A")|
|Stakeholders||
|Approver(s)|Architecture Board|
## Roles to Apply
List of development roles that must know about the content of the guidelines.
Development roles:
- Architects
- Backend developers
- Frontend developers
- Infrastructure/DevOps Engineers
- Product Manager/Product Owners
- Testers
## Enforcement Levels
Section providing an overview of the sections of the guidelines, specifying the enforcement levels as well as what kind of projects/products the enforcement level applies to.
|Section|Enforcement Level|Comment|
|---|---|---|
|Section 1|Important|Specifying ownership of the individual task is important.|
|||
## References
Section containing references to other guidelines.
These references must also be found in the one or more sections of the guidelines.
Roll-out Plan Template¶
The roll-out plan can be started once the guidelines have been approved by either the Architecture Board or the CTO.
Use this template as a base for the roll-out plan.
For every set of guidelines¶
- Publish on DHI Developers
The guidelines owner publishes guidelines on the DHI Internal Developer site containing the guidelines. - Viva Engage (DHI Daily Digest)
The Architecture Board makes a post on Viva Engage in the Technology and Innovation Community so that T&I Staff gets a DHI Daily Digest mail.
The guidelines owner should make a draft of the post.
If the guidelines are relevant to all DHI staff, post the guidelines in the All Company Community. - Roll-out on PO Community Meeting(s)
A brief introduction for product owners on the weekly T&I PO Community meeting being held on Wednesdays at 10-11 CET.
The meeting should be a short introduction to the development guidelines and what to being published outlining the content. Highlight the affected development roles to the product owner.
No recording will be made. - Make development staff on-boarding video
Make a 10-15 minute on-boarding video for development staff affected (e.g. as a meeting with no attendees).
The video should provide a short introduction for the development guidelines, what the guidelines contain and where to find them. - Store roll-out meeting recording(s)
Store employee roll-out meeting recordings/videos on the DHI Training Portal.
Make sure that everybody has access to the recording and add a link to the recording in the guidelines on DHI Developers.
Contact Lars Hoffmann to get recorded videos published on the DHI Training Portal. - Contact PO's and GBU stakeholders
Contact T&I product owners and GBU project managers to make sure that they know about guidelines. Have a dialog on what guidelines they can, should or must apply to.
Review and audit process should be ready and suggested to the PO's. - Skill development
Investigate the option for making developing skills for AI agents that can assist in checking if products or projects are applying to the guidelines being rolled out.
Regular meetings and updates¶
-
Development Manager Updates
Development managers should have regular updates on guidlines released and what teams and products should apply to what guidelines (as agreed with PO's), so that managers have a change to follow up with development staff. -
Viva Engage
Use Viva Engage regularly to highlight guideline updates and/or summaries.
Review and Audits¶
A robust software development review and audit process ensures:
- Quality and security are built into delivery
- Compliance and governance are enforced systematically
- Risks are identified early (technical, legal, operational)
- Consistency across teams and geographies
The review and audit process is agreed and planned with product owners depending on the maintenance tier agreed with the individual product owner.
Guideline Tiers¶
Guideline tiers define the guidelines governance effort based on product criticality, budget and risk.
Each tier determines:
- Review depth & frequency
- Required automation & audit controls
| Guidelines Tier | Description | Review Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| High | Strategic investments, proactive maintenance, high investment budget, guidelines appliance plan required. | Quarterly |
| Dedicated | Business critical systems, regular maintenance, dedicated maintenance budget, partial guidelines appliance plan | Every 6 months / per release |
| Reactive | Reactive maintenance, limited enhancements, limited maintenance budget, selected guidelines appliance plan | Yearly |
| Minimal | Legacy systems, minimal maintenance, risk acceptance, no or limited budget, no guidelines appliance plan | N/A |
Products and Guideline Tiers¶
The list of assets/products and the product owners are listed below with guideline tiers.
Please find the Digital Assets by PO and BO on SharePoint, managed by Martin Lythe Ciborowski
Guideline tiers of individual products will be evaluated every year.
