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| CEI - Chief of Enterprise Integration A new piece to solve the IT maturation puzzle: Building systems integration into government organizational structureThe purpose of this article is to recommend to federal and state government the formation of a new organizational personnel structure to guide the growth and maintenance of its business data systems. A new position would be created to modernize IT job classification. The person in that role would bring a permanent focus to integrating all business data systems in government to more closely align IT to the government's mission. For convenience of discussion and to emphasize the scope of the responsibilities, I've suggested the title of Chief of Enterprise Integration, CEI.
Governments are clarifying IT hardware consolidation, and ITIL is improving many areas of client services. What remains is to better coordinate business data integration. Who will guide the enormous growth of complexity? Left alone, IT managers will adapt government business systems at extra cost and a slow centralization learning curve. To address this challenge in a more efficient way, an organizational change is described here that will accelerate the integration of business systems. There are major differences between this new position and the CIO, enterprise architects, systems integrators and data managers. The CEI would be similar to a data architect but would have authority equal to the CEO regarding data integration in order to be able to mandate renitent areas of government to integrate and re-engineer their systems. This new position would solve the problem of slow and unfocused voluntary collaboration between government organizations. I first conceived of the Chief of Enterprise Integration idea during FBI Director Robert Muller's testimony before congress regarding lack of intelligence database connectivity after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in NYC. The FBI had the same data integration failings as every other government and private organization I had worked for. There needs to be a person of such high authority that they can optimize data configurations in every area of government without having progress impeded by bureaucracy. Not to have such a position weakens government's ability to respond to its citizens' needs. The CEI's key responsibility would be to ensure that their organization works towards enterprise-wide data integration on an ongoing basis. To ensue that there is cooperation between unwilling organizational units, the CEI should have greater authority than all other positions except for the highest executive officer. A Chief of Enterprise Integration position needs to be created within every government organization. A CEI would coordinate data integration in each organization, and all CEIs in turn would follow policies set by a top CIO, for example the state CIO. State or federal institutions would have integration managers dedicated to promoting efficiency within their organizations, but also have defined partners in the rest of government researching opportunities to cooperate with them. The objective is to ensure that all government organizations are working towards integration internally and externally with CEIs as strategic planners. This will align IT to government's mission more effectively than any other method. The CEI's work would
involve data integration processes described in the Federal Enterprise
Architecture Framework (FEAF), but the CEI would add integration continuity,
authority and define who the community of integrators are throughout government.
The CEI helps define the people who use the tools and methods described
in FEAF. The CEI position would eliminate these problems: (1) large, unnecessary maintenance costs associated with poor database design (2) rewrites of large systems (3) poor functionality of systems (4) unnecessary human business procedures (5) redundant files and computer systems (6) incompatible systems. Benefits that the CEI position would bring: (1) new features not envisioned by government organizations or the public as a result of optimal data configuration (2) greater efficiencies in government and more productivity (3) more collaboration between government entities (4) cost savings (5) institutional flexibility, ability to adapt to change (6) more time for computer programmers to add capabilities because many new capabilities would only require simple joins with far less coding. CEI responsibilities The main goal of the CEI is to use data integration to align IT to the
mission of the organization. CEI responsibilities would include those defined in the Federal Enterprise Architecture, and I have listed some additional ones: 1. Create a long-term, enterprise-wide plan to integrate all business systems, including the prioritized detailed steps for the plan. Publish a yearly report of the plan's status. 2. Analyze all planned computer systems and data flows for all departments in the organization to make sure that there is no redundancy, poor design, and field misnaming. Ensure that all tables are in 3rd normal form. Analyze each new IT project with an eye towards enterprise-wide and government-wide integration. 3. Look for collaborative enterprise-wide and government-wide opportunities and watch for potential conflicts with other such systems. Co produce an expanded library of best practices of integration management with the CEI community. Coordinate with the top government CIO. 4. Publish high-level data relationship charts. Maintain centralized documentation of the integration process so that there is integration continuity. 5. Modify the workflow and data systems of other departments in the organization to advance enterprise-wide integration. To do this, the CEI's authority for system change would supersede other authorities except for the CEO. 6. Ensure that clients of shared applications receive good service. 7. Educate all employees to think from an enterprise-wide viewpoint. 8. Create an environment where enterprise wide integration is promoted throughout all facets of government. This includes working collectively with other CEIs to recommend establishing or changing legislation, and formulating budget and operating policies for the whole government. This is further discussed on this web page: Detailed Description of CEI Functions The CEI position would in effect, guarantee that government is perpetually guided towards integration through standardized policies and procedures. The CEI would consistently align information systems to government's mission. Even though formal CEI classification does not yet exist, the core duties can, and should be assigned to an existing employee. Then government can immediately gain many of the benefits of the CEI, such as a dedicated position to avert system fragmentation at the design stage of projects, recommendations for well planned IT growth, focused collaboration with outside entities. The difference between the proposed classification, and the informal position which can be implemented immediately, is the authority to mandate other