Information on the Essnet on Standardisation for the Workshop of the Sponsorship On

Information on the ESSNet on Standardisation for the workshop of the Sponsorship on Standardisation to be held in The Hague on 30-31 May 2013.

Prepared by: Mr. Csaba Ábry, project leader of the ESSNet on Standardisation

general and specific objectives:

The task of this action is to support the establishment of the Integrated Statistical System within the ESS as outlined in the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the production method of EU statistics: a vision for the next decade, COM(2009) 404.

The base for an integrated model is an enterprise architecture for the ESS, which has to be accomplished with the help of standards. In this meaning standardisation is the driving process and standards are building stones for an integrated system. The growing importance of standardisation is also reflected in the formulation of different groups at European level to clarify and lay down the framework of the topic. The ESSNet on Standardisation can essentially be considered as another milestone in the process started in October 2010 with the Workshop on Standardisation and was carried on by ESSNet on Preparation for Standardisation (Stand-Prep) and the Sponsorship on Standardisation.

This action has direct connection to the Sponsorship as it has been established in order to develop strategic guidance for standardisation at ESS level and already delegated tasks to this ESSNet, prior to its launch. According to its mandate, the Sponsorship on Standardisation will finish its work in September 2013, therefore good coordination between the Sponsorship and the ESSNet on Standardisation is necessary, especially in the first year when the two actions run parallel. As the Sponsorship on Standardisation forms a conceptual framework for standardisation in the ESS, the ESSNet on Standardisation will focus on practical implementation, based on the guidance and the achievements of the Sponsorhip. The specific objectives of this action are defined under three major tasks that correspond to the logic behind the three pillars of the Sponsorship: stocktaking, process and case studies. This project runs between 2012 and 2016, and is broken down by two phases.

ESSNet on Standardisation – SGA 1., consisting of 7 NSIs (Hungary, United Kingdom, Latvia, Lithunia, Italy, France, The Netherlands) highly focuses on stocktaking, which means that the objective of this project is to establish the basic elements for further analysis on standardisation issues of the ESS. As a consequence, the current state of the art on standards has to be mapped in order to highlight fields where there is a lack of standards or where standards are overlapping. This stocktaking task will form the basis for the process-related activities with special attention give to areas where only quasi standards are available, but standards would be advisable. Therefore the procedure on how to make those quasi standards into real standards also has to be determined.

Another aspect of the standardisation activity is resource effectiveness of standardisation. Based on the results of the Sponsorship, SWOT analyses have to be carried out in order to make cost-benefit evaluations on standardisation activities.

According to these objectives, the expected results of ESSNet on Standardisation – SGA 1. are the following:

• Finalised inventory of standards and quasi standards, with their descriptions (based on the proposed attributes of the Sponsorship). This inventory is the basis for mapping the current situation and for decisions on standardisation activities to support the establishment of the integrated statistical system within the ESS
• A recommendation on how to upgrade quasi standards into real standards
• Guidelines for the description and documentation of quasi standards
• Instruments, procedures to assess standardisation initiatives based on SWOT analysis and analysis of standardisation initiatives based on that
• Case studies of projects with standardisation potential to identify factors of success and risks
• Dissemination of the results and deliverables

One of the most significant potential contributions of the ESSNet on Standardisation is the facilitation of future developments regarding standardisation. Due to financial restrictions and resource constrains it is a fundamental motivation behind any financial action to focus the efforts on areas where development is crucial.

The deliverables of this ESSNet bring the recommendations and guidance given by the Sponsorship on Standardisation closer to practical implementation as it will improve completeness of new tools and instruments and promote application of practical solutions. The process and governance of standardisation elaborated and tested in detail will improve transparency of the related activities, consistency and quality of standards. The framework, architecture and business case in an elaborated form gives orientation for ESS members in their strategic plans.

It is a crucial part of the ESSNet on Standardisation to disseminate the inventory of standards and fine-tune the process of standard making and support implementation through sharing of IT tools, case studies and training. With the help of the ESSNet partners, it will be established what real standards are used in the ESS and in what areas can the use of standards be developed. Through sharing of IT tools, the usage will also be fostered. As a result, the quality of the ESS data will increase and another step towards the Vision will be made.

One of the tasks of the ESSNet on Standardisation is to analyse the content of the inventory against various business process categories or statistical domains. As a result, coverage and potential inconsistencies can be identified and overlapping elements and white spots can be unveiled. This information might be particularly useful to set priorities under serious financial constrains and focus investments on key areas.

Description of the actions to be undertaken by the ESSNet on Standardisation

In the following, the main actions undertaken by the ESSNet on Standardisation are introduced, broken down by the three major tasks and their deliverables. These major tasks are included in separate work packages of the ESSNet on Standardisation. In every case, the preconditions are determined, indicating the expected input for the action in question.

