Week 8: EA methodologies and Flower4all project

This week’s lecture Prof. Murli talks about the concrete methodology of EA. (God knows how long I have been praying for something concrete!) We use the EA3 as our example so the methodology is a four phase/ twenty-step one, from establishing the program to a long-term maintenance. 

I am currently working on my project “Flowers4All” and really want to apply this methodology to my project. But I think I have to tell some truth: sometimes EA frameworks and methodologies confuse me a lot, seriously. And it is so frustrating. 

In Week 4 I have mentioned about comparisons between different frameworks, their strengths and shortcomings. Zachman framework is only a taxonomy while TOGAF is more like a process; FEA is a comprehensive methodology working better in Government; Gartner provides a good practice, but I just feel it is too dependent to particular specialists. I believe that all of them are good frameworks but I somehow just feel they are vague, especially the last one which seems have received most commendations. Gartner is a bit like a hospital, the users as patients, they trust the experience of world top specialists. Architects would have things done well but how they deal with different situations depends on years of experience in real work. Here comes that problem. The experience is unique and intangible. For me, I don’t have their experience at all, so their work is like a black box. I know with input, there will magically be a good output. But what happened inside? I don’t know. It is never my practice.

It is also another blog by the author’s friend, another EA architect, talking about why all these four frameworks are incomplete if work separately. In the end the blogger said the best practice should based on particular business strategic objectives. He thought architects should always be innovative and find their own way.

There is a non-profit educational corporation, One World Information System (OWIS), develop a methodology called "General Enterprise Management"™ (GEM™) which can integrate existing information systems, provide the foundation for applications for new information processing requirements, or subsume existing information systems during their next redesign or redevelopment. A part of the GEM methodology that guides the development and maintenance of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) can be used as basic enterprise architecture methodology (BEAM)™. 
Here is a PDF file features the baisc elements of BEAM. The generally methodology and concrete steps are presented in this picture.

It also have a Procedural Flowchart.

For the flower4all project, I have study the case of Dell's EA with Oracle.

The framework they used is the Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework which consists of seven core components.

With the approach recommended by Oracle, Dell firstly established a blueprint to guide their projects, structuring the enterprise into strategy, goals, objectives, operating model, capabilities, business processes, information assets, and governance. Also they divided the architecture into four parts: business, information, application, and infrastructure. Using the blueprint, they inventoried all applications and the underlying technology, to map the applications to business capabilities to identify omissions and redundancies.

While compared to Dell the Flower4all is a small company. It has only three division of business, the interacting parties are relatively limited. After compared those methodology I would prefer the EA cube, to clarify the LOBs(Productions&Service) of Flower4all and crosscutting components that might be shared by different function groups.
In the EA cube framework each LOB is made up by (up-bottom): Strategic Initiatives, Business Processes, Information Flows, Systems &Services, Technology Infrastructures.
In the material we have their SI and BP, with unsorted information flows, so I think my job should focus on sorting the Information flows of the BP first. Then decide how those information flows among different systems and servers. Finally identify where the gaps exist.

For our SA project, this week we finally work out the outline and signed parts for different persons. I provided materials for each member to read, which I hope can be useful for us. (You know materials... They look useful at first, but never judge a material based on its title...)

Week 7: Keeping On

I think I really going to run out of ideas for Blog titles now...
Sadly I really don't see any big progress on this project for this Exam Week. Everybody is just too busy, except me. I even feel bored these days, and more guilty to feel that.
Isn't it hard to believe that, I am a CMUer, but I am bored.

As always, feel free to skip the italic gab words.

We didn't have a lecture this week; instead, Prof Murli had a meeting with us, group by group. He sent three documents to us.

• Introduction of a Web-based application called GovMax. It is designed by Sarasota County Government. It integrates strategic planning, budgeting and performance management. (However I tried to Google the application but never able to open the website) 
• Advantages of Single Point Entry. It is a brief of Single Point Entry， provided by a Canterbury District Health Board.
• Performance Measurement Process. A part of Development Processes, also an important element of all Total Quality Management programs.

     This article talks mostly about a 11-step process to manage performance.

1. Identify the process flow. Ask what you want to measure and list out with a flowchart, containing the entire process, down to the task level, sets the stage for developing performance measures.
2. Identify Critical Activity(ies) to be Measured. Only measure the critical activity(ies) that significantly impact total process efficiency, effectiveness, quality, timeliness, productivity, or safety.
3. Establish Performance Goal(s) or Standard(s).Standards for standards are:Attainable,Economic,Applicable,Consistent,All-inclusive, Understandable, Measurable, Stable, Adaptable,Legitimate,Equitable,Customer Focus. This process should output a list of goals.
4. Establish Performance Measurement(s).This step allows you to generate useful information rather than just generating data.Identify the Raw Data and locate them. Also identify the sensor. What or who will do the
   measuring or data collection? And then determine how often to make measurements.
5. Identify Responsible Party(ies).These parties include the responsible worker(s) and the responsible decision maker. They collect the data, analyze, compare actual performance to standards, and determine if corrective action is necessary.
6. Collect Data.Data are a set of facts presented in quantitative or descriptive form, and they must be specific enough.
7. Analyze/Report Actual Performance.
8. Compare Actual Performance to Goal/Standard.
9. Determine if Corrective Action(s) is Necessary.If there is a large gap, the performance should be back into line with the desired goal or standard.It brings the step 10. Otherwise it comes to the step 11.
10. Make Changes to Bring Process Back in Line with Goal or Standard.
11. Determine if New Goals or Measures are Needed.Goals need to be challenging, but also realistically achievable.

