Planning and design

Planning and design is undertaken after you have analysed and quantified gaps between the current and future states. This phase plans how the new business environment will be structured and will operate in the future state vision.

Interoperability Development Phases presented as a diagram that shows Data governance and management supporting the Current state assessment, Gap analysis, Future state, Planning and design and Implementation phases.

Features and tasks

Agencies will approach this phase in different ways. Your project’s gap analysis will inform your planning and design and address your specific requirements.

This phase can be challenging as you need to balance any new features and tasks with your agency’s available resources and existing infrastructure.

The planning and design features and tasks are accomplished through researching user needs, consulting stakeholders and using internal skills and expertise. It is also the ideal stage to identify and assign roles.

Feature

Tasks

Data flow and data architecture

Document the required data flow for the system or agency and the business rules applied to the data. This includes the flow of data to and from:

  • collection points
  • data storage
  • third parties

Document the solution that uses systems and architecture to:

  • prioritise using existing technologies or business processes before introducing new ones
  • adopt an enterprise-level approach by ensuring the number of different technologies in use across the agency is kept to a minimum.

Deliver solutions that address:

  • storage, backup and recovery systems
  • scalability/availability
  • data retention periods
  • data structures and data models
  • metadata architecture.

Security designs

Document the state of access, authentication, security rules and processes required

Data integration plan

Document the way in which applications will communicate with each other and external parties. This includes:

  • interaction models – these detail how applications will interact with each other
  • data orchestration – these detail the solution's data flow.

Data migration plan

Document the process of moving data from the current to a new system. A successful data migration includes:

  • data profiling and analysis that is conducted in the current state assessment
  • data remediation work and data quality improvements as part of the necessary data transformation
  • migrated data that meets the standards for data in the new system
  • a planned approach to implementation – decide if the data migration will be performed all at once, in stages, or if it will be continual as both legacy and new applications will be maintained.

System retirement plan

Document the decommissioning of legacy applications and data stores following the implementation of new applications for data integration or exchange.

The system retirement plan must ensure that decommissioned applications and data meet storage and retention guidelines.

Metadata strategy

Document your agency's metadata management. This includes:

  • future state metadata architecture
  • data governance practices
  • data security
  • an implementation plan moving from the current to the future state design.

When designing an application or system your agency needs to consider:

  • increasing data value through unified systems
  • reducing data complexity
  • making data more available
  • ensuring data quality
  • assessing data interoperability – whether it can be shared between agencies and with the public
  • risks and dependencies.

Key participants

Planning and design requires a range of skills and competencies from different sections across your agency.

Key participants may include:

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