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Developing best information management practices for business results
Paul M. Durgin
Principal Consultant
EMA Services, Inc.
1760 East River Road, Suite 301
Tucson, AZ 85718-5877
David P. DiSera
GIS Services Manager
EMA Services, Inc.
1970 Oakcrest Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55113
Paul M. Durgin
Principal Consultant
EMA Services, Inc.
1760 East River Road, Suite 301
Tucson, AZ 85718-5877
David P. DiSera
GIS Services Manager
EMA Services, Inc.
1970 Oakcrest Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55113
Information as a strategic resource
In the world of water and wastewater utilities, change is constant. The nature of the water and wastewater core business is much the same as it has been for many years. On the other hand, the rate of change is accelerating, particularly among those organizations that feel competitive pressures.
This wave of organizational change is different in at least three ways: First, it is being externally driven. Changes in the environment in which they operate are forcing significant changes in water/wastewater organizations, instead of changes originating from within the organizations themselves. Second, changes are arising in response to, or anticipation of, "life-threatening" business issues as opposed to scheduled changes based on a detailed, goal-oriented implementation plan. For example, faced with threats of privatization or contract operation, many water/wastewater utilities are already fighting for their existence as public agencies; others will soon be doing the same. Third, the changes being made are big. They affect entire organizations, not just parts or subsystems, fimdarnentally altering what these organizations are and how they do business. Change of this magnitude is variously called strategic, large-scale, discontinuous, or transformational change. It is always very difficult to accomplish successfully.
Part of the process of effecting organizational change and enhanced business practices is developing a recognition that information in and of itself is a resource. The value of an information resource increases as it is made more accessible, in real time, to users in the 1Nadler,D. A.,& Shaw,R. B. (1995). Change Leadership: Core Competency for the Twenty-First Century. In Nadler,D. A., Shaw,R. B.,& Walton,E. (Eds.). DiscontinuousChange. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass. organization. Its value diminishes as time passes between when the information should be available, and when users actually access it.
Too often, water and wastewater organizations forget that their business consists of three component parts: organization, practices and technology. Each of these components must mesh in order to support the most effective use of financial and human resources.
Technology does not consist entirely of bytes and black boxes. In fact, technology planning and implementation should consider at least the following three areas:
- People and process
- Information technology
- Data.
Figure 1: The Intemated Information Environment
As Figure 1 suggests, corporate vision is articulated through mandates which define the corporate culture of the organization, standards that are employed within the organization, and the data environment which provides access to corporate data assets. The corporate culture defines process and people issues such as responsiveness to change, risk aversion, and skill set enhancement. Through an ongoing iterative process it identifies the organization's structure, approach to practices, empowerment of employees and ability to support and make positive changes.
Developing an enterprise information architecture information architecture
Information architecture is a term, used primarily by system designers, signi~ing an enterprise approach for developing an information environment that supports organization-wide data management and integration. The architecture must systematically document all the organization's key data entities, attributes and their relationships. The goal is to create a comprehensive map of all the organization's data, and then build IT solutions based on this map. Sometimes efforts to create this environment fall short of the goal. One of the common mistakes made during these activities is assuming that an organization's key information is automated and structured properly. This is clearly not the case, since no more than 20 to 30 percent of the information in most organizations is automated. The remaining information required to conduct daily business reside in manual form, such as paper files, or in the minds of executives and employees.
There is another reason for the lack of success with this technical approach; often, when it is focused solely on data elements and data entities, the end product is too granular to hold the attention of the managers who could benefit most from an explicit and shared information model of the organization and its business processes. Without the related business processes integrated into the model, the data elements and entities infrequently become transformed into usable information to support the broader need for enterprise data management and integration. A common practice within the IT community is to redesign the information architecture in response to problems caused by the proliferation of islands of technology and data within organizations. In the past, as organizations built IT solutions to meet specific business functions, they created a patchwork of redundant and inconsistent databases focused on the immediate needs of one particular business function or process, without regard to other practices or processes. Even when done well, these efforts create data models that are far too large and cumbersome to be of much practical value to end-users or managers.
No matter how poorly past information architecture development efforts may have turned out, the desired result is too important to be allowed to languish as a technical exercise by its designers. If used to articulate a richer and more meaningful picture of information, it can be an essential tool for establishing information management strategically. As a result, if the information architecture is understandable by both technical staff and management, these solutions will be able to bridge the gap between new technologies and the business needs of the organization.
Information Architecture Concepts
The term hjiwnmtion Architecture is a confusing term, as it combines two words, both of which have a wide range of connotations. This often increases the challenges of developing a shared definition understood by both technical staff and management. Even without an established definition, experience shows that senior information system managers are seriously concerned with the issue of information architecture within their organization. Moreover, these same system managers often indicate that information architecture is their foremost issue. Arriving at a common definition of what an information architecture really is, and realizing its potential value, goes a long way towards bridging the gap between these two groups.
