I have just finished another ICT related technical assistance visit with the government of a developing country. Even in mid-2014, I spend a great deal of time teaching the basics of enterprise architecture and the need to add form and structure to ICT strategies.
Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) have been around for quite some time, with some references dating back to the 1980s. ITIL, COBIT, TOGAF, and other ICT standards or recommendations have been around for quite some time as well, and training and Certifications are part of almost all professional development programs.
So why is the idea of designing ICT infrastructure still an abstract for many in government and even private industry? It cannot be the lack of training opportunities or publicly available reference materials. It cannot be the lack of technology or the lack of consultants willing to assist in the implementation of EA, SOA or interoperability within any organization or industry group.
Over the past two years, we have conducted several Interoperability Readiness Assessments within governments. The evaluation initially takes the form of a survey and is distributed to a sample of 100 or more participants, with positions ranging from clerical task-based workers to Cxx or high-level leaders within government ministries and agencies.
Questions range from basic knowledge of ICT to data exchange, security, and decision support systems.
While the idea of information silos is well documented and understood, it is still quite surprising to see that “siled” attitudes are still prevalent in modern organizations. Answer the following question:
This question was not about sharing data outside of government, but rather within government. It indicates a great lack of trust when interacting with other government agencies, which of course will prevent any possibility of developing an SOA or facilitating the exchange of information between other agencies. The end result is a lower level of integrity and value in national decision support capacity.
The impact of technology and standardization
Most governments are considering or implementing data center consolidation initiatives. There are several good reasons for this, including:
- Cost of real estate, energy, personnel, maintenance and support systems.
- Transition from ICT infrastructure based on CAPEX to OPEX based
- Potential for virtualization of servers and storage resources
- Standardized cloud computing resources
While all of those justifications for data center consolidation are valid, the value potentially pales in comparison to the potential for smarter use of data within organizations, and even externally to outside agencies. To get to this point, a senior government official declared:
“Government personnel are not necessarily the most technically competent. This results in reliance on vendors for support, thought leadership and, in some cases, contractual commitments. Formal training and certification in Project management is not usually part of the capacity development of government employees.
Scientific approaches to project management, especially those that lend themselves to institutionalization and adoption in different agencies, will ensure smarter and more time-bound implementation of projects. Subsequently, general knowledge and technical skills are scarce in government departments and agencies, and when employees gain technical competence they will leave to join private industry. “
There is also a problem with a variety of international organizations that go to developing countries or developing economies, and offer one-time or no-use or low-cost ICT infrastructure, such as for health-related agencies, that are not compatible with any. other government owned or operated. applications or data sets.
And of course, the more this happens, the more difficult it is for government organizations to enable interoperability or data sharing and thus the idea of an architecture or data sharing becomes impossible or extremely difficult to implement or achieve.
The path to EA, SOA and decision support
There are several actions to take on the way to meeting our ICT goals.
- Include training in EE, service delivery (ITIL), governance (COBIT) and SOA in all university and professional ICT education programs. It’s not just about writing code or setting switches, we need to ensure a holistic understanding of the value of ICT in all ICT education, producing a higher level of qualified graduates entering the workforce.
- Ensure that government and private organizations develop or adopt standards or regulations that advance enterprise architecture, information exchange models, and SOAs as a basic requirement of ICT planning and operations.
- Secure the knowledge and support of executives, preferably through a formal position such as the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The principles developed and published through the CIO should be adopted and governed by all organizations,
No one expects large organizations, particularly government organizations, to change their information independence cultures overnight. This is a long-term evolution as the world continues to better understand the value and scope of value within existing data sets and begins to create new categories of data. Big data, data analytics and the exploitation of structured and unstructured data will empower the ready and leave the unprepared far behind.
For a government, not having the ability to access, identify, share, analyze and address data created across all agencies will inhibit effective decision support, potentially impacting disaster response, security, economic growth and the national quality of life in general.
If there is a call to action in this message, it is up to governments to take a close look at how their national ICT policies, strategies, human capacity and operations are meeting national goals. Prioritizing the use of EAs and supporting frameworks or standards will provide better guidance across government, and all steps taken within the framework will add value to the overall ICT capacity.