Note
Suggested product guideline tiers are provided by product owners and are in an alignment process with business owners and management.
| Product | Product Owner | Business Owner | Guidelines Tier (2026) | Guidelines Tier (2027) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Market and SaaS | Karthik Balachandran (KBAL) | Karthik Balachandran (KBAL) | Reactive | Reactive |
| Bathymetry Portal | Marie Lund Larsen (MLLA) | Lars Boye Hansen (LBH) | Reactive | Reactive |
| Data Link | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Stephen J Flood (SJF) | Reactive | Reactive |
| DC.Live | Nita Renanta (NIRE) | Henrik Refstrup Soerensen (HRS) | High | High |
| DHI BlueCast | Babino Gupta (BAGU) | Luca Zaccheroni (LUZA) | Reactive | Reactive |
| DHI CityFlow Live | Johannes Winberg (JOWI) | Lars-Goeran Gustafsson (LGG) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| DHI CityFlow Live Receiving water | Johannes Winberg (JOWI) | Kalyan Chakravarthy (CMKA) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| DHI CityFlow Live Stormwater | Johannes Winberg (JOWI) | Lars-Goeran Gustafsson (LGG) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| DHI CityFlow Live Treatment Plant | Johannes Winberg (JOWI) | Henrik Refstrup Soerensen (HRS) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| DHI CityFlow Live Wastewater Network | Johannes Winberg (JOWI) | Lars-Goeran Gustafsson (LGG) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| DHI CityFlow Live Water Distribution | Johannes Winberg (JOWI) | Jonas Kirstein (JOKI) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| DHI PlumeCast | Babino Gupta (BAGU) | Simon Brandi Mortensen (SBM) | Reactive | Reactive |
| DIMS.CORE | Nita Renanta (NIRE) | Henrik Refstrup Soerensen (HRS) | Minimal | Minimal |
| Domain Services | Hizrian Muhammad Faris (FARI) | Hizrian Muhammad Faris (FARI) | Reactive | Reactive |
| Entitlement System (Revenera) | Jiri Kirkos (JIKI) | Douglas N. Graham (DNG) | Reactive | Dedicated |
| FEFLOW | Volker Clausnitzer (VCL) | Dr. Carlos Andres (CVI) | Dedicated | High |
| Leakage Monitor | Jiri Kirkos (JIKI) | Zdenek Svitak (ZS) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| License System (Old) | Lasse Kelman Christensen (LAC) | Lasse Kelman Christensen (LAC) | Minimal | Minimal |
| Litpack | Elena Stuart (ELST) | Stephen J Flood (SJF) | Minimal | Minimal |
| Mesh Builder | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Reactive | Reactive |
| MIKE 21 Mooring Analysis | Elena Stuart (ELST) | Stephen J Flood (SJF) | Reactive | Reactive |
| MIKE 21/3 | Elena Stuart (ELST) | Stephen J Flood (SJF) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE 21C | Aurelien Gasc (AUG) | Mark Britton (MFB) | Minimal | Minimal |
| MIKE C-Map | Elena Stuart (ELST) | Stephen J Flood (SJF) | Minimal | Minimal |
| MIKE Cloud Platform | Leona Tejklova (LETE) | Ilias Pliotas (ILIP) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE ECO Lab / ABM Lab | Elena Stuart (ELST) | Stephen J Flood (SJF) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE HYDRO Basin | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Bertrand Richaud (BER) | Reactive | Reactive |
| MIKE Metocean Simulator | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Pierre Brink Swiegers (PIBS) | Reactive | Reactive |
| MIKE Mine | Nita Renanta (NIRE) | Ferdinand Flechtner (FEFL) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE OPERATIONS | Aurelien Gasc (AUG) | Elbys Jose Meneses (EJME) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE OPERATIONS SW Enabler | Aurelien Gasc (AUG) | Aurelien Gasc (AUG) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE SHE | Aurelien Gasc (AUG) | Philipp Huttner (PHHU) | Reactive | Reactive |
| MIKE View | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Niels Riegels (NDR) | Minimal | Minimal |
| MIKE WaterNet Advisor | Jiri Kirkos (JIKI) | Petr Ingeduld (PI) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MIKE+ | Mathieu Hellegouarch(MJH), Niels Riegels (NDR) | Morten Just Kjoelby (MJK), Philipp Huttner (PHHU) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| MOOD | Kai Claussen (KCL) | Patrick Dich Grode (PDG) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| Python Libraries | Henrik Andersson (JAN) | Jesper Sandvig Mariegaard (JEM) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| Shared MIKE Components | Lasse Kelman Christensen (LAC) | Lasse Kelman Christensen (LAC) | Dedicated | Dedicated |
| Water Tools Portal (WTP) | Nita Renanta (NIRE) | Elbys Jose Meneses (EJME) | Reactive | Reactive |
| WEST | Christopher Eugen Gaszynski (CHGA) | Henrik Refstrup Soerensen (HRS) | Reactive | Dedicated |
Other T&I Products or Teams¶
Products with no an official product owner, product owners that are not part of the Product Owner Community or supporting teams without direct product ownership.
