The Investment and Business Capability Catalogues

1. A primary aim of CSPA is to support efficient sharing and reuse of process patterns, information and services at an organization and international level.

2. Statistical organizations already have a long history of sharing principles, values, standards and frameworks. In the past, engagements between statistical organizations have been spontaneous and relationship driven, with little way of obtaining an overview of what has taken place.

3. The emergence of a widely adopted CSPA and the accompanying community has a positive impact on sharing between statistical organizations in two ways:

It broadens the types of sharing to smaller parts of IT solutions rather than the large grained, complex pieces that have historically been shared;
It builds on and enhances sharing of non-ICT dimensions of a capability

4. One key requisite in achieving this goal is an ability to reliably and efficiently discover what is available for reuse to support a particular business need. This includes an ability to efficiently assess whether a potentially reusable artefact is, in fact, "fit for purpose" in practice when it comes to supporting that particular business need.

The CSPA Catalogue

5. The CSPA Catalogue contains 5 layers of information. Figure 1 below outlines these.

Figure 1: CSPA Global Artefact Catalogue Layers
6. Layer 1 is the Knowledge Base (Virtual Help Desk) which provides access to standards such as GSIM, GSBPM and GAMSO, as well as information about DDI and SDMX.

7. Layers 2 (the Investment Catalogue) and 3 (the Business Capabilities Catalogue) provide information on developments that have been planned, are in progress or have been completed (ie. Capabilities that already exist) in statistical organizations.

8. Layers 4 and 5 focus on CSPA Services (that is software components that are CSPA compliant). Layer 4 is hosted by Eurostat.

The Investment and Business Capability Catalogues

9. The Investment Catalogue contains information about developments that are planned or in progress by statistical organizations. While the Business Capability Catalogue provides information about developments that have been completed (ie. Capabilities that already exist) in statistical organizations.

10. Both of the catalogues are based on Capabilities. A business capability can be defined as "an ability that an organisation, person or system possesses".

11. To achieve a capability, typically a combination of the following elements are required:

People (the human resources required for the capability to deliver business outcomes),
Processes (the set of co-ordinated steps, procedures and business rules for the capability),
Methods (the methods, algorithms or systematic procedures for the capability),
Technology (the IT applications and infrastructure required for the capability) and
Standards and frameworks (the standards, frameworks, policies and principles are used by the capability).

12. At a broad level, a capability enables a statistical organization to undertake one or more activities. An example of a capability is "Coding". There is a many to many relationship between capabilities and activities. The ability to do coding (that is, the processes, methods etc) can be reused a number of times across the statistical production process.

13.The catalogues are based on capabilities, as developing new systems based on GSBPM could lead to duplication of functionality in business processes. GSBPM doesn't help to identify where a single investment can impact multiple production processes. The more a capability is reused by different activities the more money it saves an organisation.

Using the Investment and Business Capability Catalogues

14. The Investment and Business Capability Catalogues can be used in a number of ways. The following sections outline some of these use cases.

Business Project Manager

15. A Business Project Manager is usually aiming to improve or set up a process for achieving organisation business objectives.

16. The Project Manager might use the catalogues for a number of purposes:

To check the Business Capability Catalogue to investigate what capabilities already exist that could be leveraged/used, so that they can improve a capability or build/replace a capability.
To look at the Investment Catalogue to know what plans exist for the development of new capabilities in other statistical organisations, so they can plan their work and possibly collaborate in the development process.
If there are no immediate possibilities for reuse or collaboration, the Project Manager will decide which components of the project they can make available to the community. They can enter these details into the Investment Catalogue. This will increase the return on investment and possibly find opportunities to engage in collaboration with external partners.
To expose project outcomes which are resuable to the community in the Business Capability Catalogue.

Application Portfolio Manager

17. An Application Portfolio Manager knows all the IT assets used in an organisation. They understand the business outcomes and impact of these system so that they can manage risks; and simplify and lower the cost of the IT systems.

18. They can use the Business Capability Catalogue for the following purposes:

To know existing solutions in other statistical organizations so that they can assess whether they are suitable to replace legacy systems.
To know which capabilities they can benefit from, by reusing existing components.
To know the current status of the capabilities in the industry so that they can plan/prioritise the development of their own capabilities.
To know which methodologies or platforms the systems are built on, and how to get the most benefit out of their reuse.

Researcher/Methodologist

19. As researcher or methodologist, the Business Capability Catalogue provides a valuable information sharing platform. It can be used for the following purposes:

To know the processes and methods being used by other statistical organisations, so they can see how these processes and methods fit into their organisation
To share the interesting capability elements (process, methods, frameworks) that they have developed with other statistical organisations, so others can learn about them.
To find out what research is in progress or has been completed in other statistical organizations so that they can learn from this work and avoid making similar mistakes.
To lead the way in a new methodology: The catalogue is a great way for them to share the work that they are doing so that they can promote and lead this work.

Collaboration projects

20. As a community resource, the Investment Catalogue gives easy access to information on on-going and planned developments so that collaborations can be set up. It provides a global roadmap of developments by statistical organisations that can be consulted to see what is being built when.

21. For ongoing collaboration projects, the Business Capability Catalogue is a platform for project members to easily share information about existing assets from their own organisation with others.

22.To access these and other layers of the CSPA catalogue, please go to: http://www1.unece.org/stat/platform/display/CSPA/CSPA+Global+Artefacts+Catalogue