IT Blueprint For Government
by Alex Glaros
http://gov-ideas.com/
Ideas for the Future
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Gov Ideas
Center for Government Interoperability
Opportunities checklist for new software projects
A simple shortcut to ensure that interoperability checks
become a permanent part of everyone's organizational structure
One of the easiest implementation methods for enterprise data integration
is the distribution of a checklist to anyone that designs a business application
or data table.
Potentially free from bureaucratic policy implementation slowdowns, the
checklist can just be emailed to stakeholders of any business software
project and looked over for data interoperability and other opportunities.
The basic idea of this checklist is to ask a simple question whenever
a new business system or data table is created:
If this is new data or software: Can it be shared elsewhere?
Examples of implementation methods include:
- Project Management Office making the verification of checklist use
a standard deliverable for all IT projects, and
- programmers adding the checklist to their System Development Life
Cycle.
The goal is for this checklist to be applied by the broadest possible
group of government and private industry organizations for all business
programs or data tables that are being newly designed or about to be changed
so that interoperability checks become a permanent part of everyone's
organizational structure.
If every private and government organization adopted this simple checklist,
it would result in a significant and permanent shift towards improved
business processes.
A more formal implementation processes would involve a data governance
council, discussed later in this article, that prioritizes opportunities
revealed by the checklist, but the mere distribution of the checklist
is the simplest way to get enterprise data integration going.
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Here is the checklist.
Checklist for every new business
application, table or field
- Correct data modeling (3rd normal form), correct keys. (Data
Architect, IT) [Documentation
and comments]
- Cross agency data and process sharing opportunities, including,
API, SOA and Web Services (Data Architect, IT and business side)
[Documentation
and comments]
- Can an additional "organization_ID" field be added
so that multiple agencies can concurrently use tables or programs
as a centralized "cloud" application? (Executive office,
CIO, Data Architect, IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Can this software system be obtained from (a) GOTS or (b) shareware
sites, or, can this software become (a) GOTS or (b) shareware?
(Data architect, IT) [Documentation
and comments]
- Can any business processes be improved with existing data or
be improved by changing the data model? Are there opportunities
to re-engineer small, medium, or large, core, foundation business
processes with new data models? (Data Architect, IT and business
side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Can this data be replaced by a better source of data elsewhere
or replace other data? Can whole tables be eliminated by consolidation
and sharing? (Data Architect, IT, business side and federal or
state CIO) [Documentation
and comments]
- Prioritize super connector fields and super connector tables.
[Documentation
and comments] (Data Architect, IT and business side)
- Can this data be used to validate other data or does it need
validation performed on it? (Data Architect, IT and business side)
- Business Intelligence - data mart/data warehouse opportunities.
(Business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Data harmonization problems or opportunities. (Data Architect,
IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Standards evaluation - Are there standards to be adhered to
or created? (Data Architect, IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Alignment to organizational mission. Strategic planning problems
or opportunities. (Data Architect, IT and business side)
- Enterprise Architecture planning. How does it align with to
the "To Be" architecture? (Enterprise Architect, Data
Architect, IT and business side)
- Impact on other systems. (Change Management Board, Data Architect,
IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Metrics generation opportunities - Can this field or table create
useful metrics or appear on a dashboard? Customers could include
boards, licensees, the public, finance, governor's office and
the legislature (business side)
- Metadata opportunities (business side)
- KPI - Key performance indicators opportunities. Are there opportunities
to use the field/table to measure performance? (Data Architect,
IT and business side)
- Risk (Data Architect, IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Security. Should it be encrypted? Should backups be encrypted?
What controls should be applied? (Data Architect, IT, business
side and ISO) [Documentation
and comments]
- Is data subject to legislative oversight or mandates? (Data
Architect, business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Should clients be given control of the data? (Business side,
IT) [Documentation
and comments]
- Would a data steward be useful for this data? (Data Architect,
IT and business side)
- Backup considerations - how often should it be backed up? How
does it get refreshed when there is a crash? When should it be
purged? (IT and business side)
- Can data quality be improved? Is data cleansing applicable?
(IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Quality management - are clients satisfied? Is quality management
and continual process improvement built into this system? (Data
Architect, IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Automated duplicate detection (IT)
- Timeliness. Is there value to the organization if the data is
refreshed sooner or by other ways? (IT and business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Review for entry into a table of future opportunities and linked
to a calendar of related opportunities or future change events.
(Data Architect) [Documentation
and comments]
- Optimization by combining multiple projects (past, future or
ongoing projects). (Data Architect, business side, IT) [Documentation
and comments]
- Are there opportunities from making this available to a broader
audience? Customers that are not immediately evident could include
government boards, licensees, the public, police and investigative
organizations, finance, governor's office, and the legislature
(Data Architect, IT and business side)
- Audit policy - should the field or table be have its edit or
use history recorded (IT and business side)
- Error management. How should the system respond to the errors?
E.g., should stakeholders be notified if there are errors in the
data? (IT and business side)
- Are the business rules table-driven and controllable-by-clients
where feasible? (Business rules should not be in programming code.)
(IT, Data Architect)
- Data tuning - is it fast enough? Is denormalization required?
(IT) [Documentation
and comments]
- Field size and type - will the field be able to contain larger
amounts of data 10 years from now? Is it the right type of field
(alphanumeric, numeric, etc.) [Documentation
and comments]
- Field and table added to data dictionary
- Restartability - have data and system been designed so that
crashed programs restart without concern for partially filled
data or partially completed processes? Has documentation been
clearly communicated to clients and IT staff that there a no problems
with process restarts?
- Energy savings - has the system designed to make default reports
online instead of paper? Has server virtualization been considered?
- Unstructured data links - Can HTML links be made to useful web
sites at strategic places on the application? (Business side)
[Documentation
and comments]
- Does a new business process need to be created to improve or
add new data? Does a committee of business and IT members need
to be created to analyze and implement the new business process
to improve or create additional data? (Data Architect, IT and
business side) [Documentation
and comments]
- Transparency - Can the system bring more transparency to the
organization? How can more transparency be built into the system
and the organization regarding any related business processes?
http://sunlightfoundation.com
, http://www.transparency.org,
http://www.data.gov/about
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The above checklist ensures that a whole series of government improvement
opportunities are checked for at the precise movement when its most
important.
Clients dont have to wait until they request data sharing. Comprehensive
data sharing and all other opportunities checks are made at the outset.
Data Governance Council
Beyond the checklist above, a more complex governance process would involve
a data governance council reviewing
all new software development to see if it could be shared enterprise-wide.
The data governance council would use the above checklist as part of its
process. See where the checklist fits in the flowchart below.
Here is a discussion of data governance.
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