departments in the organization to implement integration. The problem of not having this authority is particularly important, and is described further in this and related articles on this web site. The empowered CEI job may appear to be abstract, but it is not. The lack of authority to mandate cross-departmental integration is so determining, that the 911 Commission specifically identified it as one of the factors that weakened U.S. intelligence before the 911 disaster. The 911 Commission states that: Only presidential leadership can develop government-wide concepts and standards. Well-meaning agency officials [..] may only be able to modernize the stovepipes, not replace them. Currently, no one is doing this job. The purpose of this article is to legislate the CEI to be the person doing that job. The goal is to build collaboration into government organizational structure. Until this classification is formally created, the recommendations found here can be implemented by any government or for that matter, non-government IT department. Success depends upon how good the systems integrator is at encouraging voluntary cooperation. Integration would still happen but it would happen slower. For convenience of
discussion, the word CEI is used to describe both the empowered CEI and
the position without the authority to mandate integration, except where
the differences are discussed A unique aspect of this position is that it requires an expert in relational database design. This is so that they can recognize how a field handled at the micro level, greatly affects the functionally and connectivity of the whole organization at the macro level. The experienced relational database designer could identify hidden future integration potential in a table design that would otherwise be missed by programmers and project managers. The database designer can see potential opportunities for new services to many people throughout the organization because knowledge of the data would no longer be locked up in a process-oriented system. There already is a person in charge of data design for each individual project (the DBA/designer/project manager) similar to what I'm describing, but when that project is completed, they are no longer involved in keeping abreast of new enterprise-wide system integration matters, and a new person must learn it all over again for the next project. For large organizations, where is the integration glue that formally connects different sections of the same organization? Is there only informal cooperation with few standards? Does the organization experience system fragmentation when a manager not savvy about data design purchases a new application without knowing how it should fit in with the rest of the organization? IT is not working optimally. Licensing applications are often built as separate systems so that in one case, the applicant tracking program could not fully integrate with the licensing application because of the lack of a uniform identification number. The significance of this field would be caught by the CEI in the design phase, nipping any incompatibility problems in the bud. Since it wasn't caught, the problems that this caused one agency lasted for years. The lack of a centralized employee database with connectivity to the personnel department is another example. The unnecessary maintenance costs resulting from these oversights have far exceeded the original cost of the systems. The way that problems
occur is that programmers, frequently contractors, because they are temporary,
create runaway code with not enough supervision in table design, and create
new databases without understanding how they could be integrated with
the rest of the organization in the future. There is a lack of integration
continuity when data systems are deployed at different times by different
managers. The lack of integration continuity causes problems such as those
in the Maricopa County, AZ justice system where different agencies assigned
multiple numbers to the same criminal cases causing confusion on the part
of judges and attorneys. A CEI would prevent these situations and maintain
integration continuity. (Jailhouse Talk - Case Files - Integration Initiatives
- CIO Magazine Mar 1,2003 http://www.cio.com/article/31738/ Many problems would have been avoided if there had been a Chief of Enterprise Integration position when the large systems of the 1990s were created. This is the one concept that has been missing from many government organizations. It would greatly and permanently enhance how all of the organization's components work together. It would help establish a common data vocabulary for the organization's sections, for example by standardizing the fiscal department's chart of accounts. The CEI would analyze each new project down to the table design level before it's implemented and study how it could be used regarding enterprise-wide interrelationships. Since that person would know about most tables in the organization, they would develop a deep knowledge of all of the organization's data processes and be able to maintain a constant overview of the changing data landscape, making it easier to discover new opportunities, avoid conflicts in the future, and avoid having a database paint itself into a corner with no path to future connectivity such as in the Maricopa County example above. There may already be some efforts towards coordinating work between different sections of an organization, but this is different in that the person responsible for enterprise integration would have to be experienced in relational database design and be a permanent coordinator of change in the organization to bring energy and focus to the integration process. The establishment of the CEI position will strengthen an organization in two ways: (1) It will separate out the job of data analysis from all other IT functions such as security, hardware, etc. so that there will be complete focus on information integration being aligned to government's mission. The organization's core mission is reflected not in the hardware but in the information, which should be organized for optimum productivity. Organize the information first, then hardware, security, workflows, etc. can be better planned. (2) Secondly, the position removes the weakness of being able to see the big picture but not having the authority to make all departments work together. A good example of a position with authority to modify all departments is the Information Security Officer in California state government (ISO). The ISO orders everyone to set up methods to shred Social Security numbers that get thrown in the trash, and it gets done faster than if the ISO did not have that authority. A new organizational structure is needed. Technical innovation cannot solve the problem that will be handled by the CEI. What is needed is an organizational change. As government business systems grow in complexity, a specialized integration manager is required to guide the growth of these systems. Here are some descriptions of how the CEI would work.
http://www.gov-ideas.com/
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