Washington State Department of Ecology : Information Management Washington State Department of Ecology : Information Management
In January 1995, the Washington Department of Ecology began a six month Information Strategy Planning process to provide the department the opportunity to:
The project approach was based upon an application development methodology called Information Engineering Methodology (IEM). The phases of IEM define the tasks and deliverables over the full spectrum of information systems development, from strategic planning to systems implementation. This project focused upon the initial Information Strategy Planning (ISP) phase and resulted in an agency-wide Information Strategy Plan tied to the organization's key business drivers and information needs.
In addition to the delivery of the Information Strategy Plan, the project also required that one selected Business Area (which is made up of business functions, information and how they inter-relate) be analyzed at a high level. This document represents the findings of the ISP project; a separate document will be prepared for the deliverables of the Business Area Analysis (BAA) project. The ISP project team was made up of consultants from Claremont Technology Group and Ross & Associates, and was guided by a ten member Ecology steering committee consisting of a mix of Ecology staff and management.
The centerpiece of the ISP project was a series of eight all-day meetings with Ecology staff. These meetings, which were focused around Ecology program areas, typically included 15-25 staff. The meetings were used to identify emerging initiatives and changing circumstances that will shape the future of individual program and/or agency information management objectives, current and emerging information needs and priorities for future information management enhancements. Additionally, contact was made with three separate groups of Ecology external stakeholders (public interest, regulated community, and other agencies) to explore this same set of issues.
Following on from these meetings, project consultants undertook a review of existing Ecology information management systems and held a series of small meetings and one-on-one interviews with Ecology staff to further support preparation of the ISP deliverables.
Upon completion of these activities the project team compiled and refined the information gathered for review with the ISP Steering Committee. Having reviewed and further refined these findings, they were then presented to Ecology's Executive Management Team (EMT) and Executive Policy Team (EPT) through a series of briefings.
Immediately following the completion of the ISP, Ecology launched a second project to conduct a high level analysis of a selected Business Area. The Facility/Site Identification Business Area was selected for further analysis and documentation. This selection benefits the agency by the development and documentation of an agency-wide integrated approach to the identification and location of all facilities and sites.
In each of the ISP facilitated sessions with Ecology staff and outside stakeholder groups, participants were asked to identify the events or pressures that currently or in the future will shape Ecology's overall program direction and work activities and have implications for information needs, uses, and management.
These events / pressures were referred to as Information Management 'Drivers'. The following are the eight categories of information-based drivers which emerged from the sessions:
These eight categories are directly linked to emerging changes and strategies in the way that Ecology performs its business. Meeting participants consistently indicated that Ecology's current information systems poorly support the Department's ability to move forward with these strategies.
To further refine an understanding of Ecology's information needs and uses, meeting participants were asked to identify key questions and then indicate how well those questions are supported by existing information management efforts.
Although more than 150 Ecology staff and several outside stakeholder groups participated, strong and consistent themes emerged related to information needs and associated priorities. The approximately 400 questions identified were grouped into six categories of information needs.
These six Information Need Categories provide a critical basis for understanding the nature and priority of Ecology's current and emerging information management needs. From the standpoint of Ecology's environmental management functions, it is clear that Ecology has an increasing need to link data on pollution release and resource usage activities, pollution prevention management and control initiatives, and environmental conditions.
The information management vision that emerged from the ISP process has four critical capabilities:
Support of the above information management capabilities requires information that is integrated across media and across functional/program areas and, additionally, must contain a geographic locator capability. Understandably, building information systems that accomplish these tasks throughout the agency is difficult and complex and should only be attempted using a 'divide and conquer' approach. The following sections outline the components, tasks, and time frames of such a plan to enable Ecology to realize its information management vision.
As part of the ISP meetings with Ecology staff, business functions were identified from each of the program areas. This information was consolidated across the programs so a high-level functional analysis could be performed that identified and laid out Ecology's activity hierarchy. By cross-referencing these findings with the identified information needs described above, and analyzing the results, Ecology's Business Areas were identified. A Business Area is a natural grouping of business functions and information needs.
The Business Areas that make up Ecology were defined by analyzing the interactions between Ecology's business functions and information needs. The 'interaction' between business functions and information needs is a representation of how that information is used by each business function. This results in a matrix of information types vs. business functions, and by using a method called 'clustering', the Business Areas can be identified as the logical (clustered) groups of business functions and information types.