I find same characteristic Performance Measurements shared with EA.
They both give individuals an opportunity to receive a broadened perspective of the organization's functions, rather than the more limited perspective of their own immediate span of control. Their actions occur in a continuous cycle and their main purposes are to reduce or eliminate overall variation in the work product or process.


After meeting with Prof. Murli, our group had another meeting with Susi, our client. We clarified most of our doubts, and some blur of the project scope. The main goal of our project is to research on how other governments do their SEPO project, what is the best practice on SEPO and how can SA Government do to improve their project.

Susi provided us with some documents from SA Gov, talking about what are website Key Performance Indicators and detailed description of their Website (sa.gov.au).

According to their definition, approved in Project "Ask Just Once" in 2007 and  launched off at November 2009, "www.sa.gov.au" is a single entry point online, where citizens and businesses can access information and services from across government in one place.
Under what situation SA government is pushed to make a change? The reason to have a single entry point website is:

Currently there are hundreds of government websites, costly for Government and confusing for customers. Most of these sites are based on the way government administers its operations, rather than the way people use services. This makes it hard for people to find what they need, leaving them feeling intimidated, confused and frustrated. sa.gov.au makes it easier for people to 'help themselves'.

In the KPI documents, the author listed six key indicators:

1. Agency Engagement:Percentage of SA government departments contributing information.
2. Customer Satisfaction:Percentage of users who are satisfied with the service.
3. Service take up:Visits to sa.gov.au and also visits by franchise.
4. Up to date Information:Percentage of pages reviewed every 6 months.
5. Service Availability:Percentage of active time that the central ICT infrastructure system is operational. 
6. Online transactions:Increase in online transactions available on and referred from  sa.gov.au.

Tomorrow comes with the next mini of my 1st CMU semester. Hope that things go well. I should be more active, right? I know...

Week 6: More about One-Stop-Government

Time flies and a week is a blink sometimes, for example at the midterm time.

This week I really don’t know what I have learned for EA or anything else.

Project does not go any further in my view. Clients provide little useful things.

A little depressive, isn’t it? But anyway, still should cheer up and face the next, right?

Before I met the client I searched a lot on One-Stop-eGov and shared on the wiki of our group.

Besides SA, I also looked for OSG of other countries and cities, and the following are some examples I regard as great.

Singapore
HongKong
New Zealand 
UK 
Canada 


Among them the most impressive one for me is the Singapore website, concise and elegant, remember me the famous Einstein quote, "As simple as possible, but not simpler ". Therefore I looked deeper on Singapore‘s eGov2015, released at June 2011.
There are three visions which I would recommend for every Government planning to build a One-Stop Portal.

• Co-creating For Greater Value
• Connecting For Active Participation
• Catalysing Whole-of-Government Transformation

In its vision they define the role of Government as Service and Platform Provider, providing consulting to public, inviting ideas from them, and serves as catalyst in transforming public sectors.


There are various programs Singapore Government running. Among them is one called Whole-of-Government Enterprise Architecture (WOG EA), with objective to optimise ICT assets by rigorously analysing and identifying strategic opportunities from its various lines of businesses, business information, software applications and technology investments.
I somehow was wondering why One-Stop Portal has something to do with EA. Here as far as I understand that OSP is a seamless utility of asset, enhancing synergy and efficiency. By  sharing systems that can be used by multiple government agencies, the Government minimizes duplicative efforts. Therefore the whole OSG thing is a EA (Altough not that confident whether it is right), aiming to minimize the duplicative efforts between departments of Government.
So I think the goal here is back to caculate EA's revenue over cost.

I would like to mention two reports of Accenture searching on eGovs all over the world and gave some directions on evaluation of eGov Realization. 1, 2.
According to it, there are certain rules any eGovernment should follow:

• eGovernment is being viewed as just one of the tools that can be applied to meet the many challenges faced by governments.
•  eGovernment must deliver real benefits to the citizen
• Online services must be marketed to drive take up
• Whole transactions must be completed online to drive cost down
• The citizen is at the center of the vision, but other key stakeholders are also considered
• Connected government requires a connected vision
• Outcomes must be clearly defined and progress measured  
• Collaboration with the private sector is a stated goal

As Accenture seen, the key Measurement Criterias of a eGovernement are its Service Maturity, defining as the level to which a government had developed an online presence, and Delivery Maturity, defining as  the sophistication of delivery mechanisms such as single point of entry,
design by customer intentions, customer relationship management techniques, portal capability and the additional value-added services.