1. Stocktaking:

Objectives

The objectives of this Work Package are to provide a complete inventory of standards and quasi-standards with relevant descriptions. This inventory will serve as the basis for further analysis in order to highlight areas where there is a lack of standards and fields where there are more than one standard available.

Description of work

The work will be based on the preliminary, structured list on standards and quasi-standards and the first examples, supplied by the Sponsorship on Standardisation. According to this list, the inventory will be completed within this Work Package, using various database sources (such as RAMON). The inventory will be validated by the Member States in order to make it more relevant and complete. In practice, there might be normative documents in use in Member States, that will not be on the suggested list. This is motivation behind the validation of results by the Member States as the inventory should not just only give a complete picture of the standards and quasi standards based on publicly available databases but more importantly, it should reflect actual practices in the Member States. As a result, a full inventory will be available for future work and an overview of the use of standards and quasi standards can be prepared to assess the current state of the art in the ESS.

This Work Package will also make proposals for the operational issues of the inventory (issues of who is responsible of the maintenance the inventory, what documentations have to be filled, who are the actors involved, what services should be provided, etc.).

The creation of an inventory is not a goal, it is an asset in the standardisation activites, therefore a clear picture has to be set on what actors (who) has to document what kind of quasi standards (what) at which place (where) and according to which procedures (how). The task of the documentation of quasi standards relates both to Work Package 1 and 2 but as it is in strong connection with the content of the inventory and the related operational issues, it is included in Work Package 1.

1. Framework and documentation:

Objectives

The objective of this Work Package is to finetune the deliverables of Pillar 2 of the Sponsorship on Standardisation, such as the standard-making process, the SWOT analysis of the standards and case studies for the SWOT analysis.

Description of work

The Pillar 2 of the Sponsorship on Standardisation will provide input for this Work Package (standard-making process, SWOT analysis), which have to be further analysed and refined. The Sponsorship on Standardisation will also provide the first examples of standardisation areas for which the SWOT analysis has to be carried out. A first activity will be the development of an IT tool enabling the compilation of the SWOT grid by the stakeholders; a test will be carried out to ascertain the validity of the items in the SWOT and of their implementation in the IT tool. The next step will be the definition of the rules for processing responses in order to synthesize the final judgement on the different standardisation areas.

As standardisation processes can be different, given the actual conditions (there are no standards available in an area; there are many quasi standards available; there are no ESS standards but non-ESS standards available in the field, etc.), different scenarios of the standardisation process are possible. A detailed overview of each scenario is to be given so that the process of standardisation will be clear for all circumstances.

The Sponsorship on Standardisation will also propose a business architecture model to be used for process standardisation activities. This proposal should be discussed and refined for the needs of ESSNet on Standardisation to serve as the frame for future work.

The further enhancement of the SWOT (e.g. cost-benefit) work of the Pillar 2 of the Sponsorship on Standardisation is also a priority as it will provide input for the later analysis and help to indentify areas where it is worth to standardise.

One of the most important goals of the current action is to facilitate the development and use of the so called quasi standards (normative documents not fully corresponding to the definition of standards), therefore this task will be given special attention throughout the 4 years of the ESSNet on Standardisation, especially in Phase 2 of the current action. In the current work, the principles and a workplan will be drawn, using the experiences gathered with the inventory and variants of standardisation processes.

1. Case study:

Objectives

Closely related to the original Pillar 3 of Sponsorship on Standardisation, this Work Package aims at analysing a number of standardisation projects to collect information on good practices, potential risks and other factors

Description of work

Case studies might serve as important examples on the development and assessment of standards and the current practices of standard-making. With these lessons learnt, the factors of success and barriers can be collected and used to further enhance the standardisation processes.

For the analysis, a few projects will be selected and a template and interviews will be used to carry out the analysis. As a result, case studies on the selected projects will be available and a summary on the successes and risks of those projects will be prepared in order to draw a recommendation on how to deal with projects with standardisation potential in order to maximise the chance of success.

The Work Package will have three permanent participants (core team) while the other ESSNet partners of this project will share their own experiences with the core team.

The expected results:

• A inventory of standards and quasi standards, properly classified and with the relevant attributes;
• Recommendation for upgrading the quasi standards into real standards;
• Guidelines for describing and documenting candidate standard;
• Intruments, procedures to assess standardisation initiatives based on SWOT with documentation;
• Review and evaluation of standardisation initiatives (around 10) on the basis of SWOT analysis;
• Description of 3 or 4 pilot projects on the process of standardisation;
• Interpretation of the results of the pilot projects;
• Website content and animation;
• Validation/dissemination workshop.

Current state of the art:

The kick-off meeting of the ESSNet on Standardisation was organized in Budapest on 14-15th February, 2013., the next meeting is envisaged for September 2013 inParis. The work of the Work Packages has been divided among the ESSNet members on which the members of the ESSNet are currently working on.

For more information please check the website of ESSnet on Standardisation on the CROS portal at

Budapest, 30 April 2013