Both management and technical consultants have been talking about the importance and advantage of information in organizations for many years. The creation of a properly defined, commonly agreed-upon, and consistently managed information architecture allows all groups to speak the same language and use information to make meaningful business decisions.
Two Target Audiences to Consider
The outcome of the information architecture effort should be a structure that uses available technologies to shape the environment so a specified set of activities can be accomplished by technical staff and management. While the deliverable structure is the implementation of particular technology solutions, there are two levels of intermediate design outcomes that should be derived to guide the transition from architectural vision to actual technology. These outputs help the communication process between the designer of the information architecture and the designer's two key audiences-non-technical individuals (users and managers) and technical staff. The first level of outputs describes the architectural vision in user and manager-centered terms. The second articulates the details of the architectural vision for the technical staff who will be charged with implementing it. Given its origins in "techno-speak," the current practice of developing an information architecture fails to offer user/manager-centered outcomes. This presents a fundamental challenge in creating effective organizational information architecture. Adapting available technical tools, such as Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) technology, to serve the user and manager-centered needs is fraught with risk. Technical tools assume communication among technical staff who share professional terminology and technical experience and these tools support the physical implementation of the technology. User and manager-centered tools serve an entirely different purpose. They are primarily used to assist non-technical individuals, who have completely different levels of understanding, with the clear definition of their requirements in sufficient detail to meet functional requirements of the tool.
Goals of an Information Architecture
The following points include several key user/manager-oriented goals that an information architecture should address:
- Define the organization's key information domains and information flows.
- Define the boundaries of the organization's information.
- Identify strategies for effective information ownership and management.
- Make desired information management practices easier.
- Remove undesired information management practices.
- Improve adaptability by effectively communicating information management policies.
- Improve managerial communications by effectively communicating shared information models and needs.
Best information management practices
The process of translating the needs of the organization into an effective information architecture is unique within each organization. There are some outcomes that may qualify as best practices in a number of different water and wastewater utilities, but these are not necessarily "cookbook" ways of doing things. The adopted architecture must represent such specific factors as the way the organization works, the people who comprise its staff, the external reporting environment, and the existence of legacy systems. The essence of some current best practices are summarized here.
Enterprise Information Management Standards
Information is managed from the perspective of the enterprise. The alternative to this practice is to consider individual "systems" as solutions to the operational needs of the organization. For example, a laboratory information management (LIMS) application might be created without considering links to GIS. In the best practice, architectural decisions are made which consider related business functions and address them from the top down.
Standards are communicated and supported. The key concept in this best practice is that standards are sumorted, not imposed. This condition can only occur when standards are driven by users' needs for access to data, rather than from an arbitrary data format that is prescribed through a system solution. Users of spatial data, particularly, drive adoption of standards across working group boundaries, since GIS is a horizontal technology, one that spans the enterprise.
Understanding Information Requirements
Operational data supports day-to-day activities. Data is a critical commodity for a water ardor wastewater utility. Nevertheless, many operational computing systems with pre-set reporting formats, make access to data in other forms extremely difficult. This best practice supports users in the way they actually work, rather than through vendor-stipulated procedures. In fact, the way users want to work, optimized through enhanced technology enablers, should be the driving force for system deployment.
Management decisions are based on documentable information. One of the benefits of information system development is the ability to create an audit trail for decision-making. While the art of good management of people and organizations is often exemplified by the ability to make decisions when not all facts are known, an environment which enables more enlightened decision support is preferred. In organizations that enhance data access for executives, there is improved quality and greater confidence in the decision-making process.
Information Structure and Storage
The enterprise model supports distributed computing. Information Technology is a tool. The best practice, under the client/server model, is for users to be empowered to do their work efficiently. In the industry's more enlightened organizations, this means that the corporate database is managed as though it were logically centralized, even though it is physically distributed.
The enterprise model integrates individual user needs and enterprise goals. This best practice is the corollary to that which precedes it. In the decentralized, though carefully managed, integrated information environment, the needs of users and the enterprise are more closely aligned than when one or the other is dominant.
Information Ownership and Maintenance Responsibilities
Users own data for operational purposes and are custodians for the interests of the organization. Users who are included in the process of designing the integrated information environment are stakeholders in the corporate approach to information management. In this best practice, users become participants in the creation of an effective information architecture and take ownership of their databases, knowing that this activity supports other users within the utility.
Users maintain databases by doing their jobs. This final best practice is the outcome of the integration of process, people and technology. If work practices are optimized based on technology tools, and logically consistent data management and maintenance routines are created for the organization's workers, then data updating becomes a normal by-product of daily activities, This final point is the paradigm for creating the shared data environment in the first place, and it is the outcome toward which all water and wastewater groups should strive.
Summary
Developing an information architecture is a key strategy for water and wastewater utilities. The architecture adopted for the organization must reflect people, process and data. Properly implemented through recognition of organizational factors and business functions, best information management practices in the water and wastewater industry can combine to enable users to update databases by doing their jobs.