Ecology's 24 Business Areas are listed below in alphabetical order:
Once this list was developed and confirmed with Ecology staff and management, the ISP project team turned its attention to developing the ISP Implementation Plan which would outline the necessary steps the agency needs to take to begin implementing its Information Management Vision.
While assessing the potential starting points for the application development process, the ISP team identified the following inputs as critical for that selection to be made:
By reviewing these inputs in relation to the different Information Need Categories, the ISP team prioritized the Information Need Category of 'Environmental Conditions' as the first Information Need Category for development. This category includes the Business Areas of Facility/Site Identification, Natural Resources, Environmental Monitoring, and Facility/Site Activities and Releases Description & Characterization.
The selection of 'Environmental Conditions' to be the first category to have integrated information system support will provide the groundwork for the 'Ecology Activities' and the 'Connecting Ecology's Activities to Environmental Results' Information Need Categories. This selection will require the development of the Facility/Site Identification Business Area, and consequently, the integration of facility data across all programs. In addition, it will require that GIS links and a standardized GIS approach be implemented across the agency. These benefits are requirements in achieving Ecology's Information Management Vision.
The ISP Implementation Plan (for years 1-2) achieves the first set of Business Areas within the scope of the information need category 'Environmental Conditions'. The first biennium (July 1995 - June 1997) will include the analysis and systems development / implementation for:
The ISP Implementation Plan (for years 3-5) achieves the set of Business Areas within the scope of the information need categories 'Ecology Activities' and 'Connecting Ecology's Activities to Environmental Results'.
It is recommended that the ISP implementation be headed up by an ISP Implementation Manager. This position should report directly to the agency director and possess an effective budget and decision making authority. It is recommended that an ISP Steering Committee be established to assist the ISP Implementation Manager in the project's planning, control, resource allocation and issue management.
At this time there is some ambiguity in how the ISP Implementation Manager and the current agency IS Manager will function together. There are potential organizational, functional and staffing overlaps which will occur across these two positions over the next 6-12 months. It is recommended that, as the ISP Implementation begins, the ISP Implementation Manager and the IS Manager work closely together to address these overlaps, as both will control resources which are critical to both the ISP Implementation, and to the continuing support of Ecology's current information systems.
The ISP Implementation Plan has been developed with the assumption that the information system professionals assigned to the project are highly skilled in the use of IEM and the Texas Instruments IEF CASE tools. Although Ecology's information systems professionals currently lack adequate skills in these areas, it is believed that they will be able to acquire these skills within 6-12 months and take over a significant amount of the application development work during their participation on the ISP projects. Thus, it is recommended that consultants experienced in IEM and IEF be used in the first Business Area Analysis and Business System Implementation projects in the plan, as technology transfer activities continue with Ecology IS professionals.
Having completed Information Strategy Planing, Ecology is now prepared to begin its integrated information systems development which will ultimately result in the agency achieving its Information Management Vision. The following deliverables from this ISP project lay the foundation for, and will facilitate the process of, realizing the necessary agency-wide Information, Business Systems, and Technical Architectures which support this vision:
The Information Management Vision and Drivers will be essential when determining the fundamental business strategies to be implemented by each new information system.
The ISP Implementation Plan and associated Resource Requirements will allow Ecology to appropriately schedule, fund and staff the implementation of the ISP's recommendations.
The ISP Implementation Organization Structure defines the required management infrastructure which will ensure that the implementation projects are coordinated and effective.
The Priority Business Area Definitions will enable the correct scoping and direction of the first five years of Business Area Analysis projects.
The Technical Architecture will direct the implementation of agency-wide standards for a disciplined application development approach, integrated hardware and software environments, and common look and feel of agency-wide information systems.
The agency-wide Data Model and Activity Hierarchy (recorded within the IEF development tool) will ensure that the high quantities of analysis and design results can be organized, coordinated and integrated, while maintaining the high rate of information systems development.
For more information, contact:
Debbie Stewart, Applications and Data Services Manager
Department of Ecology
PO BOX 47600
Olympia WA 98504-7600
Telephone: (360) 407-7048
E-Mail: dste461@ecy.wa.gov