| Product or Team | Product Owner/Manager | Guidelines Tier (2026) | Guidelines Tier (2027) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build Automation & QA Team | Karthik Balachandran (KBAL) | ||
| Earth Observation Centre of Excellence Portals - et4fao.dhigroup.com - frame.dhigroup.com - eo.dhigroup.com - marine-vegetation.satlas.dk - esa-sen4et.org - bathymetry.satlas.dk - nanok.xyz - satlas.dk - urban.satlas.dk - eo-labs.dhigroup.com - eo4wi.earth |
Marie Lund Larsen (MLLA) | Minimal | Minimal |
| Earth Observation Centre of Excellence Portals - coastalprofiler.dhigroup.com - coastalmapper.dhigroup.com - mcsav.dhigroup.com - sav-sweden-v2.dhigroup.com - sav-denmark.dhigroup.com - marineobserver.dhigroup.com - soilmoisture.io - map.communityactionforfreshwater.org - communityactionforfreshwater.org - excavation.z16.web.core.windows.net - vistatrees.dhigroup.com - sdg632hub.org - sdg661.app - map.globalwetlandwatch.org - datacube.dhigroup.com - regioner.dhigroup.com - worldforestdata.dhigroup.com |
Marie Lund Larsen (MLLA) | Reactive | Reactive |
| Earth Observation Centre of Excellence Portals - ramona.earth |
Marie Lund Larsen (MLLA) | Reactive | Minimal |
| Earth Observation Centre of Excellence Portals - LBST |
Lotte Nyborg (LN) | Dedicated | Reactive |
| MUSE | Babino Gupta (BAGU) | N/A | N/A |
| UX Design | Anna Katrine Hoegh Andersen (AKHA) | High | High |
| WBALMO | Dr. Michael Kaltofen (KAL) | Minimal | Minimal |
GBU Development¶
GBU's or DHI Companies in some cases developed and maintain products independent of T&I.
| Product | Company/Office | Contact/Manager | Business Owner | Area | Guidelines Tier (2026) | Guidelines Tier (2027) | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data Farm | Christian Fischer Holm (CFH) | Marine & Coastal | N/A | N/A | Currently no synergies. Singapore (EMMP), Ballastvand, M&C Nordics Contact:NGR |
||
| MIKE+ CN | DHI China | Jiyan Meng (MJY) | Water in Cities | Reactive | Dedicated | ||
| MIKE Marine CN | DHI China | Jiyan Meng (MJY) | Marine & Coastal | N/A | Reactive | ||
| NCOS Online | DHI Seaport Pty Ltd, Australia | Oliver Brass (OLBR) | Simon Brandi Mortensen (SBM) | Marine & Coastal | Reactive | Reactive | Focus on Security and Infrastructure guidelines. |
| SKYNET | DHI S.r.l. a socio unico, Italy | Mirko Flauto (MIFL) | Andrea Crosta (ACR) | Marine & Coastal, Water in Cities, Inland | Guideline tier will be defined once skill reports are available. |
GBU Development Contacts¶
| Developer | Office | Projects |
|---|---|---|
| Hema Kumar (HAPP) | NZ | MEDUSA, CREST, SAFESWIM |
OpEx Directors¶
- Marine & Coastal: Jacob H Jensen (JHJ)
- Water in Cities + Water Resources: Mikkel Moeller Christensen (MMCH)