U.S. Census Bureau
Department of Commerce
Enterprise Solution Architecture / Technical Standards
- Established the first architecture review board for the Economic Directorate
- Created the first list of technical standards for the Economic Directorate
Challenge
The Economic Census involves collecting and processing information from more than 21 million businesses (including non-employers and administrative records data). Moving forward to 2012 and beyond, the leadership realized that program needed to evaluate the architecture of the system and determine a new target-state. The Economic Directorate, which manages the Economic Census that is conducted every 5 years, approached Octo Consulting Group to provide a target-state architecture for the program and address other critical issues related to a brittle architecture and lack of IT standards and architecture.
Approach
Octo consulting took an "Enterprise Architecture" perspective when supporting this customer. The project started with a comprenensive assessment of the current-state of the business and criticla business needs that would become the drivers for any target-state architecture decisions. It was followed by an alternatives analysis of conceptual architectures, followed by the definition of a more detailed solution architecture for the program. Octo supported the definition of target-state standards using facilitated sessions and helped create architecture governance boards by bridging executives and technologists.
Solutions
- Data Collection – Requirements and Constraints for Target-State
- Define Conceptual Target-State Solution for Economic Census 2012
- Select Software Solutions
- Provide an independent and objective view of the leading edge technologies within the industry and factoring these considerations into the evaluation and recommendations
- Support development of requirements and design for the 2012 Economic Census Transition Proof of Concept
- Oversight and advisory support for the 2012 Economic Census Transition decision making and Proof of Concept
- Development of a Transition Plan and actionable architecture document that the Branch Chiefs can then use to implement specific concepts and technologies for the 2012 Economic Census
Key focus areas included:
- Conceptual architecture
- Solution architecture
- Alternatives analysis
- Technical standards
- Architecture governance
- Transition planning
- Proof of Concept support
Results
- Created the first Enterprise Architecture for the Economic Census
- Defined a comprehensive business capabilities document that was agreed to by the business
- Defined a governance model that allowed the Economic Directorate and the new CIO communicate and collaborate on architecture decisions
- Provided hands-on advisory support leading to the successful Proof of Concept and
RESULTS MATTER