DWR is the programme covering the development of the national government’s digital workplace. Rijksweb, a part of this project, provides a central location for all ministry employees where they can search for, find and publish information, as well as create forums for collaboration. This shared platform, which crosses ministerial boundaries, is unique in the history of the Netherlands. Before it can be completed, several obstacles will need to be overcome. The first version was released in the first half of 2009.

Under the inspiring leadership of Minister Donner, the ministry of Social Affairs and Employment (SZW, www.szw.nl) has taken on a large number of major policy issues. For example, the subjects of Invalidity Insurance for Young Disabled Persons (Wajong) and the partial unemployment benefit have received a lot of media attention in recent months, partly due to the credit crisis. The BIDOC team from the Communications department takes care of the file compilation and the publication of documents relevant to SZW matters that are drawn up internally and externally. These may be parliamentary documents or publications by SDU or Kluwer (‘external collections’). The process of collecting, entering, enhancing, classifying and publishing requires considerable knowledge and is labour-intensive. The ultimate product consists of published policy files.

The proposition
The process running from input to the publication of documents at SZW is currently carried out by an application created specifically for SZW, which can no longer be supported. As all ministries employ this same process, the decision was made to support the publication process using an application to be developed by DWR, based on ECM and government-wide standards. The publications in the form of policy files will be given a home on the Portal; the management application for the policy files will be included in the standard digital workplace. The consultants at SPRING UNITED were charged with the task of analysing the existing processes and constructing them in such a way within a standard FileNet P8 environment, so that the current working process can be properly supported by SZW. The system also had to be configurable so as to be made suitable for policy file management within other ministries.

Our role
SPRING UNITED provided a consultant to act as a mediator between the end users (primarily at SZW, and later at other ministries) and the technical developers. Working with the customer, the process was analysed and prepared for implementation in FileNet P8. The end result of this procedure was an extensive functional design that meets the needs of the users, whilst taking the characteristics of FileNet into consideration. The project has been realised by a team of specialists, in which SPRING UNITED played a coordinating role with a strong emphasis on safeguarding the customer’s wishes and meeting the established quality requirements. By acting as a link between the customer and the technical developers, communication ran smoothly and to the satisfaction of both parties.

Our added value
SPRING UNITED has shown that complex IT projects can be completed on time and within budget – even in environments where major political interests are at stake. Objectives are achieved through division into sub-projects, focus on the right matters and having an eye for details important to the customer.  This approach, as well as the solid process structure and the thorough setup of the ECM platform, will allow the project to spread out to other ministries, increasing the number of customers to include the entire national government. The policy document management environment will become part of the standard workplace within the government. The SPRING UNITED consultant provided the necessary link between people, process and technology, ensuring that the products met customer expectation and that they were completed several days before the scheduled production date. It is for this reason that SPRING UNITED’s involvement has been extended, to make a positive contribution to future projects.