New ways of working at Statistics Sweden

– a description with emphasis

… on preparatory sub-processes

Eva Elvers

Statistics Sweden

eva.elvers@scb.se

Outline of the presentation

• Work during 2007, the Lotta-project

• New and renewed departments 2008

• The statistical production process

• The preparatory sub-processes

• Some concluding remarks

Work during 2007 – structure

The so-called Lotta-project

• Standardisation: processes and tools

• Quality assurance

• Competence development and

management issues

• Communication and involvement

Work during 2007 – some areas

• SOA, Service Oriented Architecture

• Structured data warehouses

• Data collection, coding

• Questionnaires: design, construction, …

• Editing: several studies

• Communication of quality with users

• Process data and metadata

New organisation 2008

New and renewed departments:

• A new Process Department

• Dep. Research and Development changed

– IT and methodological architecture

– Quality

– Projects

• Other changes, e.g.

– Communication

– National Accounts

Process department

• Management

• Process owners and ‘assistants’

five broad process areas

• Maintenance and test, models

• Process implementation

• Centralised Methodology

• Centralised IT

How-to-do and support

• Standard methods and tools – successively

decisions

• Checklists – tool and assistance

• ‘Business Operation Support System’ (BOSS)

initiated; general texts and checklists first

• Networks

• Respond to questions, suggestions, …

• Implementation order?

• Develop

Plan and design

2

Build and test

3

Collect

4

Process

5

Analyse

6

Publish and communicate

7

The statistics production process

Support and infrastructure

Evaluate and feed back 8

Establish user needs

1

SCB

Here emphasis on processes 2-3

2. Plan and design - process

• Design a new survey

(production process)

• Re-design an existing survey

• Continuous improvements;

adjustments for a new

production round/year

Choose, allocate, and plan

• Choose methods and tools within each

process based on recommendations, and

• also so that they fit together, for

the whole production process

• Allocate resources between processes –

how?

• Plan production flow, staff and times

Knowledge needed

… for choices and for improvements

Process data (paradata)

• Quality – indicators

• Costs

Study Q/C - relationship

Q: value added – measure?!

Influence on quality components, e.g. accuracy

3. Build …

… according to design

• Questionnaire

• Production tools: Use or adjust

existing tool or develop tool, if needed

• Communication between tools, so

production flow

… and test

– what?

• Questionnaires

• Production tools

• Production flow

• Pilot test/study

Test – in what senses?

Different methods and competences:

• Statistical methods

• Qualitative methods

• IT

Exchange between these three:

• how-to-think

• methodology

• concepts

Concluding remarks

• Great and important changes

• Communication vital, ‘all’ directions

• Development continues

• Implementation

• Preparatory sub-processes

started and on their way