Transcript Collaboration and Sharing Statistical Software, Components, Processes and Capability Experiences and Aspirations at the Australian Bureau of Statistics Jenine Borowik – Chief Information Officer,

Collaboration and Sharing Statistical
Software, Components, Processes and
Capability Experiences and Aspirations at the
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Jenine Borowik – Chief Information Officer, ABS
for Meeting on the Management of Statistical Information Systems, Oslo, May 2009
Presentation Outline
1. Getting to 'now' - a brief history of ABS ICT
2. Drivers for change
3. Recent collaboration experiences and lessons
4. Aspirations for future collaboration
1. Getting to 'now'
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1980s+: Evolutionary use of ICT in enabling ABS business
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1990s+: Strong ICT governance and close ICT alignment to business and
methodology
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1994+: ABS business invests in ICT via a transparent cost-recovered model
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1995+: Oracle, SAS, IBM Notes-Domino and Superstar dominate technical
architecture (with C, Centura, later Blaise and Java and some .Net)
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2004: Greater emphasis on engagement of Australian statistical
community: 2004 Allen Report leads to National Statistical Service and
National Data Network prototype (with pilot collaborations)
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Major re-engineering programs: BSIP 2002-2006, ISHS 2006-2008
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2006+: Working@ABS program – improvements for personal productivity
and collaboration, built on earlier knowledge management achievements
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2008+: Australian government seeks stronger central ICT governance
(Gershon Review)
1. Getting to 'now': influences
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Multiple efficiency demands and innovation needs with declining resources
within ABS
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Organisational support for strong and strategic ICT capability particularly
for statistical infrastructure and a legislative basis for operational
independence
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Long history of sharing statistical infrastructure with other NSOs
(standards, frameworks, techniques, however systems & tools were
opportunistically shared)
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Observing maturity of international statistical community business
infrastructure collaborations, whilst developing ABS capability to
productively participate in these
1. We all have end-to-end statistical
processing frameworks! e.g. 3 of ABS's
ABS-enhanced GSBPM (in progress)
1. Working@ABS Personal Productivity
and Collaboration Program
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A program to enhance staff productivity through:
– improved knowledge management environment,
– enhanced multi-access point voice and video integration,
– extended personal use of internet and web services,
– better remote access options and functionality,
– enterprise search, and
– staff education through multimedia.
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For example: Notes 8, SameTime, CISCO VoIP, Blackberry, VMWare virtual
remote PC access via USB device, OmniFind, wiki use, blog trials
2a. Drivers for change:
National Statistical Service
What is the NSS?
The NSS is the community of
government agencies, led by the
ABS as Australia’s national
statistical organisation, building a
rich statistical picture for a better
informed Australia.
2a. Drivers for Change: ABS and the NSS
In concept, the NSS is:
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the sum of an agreed set of statistical frameworks, principles, policies and data
resources developed by, or available to, government agencies and
instrumentalities within Australia that are used, or could be used, to produce
official statistics, together with the skills and capabilities of the people involved;
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underpinned by a set of shared values and associated behaviours that shape
and sustain the integrity and objectivity of official statistics and provide
governments, markets, businesses and communities with confidence to trust,
both as providers and users, the official statistics produced within the NSS.
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2a. Drivers for Change: ABS and the NSS
The objectives of the NSS are to:
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deliver a high quality, up-to-date, comprehensive, coherent statistical picture of
the economy, society and the environment to assist and encourage informed
decision making, research and discussion within governments and the wider
community;
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provide a world class official statistical service that retains the confidence and
trust of the Australian society as both providers to, and users of, the resultant
official statistics;
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maximise the use for official statistical purposes of data available within
government administrative systems by government agencies and
instrumentalities;
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minimise the burden of statistical reporting at all levels of the Australian
community; and
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document and retain as an enduring national resource key statistical outputs
and their underlying data sources.
