Issue 5 - May 2009
The Irish Government Streamlines its Decision-making Processes with Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution
Like many organisations today, the Irish Government faced the challenge of improving its decision-making process by successfully bringing together knowledge from diverse sources and personalizing the information for those receiving it so that it’s relevant to them. Working with Quark and its XML technology, the Irish Government implemented a dynamic publishing solution based on Quark® XML Author and vastly improved the process that underlines decision making in Ireland — introducing an unprecedented level of efficiency that brings together thousands of civil servants across the Government.
|
Moving to A Modern Approach
Since the foundation of the Irish state in the 1920s, government memoranda, the basic document in the Government decision-making process, were produced and distributed through a manual, paper-based system. This method consumed large amounts of time and effort, resulting in time delays at various points in the system and making document security difficult. Ensuring that memoranda complied with Government rules on structure, content, and presentation was challenging. Collaboration and knowledge sharing was inefficient, cumbersome, and time consuming.
A report by leading consultants concluded that significant efficiencies could be gained by introducing an application which addressed the process of Government decision making, specifically in the creation, distribution, and management of Cabinet documents and the running of Cabinet meetings.
Dynamic Publishing with eCabinet
The purpose of eCabinet Systems® was to make the process of decision making more efficient by introducing a system that provided dynamic and collaborative working and reduced the vast amounts of paper and manual processes required to bring together memoranda for the Government.
“eCabinet is a Web-based application, using XML technologies, that electronically supports the process, from beginning to end, of preparing proposals for submission to Government (Cabinet), bringing them to the Cabinet table and subsequently recording/issuing Cabinet decisions,” said Philip Hamell, Government Secretariat, Dept of the Taoiseach (Prime Minister).
Improved Decision Making Process
Government memoranda must adhere to specific guidelines on their structure and content laid out in the Cabinet Handbook. The rules expressed in the Cabinet handbook are aimed at ensuring that senior management and Ministers have all the necessary information to make a decision and to ensure that the consultation and collaboration process has included all the appropriate sources in the Government.
Using dynamic publishing technology from Quark, innovative and personalized digital display formats help users make the adjustment from reading hard copy to accessing knowledge on-screen. All users, including Ministers, are able to access key information much more quickly and readily, as the system has a focus on bringing increased clarity to the presentation of Government memoranda. This succinct presentation of information is key to the improvement in the decision-making process gained from eCabinet.
Personalisation is Key
All senior management have one thing in common: they need information presented to them in ways that enable them to absorb the most relevant aspects very quickly – and be able to quickly access such other supporting information promptly as and when they need it.
The use of XML in eCabinet enables the instantaneous, dynamic publishing of eCabinet content and the personalized presentation of key information not just to senior management but also to all 6,500 users of the system.
“One of the main reasons for the success of this project is XML and the use of XML within the application. It’s a very powerful format. XML allowed us to repurpose the information that we got into the system and present it in whatever way we need to different users, as different users have different requirements. That’s where the beauty of XML Author came in, because it looked like Microsoft® Word to users, every department had it and we weren’t exposing the users to the raw XML,” according to Louise Jevens, IT Director, Dept of the Taoiseach.
Deploying Across the Enterprise
The deployment of an application to 6,500 users across the Irish Government enterprise raised considerable technological and deployment challenges. The XML infrastructure Web portal and the Word-based, XML-authoring environment ensured that the solution was intuitive, easy to use, and easily deployed. Combining the innovative incorporation of the Cabinet handbook rules with the application and the automation of key processes has enabled novice or one-off authors with no experience of drafting memoranda to engage in the process while ensuring frequent users can efficiently engage with the process.
Increased Efficiencies
Considerable efficiencies and benefits have emerged since the system was implemented, in particular by providing real-time, secure circulation of all documents, and, in this way, streamlining the Government decision-making process.
The manual process of securing and disseminating critical information in a collaborative environment is now managed by the eCabinet application. It is based on metadata generated automatically when the knowledge worker is authoring or contributing content. Since content is created in XML, Quark’s dynamic publishing technology personalizes and delivers content as soon as it is approved.
“In a nutshell, eCabinet enables the preparation of meetings and materials for meetings, the running of meetings, and the issuing of government decisions afterwards, and [it] enables these three things to be done securely, collaboratively, and efficiently among more than 6,500 government officials in 15 government departments.” Philip Hamell, Government Secretariat, Dept of the Taoiseach. (Prime Minister)
©2009 Quark, Inc. All rights reserved. Quark and the Quark logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Quark, Inc. and its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
