1. Cooperation based on the GSBPM Max Booleman (Statistics Netherlands) and Jenny Linnerud (Statistics Norway)

2. Nordic and Netherlands Business Architecture (BA) Task Force The general goal of the BA exercise is to facilitate common development and/or sharing of IT solutions and software tools amongst the participating institutes.

3. Members of the BA task force Denmark: Mr. Jesper Berger, Mr. Torben Søborg Finland: Mr. Henrik Hietanen, Mr. Jussi Melkas Norway: Ms. Jenny Linnerud, Mr. Peder Næs (co-chair) Sweden: Mr. Hans Ireback, Mr. Gösta Nilsson, Mr. Martin Axelson (from august 2009) The Netherlands: Mr. Max Booleman (chair), Mr. Robbert Renssen Each institute had two to three representatives with at least one representative per institute having good working knowledge of business architecture.

4. Mandate 1) Compare and translate the statistical business architecture model used by the Netherlands into the process model used by some of the Nordic countries (based on the METIS model). –Map (sub)processes onto each other; –Identify differences and similarities; –Identify strong points and weaknesses of both approaches.

5. Mandate (cont.) 2) Develop a common framework based on the above work. Scope and level of detail (granularity) to be decided by the task force. The framework should consist of at least –A set of common BA principles; –A common set of elementary (sub)processes; –A common language of architectural notions and definitions, using a Wiki-approach; –Any other elements considered necessary by the BA group. It may be worthwhile to discuss one or more case studies in order to test the practicality.

6. Mandate (cont.) 3) Based on the previous two activities, it should also be indicated to what extent national BA’s agree with, or differ from, the GSBPM. In particular attention should be paid to possible showstoppers that inhibit closer cooperation on IT solutions. On the other hand, suggestions for good opportunities for further cooperation may also be given.

7. Results BA-principles: The ESS Code of Practice (CoP) functioned well as the common highest level of business principles Common concepts and definitions: There was no need for a special list of concepts and definitions. The GSBPM-terminology was sufficient for this level of cooperation. Using GSBPM: To have a common framework in the GSBPM was very useful for the work of this task force.

8. Results (cont.) Sometimes the text is formulated in terms of solutions and not in terms of problems, e.g. there may be other ways to estimate population parameters than to calculate weights (5.6) and aggregates (5.7). Not all activities in the GSBPM are well located according to a general view on the statistical production process

9. Results (cont.)  If the GSBPM is meant as a process model with a logical order of activities, then we note that it may be necessary, in some cases, to begin a 'later' subprocess before you can end an 'earlier' subprocess. The opposite should not be possible i.e you should not end a ‘later’ subprocess before an ‘earlier’ one.

10. Results (cont.) Mappings were made between the national business process models of Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands and the 2-digit level of GSBPM v4.0. None of the countries adopted fully the GSBPM but Norway and Sweden were the closest. The model of Statistics Netherlands is more detailed so it is also easy to map.

11. Results (cont.) The mapping exercise was carried out for the phases Collect (4), Process (5), Analyse (6) and Disseminate (7). The group then decided to focus attention on Process, Analyse and Disseminate because it was foreseen that we could start a co-operation to share and develop software in these parts of the everyday statistical production process.

12. Results (cont.) We used the 2-digit level of GSBPM as a classification to group activities according to their main process. So for each activity one and only one GSBPM 2-digit process was assigned to be its main process. The next stage was to identify tools that are possible candidates for re-use according to their present user or users. These tools were divided into ‘developed by an NSI’ and ‘developed by others’.

13. Results (cont.) For example for 5.3 Review, validate and edit possible candidates for reuse mentioned by the group were: Preselect, SELECT and EDIT from Statistics Sweden, Macroview from Statistics Netherlands, Banff and Canseis from Statistics Canada, ISEE (DynaRev, Pris and Structur) from Statistics Norway. Clearly a more detailed description of each tool would be needed to identify exactly which activities are covered by the tool.

14. Results (cont.) At the end promising areas were identified to develop new common software tools. These areas are characterised by a lack of existing tools, by a clear statistical methodology and/or simply by the feeling that there is a need for tools there. These areas were 5.1 Integrate data, 5.2 Classify and code, 5.3 Review, Validate and Edit, 7.1 Update output systems and 7.2 Produce products.

15. Results (cont.) Other promising areas could be found in new generic services like a statistical unit server, a population server or an archiving tool.

16. Next stages After a promising start we saw the need to improve local facilities to facilitate international co-operation like the possibility of video conferencing to develop a common information architecture together with the ESSnet COmmon Reference Architecture (CORA)