Despite the focus on eGovernment and the delivery of seamless services to citizens, Government continues to be challenged to deliver business interoperability goals. Interviews with Government Enterprise Architecture stakeholder and a search of the literature suggests why government has failed to achieve seamless service delivery. It appears that interoperability in government is largely a combination of bottom-up, standards or application design based approaches. These result in Information Systems solutions that achieve interoperability within the application and technology domains, but not the business domain. Consequently, the public sector operates as a fractured collection of departments, with much complexity and bureaucracy reducing the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery. The Business Interoperability Framework (BIF) draws from three disciplines of management practice and applies industry standards. These practice areas are; Enterprise Architecture; Service Oriented Architecture; and Business Process Management. The frameworks, standards/specifications that will be referenced are ISO/IEC 10746 (RM-ODP), TOGAF®, OASIS, UMM, BMM, BPMN and ISO 15000. Key takeaways: -- How to achieve top-down business interoperability outcomes -- An architected framework for business success -- Methods and tools that can be used to deliver business/IT alignment

1. A Business Interoperability
Framework for
Government
Christine Stephenson
Enterprise Services Manager (QLD)
Enterprise Architects

2. Overview
• Background
• Research Problem
• Business Interoperability Concepts
• Business Interoperability Framework
• Summary
• Questions

3. Sponsors
To examine the state of play of interoperability among government
jurisdictions, departments and agencies in Australia.

4. Interoperability Challenges
• Lack of accountability and ownership
• Lack of resources
• The so-called federated model
• Lack of engagement with all stakeholders
• Lack of government wide business
transformation
• Lack of focus on business interoperability
• Effective use of Government funds

5. Definition
For the purpose of this research study,
interoperability is defined as:
“… the ability to work together to deliver
services in a seamless, uniform and efficient
manner across multiple organisations and
information technology systems” (AGIMO,
2013)

6. Research Problem
• Interoperability is a critical success factor
to deliver online public services
• Interoperability frameworks are required to
guide practitioners
• Interoperability goals are not effectively
realised by government
• Lack of a top-down framework to align
business interoperability objectives with
strategies

7. Literature Review
Enterprise Interoperability
Government EA
Architecture Frameworks
• What? • Interoperability • eGIF
• How? • Barriers • International
• Strategy • Australia
• SOA
• Interoperability

8. Strategic Alignment
Source: Henderson & Venkatraman 1999

9. Research Question
What are the critical success factors for
business interoperability in Government?

10. Building the Framework
• ISO 10746 RM-ODP
• International • OMG BMM
standards • ISO15000 ebXML
• Commonly • Value Networks
accepted • TOGAF
frameworks, • OASIS RAF for SOA
specifications and • OASIS SOA Ref Model
concepts • UN/CEFACT UMM
• Strategically • REA Ontology
Aligned • BPM
• BPMN

11. Business Interoperability
Framework Concepts
Seamless
Citizen
Services

12. Contextual
OMG’s Business National Collaboration Sets the context for
Motivation Model Framework Government
Collaboration
Community
Capability coherence provides
OASIS concept of
organisations with a model for
RM-ODP Concepts Service
strategic alignment

13. Community
Can be one or
more
government
jurisdictions,
agencies,
departments or
partners
A community is a federation, which is a coming together of a
number of groups answering to different authorities (and thus
representable as distinct domains) in order that they may jointly
cooperate to achieve some objective.” (ISO 15000)

14. Business Motivation
• Object Management
Group
• Defines Strategic
Alignment
Requirements
• Consistency
• Common Vocabulary
• Required to measure
organisation
performance

15. Enterprise
• Is part of a
community
• Belongs to one or
more communities
• Driven by its own
business motivations
• Capability uplift
delivered through
Tactics
• Objectives measure
change delivered

16. Contract
• Agreement
between
collaboration
partners
• Policies are
defined to describe
how common
objectives will be
realised
• Must have agreed
principles
• Roles must be
clear

17. Capability
• More than just an activity or a
function
• Inter-connection between
people, process, knowledge
(information) and technology
• A unique way that delivers
extraordinary results
• Capability Coherence aligns
strategy to agency capabilities

18. Service
• Services in this context are
ones that realise the common
objective
• Citizens are individuals or
organisations
• A service is the outcome
citizens want
• The contract specifies..

19. Conceptual
Porter’s Value Chain Model
Agency A
Public
Partner
Agency B
REA Ontology

20. Business Service Identification
Queensland
Government
Service
Classification
Business Service
Service Line
Service Mechanism
Business Service Service
Service Line
Service Mechanism Provider
Extended to
identify
Collaboration
Partners

21. Logical
Flow of complex
business processes and
dictates the sequence of
business transactions
Defines the information
exchanged between
business partners as a
result of a business
Gathers existing
transaction
business domain
knowledge
Defines and documents
the global choreography
in an inter-organisational
business process
between collaborating
business partners

22. Logical
Logical Process
(Consumer)
(Consumer)
Exporter
Exporter
Modelling
UMM, BPMN,
Waste Transport
(announced)
Waste Transport
(arrived)
UML
Pick one!
ExportAuthority
ExportAuthority
(Provider)
(Provider)
Pre-inform Waste Inform Waste
Transport Receipt
Waste Transport Waste Transport
(announced) (arrived)
ImportAuthority
ImportAuthority
(Provider)
(Provider)
Pre-inform Waste Inform Waste
Transport Receipt
Waste Transport Waste Transport
(announced) (arrived)
Legend
Legend
Intra-organisation
Process
(Consumer)
(Consumer)
Importer
Importer
Inter-organisation
Process
Information Exchange
in the form of
Message Flows

23. Physical
Business Documents
Register
Design Time
&
Business Process Discover Core/Industry
(UMM) Components Logical View
Registeries/Repositories
XML-based: XML Specification
Schema, Document Schema
Collaboration Protocol Collaboration Partners Collaboration Protocol
Profile Agreement Profile
Service Service
Run Time
Transport
Interface Interface
Physical View
Package
Business Services/ Business Services/
Applications Applications

24. Summary
Community

25. Contact Details
Christine Stephenson
Enterprise Services Manager, QLD
Enterprise Architects
Level 36, Riparian Plaza, 71 Eagle St
Brisbane, QLD 4000
M: 0402513098 P:+61 7 3121 3199
www.enterprisearchitects.com

26. Questions