As mentioned in the second report,

The emergence of government portals is the most significant development observed in this round of research.

There used to be a plethora of websites, many with only published information about the agency and its services, delivering limited value to citizens. But this website proliferation has not made it any easier for people to do business with government, as agencies have simply replicated industrial age organisation structures online, without any attempt to consider how the user will behave online as opposed to when they were in-line. 

Government portals are now emerging as the means of bringing some order and citizen-centred functionality to government online.

This report, leased at a early year, far-sightedly describe the development of One-Stop Government, and provide the maturity curve of general government Websites.

However it did not provide methods  to caculate the benefit.

Here is another paper pay more attention from a user's perspective.

According to it the benefit of government website should be:

Providing services to the public through the Web may lead to faster and more convenient access to government services with fewer errors. It also means that government units may realize increased efficiencies, cost reductions, and potentially better customer service.  

 Also as it mentioned: 

this type of benefits are based upon the scale of use, the more people use it, the more potential efficiency and cost reduction will be obtained. 

As it suggest, to caculate the realization of our SEPO project, a big factor should be how many people use it. And also the performance of the citizens information seeking activities can be used as a measure of performance for an e-government Web based service. So the most key elements here are "information user, information problem and information pool", representing citizens,their tasks and the government.

 

Week 5: Single Entry Point / One-Stop-Government

This week we have met our client, Ms Masi, Chief Project Officer from Government of South Australia. She outlined our task, to build up an assessment model of SA Government’s one-stop website.

By searching I had a first impression on Single Entry Point. It refers to the integration of public services from a citizen's point of view, also can be viewed as a site where users can find information, images and resources from all government agencies and government funded sites.

A lot of researches have been made in the field of One-Stop-Gov (OSG), similar to SEPO but funded by the European Commission. Generally it is a life-event oriented, integrated, interoperable platform for an all-inclusive one-stop government that is based on the concept of active life-event portals.

In the 2012 E-Government Survey it finds that e-Government in many countries are moving from a decentralized single-purpose organization model, to an integrated unified OSG model with higher efficiency and effectiveness. This new model aims at realizing an entry point of service entrance and a single portal where citizens can access all government-supplied services, regardless of which government authority provides them.

The difference of structures between OSG and the traditional mode is shown as followed.

There are two prerequisites of OSG. Firstly, public services must be integrated. Secondly, the customers must be able to access these services in a well-structured and well understandable manner meeting their perspectives and needs.

Besides, a holistic reference framework (shown below) can support in investigating the many influencing issues. We can see a multidimensional consideration, which ranging from the strategic layer to the technical layer, of distinct aspects and the core phases of an electronic process, ranging from information to transaction and settlement.

This framework supports the following:

• Technical viewpoint (focusing on the technical implementation of the system)
• View on people (deliberating the needs and requirements for the different user groups: citizens, businesses, public administration employees)
• Security aspects (deliberating the security requests for public services and for the one-stop government system)
• Legal issues (investigating legal constraints, frames etc.)
• Organizational aspects (structural fragmentation of public administration and division of domain expertise, responsibilities, etc.)
• Social and political aspects (considering political decisions, social impacts, etc.)
• View on data and information (designing information objects, databases etc.).

The eGOV integrated online one-stop government system should lead to an increased quality of public services as well as to improved efficiency of the public sector. Based on the framework, there are some basic requirements for OSG:

• Customers can access public services via a single entry point even if the services are provided by different departments or authorities, without needing to know to which public authority the functional competency is assigned to;
• Different stages can be approached for a service: simple what-is, what-is-required and where-to-go information on the service;
• Possibility to contact people and to get further information; downloading and handing in forms for applications of public services; handling a complete service; citizen relationship management or complaints management; 
• Public authorities are interconnected and can be accessed via different channels and devices.
• Official proceedings are adapted for Internet performance.
• Front- and back-office are smoothly integrated.
• Underlying laws and prescriptions are clarified and updated. Administrative terms should be understood by customers.

To provide a better user experience, the OSG website builder should take into account other aspects.

• Consumers come from different groups with specified requirements. Therefore, functions aimed at different group of people (such as seniors and teenagers) should be modified to meet their special requirements.
• The required level of technical knowledge for users, especially individual citizens, to use the website should be as low as possible. The user should have the feeling that the system is easy to use, that s/he can operate it intuitively.
•  UIs should be predictable, meaning that user should not be surprised by the way the system reacts, and possess basic interaction abilities within desirable feedback time.
• Other suggestions like multi-linguistic, learnability, memorability, low error rate, and etc. are also raised up by researchers.

Reference:

[1] Marketing One-stop e-Government Solutions: the European OneStopGov Project, Marios Chatzidimitriou and Adamantios Koumpis

[2] United Nations E-Government Survey 2012-eGovernment for the People, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

[3] Online One-Stop Government: A working framework and requirements, Maria A. Wimmer and Efthimios Tambouris*