Shared infrastructure could assist greatly
2b. Drivers for Change: New sources,
techniques and dissemination approaches
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Increasing expectations of data respondents, information consumers and
suppliers for electronic interaction
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Government expectation of further efficiencies
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Maintaining data quality with shrinking budgets
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Evolving the statistics for important areas of government decision-making
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Greater demand for system-to-system services through the web
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Using existing data for new statistics
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Creating hybrid subject-matter outputs (eg socio-economic, enviro-economic)
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Replacing purpose-built data collection with more administrative data
Systematising statistical business process knowledge
Incorporating components developed by others (eg geospatial software)
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Data linking
Too much to do!!!
2c. Drivers for Change: Whole of Government
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Standardised business processes, architectures & ICT asset re-use -> leading to
consistent eGovernment service provision
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More centralised ICT governance, business case development, funding review
processes, comparative reporting metrics ('Gershon Review')
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Australian National Government Information Sharing Strategy (NGISS)
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Establishing the place of statistics in whole of government processes and
architecture
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NSOs have a national government VALUE PROPOSITION for international
collaboration:
– we are not competitors
– we have some common statistical models and frameworks
– we use each others' statistical infrastructure to varying degrees
– we could use international collaboration to deliver efficiencies and seek
national government investment for our own agencies in doing so
2c. Australian Government Architecture
3. Recent Experience with collaboration
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Building a pilot National Data Network for the National Statistical Service
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Building a National Children and Youth Statistical Portal
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Building the Victorian (Australian state) Government Child and Adolescent
Monitoring System
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Contributing to the US Bureau of Census Data Ferret business intelligence
product
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Developing system infrastructure for international Creative Commons digital
rights management 'water marking'
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Building metadata support systems and eForm infrastructure for the Australian
Standard Business Reporting Program
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Providing data design and 'public' Web services for the Western Australian
(state government) SLIP/Landgate geo-presentation and mapping project
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Providing data design and implementation staff to the (Australian)
Commonwealth Spatial Data Integration project
3. Recent Collaboration Experiences:
Lessons
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Need to define and ideally demonstrate a clear business benefit (“value
proposition”) to all stakeholders including internal stakeholders
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Senior executive 'champions' necessary in all collaborating organisations
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Good project management discipline: not a legal agreement but a 'committed'
agreement through Memorandum of Understanding
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Understand differences between organisations: cultural, technical architecture,
governance
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A phased delivery model with 'agile' time-boxed delivery very important
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Lead agency model does work
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A common business framework is a great starting point
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Recognise others' legislative issues, intellectual property and risks formally
3. Recent Collaboration Experiences:
Lessons
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An agreed services and data and metadata interchange framework can
overcome differences in technology architecture
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There does not have to be only one solution for each part of the statistical
business processing model
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Technology moves quickly from original design/architecture – be alert!
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Strong benefit from out-posting staff to other organisations
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Timeframes can be considerably different/longer than internal projects
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Overall:
– harder than we first envisaged
– there was 'pain' but manageable and the benefits can be high
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we believe that we need serious, productive collaborations to prosper
4. Aspirations
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Our drivers have expanded. We need processes, architecture and software for:
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– A strong National Statistical System where other agencies also require
statistical infrastructure
– New data sources, processing techniques and dissemination techniques
– Whole of government changes
We are looking for an architecture that:
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leverages what is already available;
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is compatible with GSBPM and can form part of the Australian Government
Architecture;
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allows different organisations to "plug in" different components;
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adapts to new components and capability as it surfaces (both in the NSO community
and the broader environment);
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allows cooperative planning for new developments in different organisations;
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supports collaboration across the life cycle of components (design, construction, use,
enhancement, retirement); and
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includes a focus on effective end to end integration of components.
4. Aspirations
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Collaboration has the potential to:
Support a faster pace of process and system change
Support easier implementation of statistical frameworks
Pool resources for higher quality and better support
Create joint business cases to governments for strengthening national and
international statistics systems
– Achieve ICT savings
– Build capability
– Position us well for the future
Gained practical experience and learnt from others - now considering how to
advance
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Thank you