How the World Bank built an enterprise taxonomy -- a story with a happy ending

Denise A. D. Bedford, Ph.D. Senior Information Officer World Bank ASIST Potomac Valley Chapter presentation November 19, 2003

Storytelling
Im going to use a traditional Knowledge Management tool tonight to tell you how we built our enterprise taxonomy storytelling My goal in using this approach is to illustrate the technical, information architecture and the social aspects of such an undertaking It will also allow me to speak to some of the critical foundation elements and milestones in the process It would not be truthful for me to tell you a story about how one day we defined our enterprise-taxonomy, and the next day we all lived happily ever after! Id like to take you back to the world of medieval fiefdoms many systems, many rules, different sets of laws, different languages and grammars

Once upon a time

We had many different financial systems, multiple document management systems, 100s of searchable resources, and a number of gaps in coverage of our information assets Then a wise and foreseeing Chief Information Officer and President helped us to establish a stable, standard institutional platform for our institutional collections (our modern day Alexander the Great) This meant that instead of having multiple financial systems, human resource systems, and document management systems, we had one to suit each function (first thoughts of unification arise) And, the wise counselors advised them to select systems that functioned on a common operating system - Oracle (we agree to talk to establish lines of communication and send ambassadors) Enterprise begins to think of systems at an enterprise level this is a crucial organizational culture aspect to implementing an enterprise taxonomy

Consolidation of Business System Fiefdoms

Before the dawn of the Knowledge Age, we had many different business systems Each business system had its own (or no) metadata, classification schemes, indexes, search systems When we standardized our primary business systems, we merged those different taxonomies into enterprise taxonomies In this first step, we still had multiple business systems, but one per business function

Laying Out the Information Empire

Once we had established a common communication foundation, the people in those different fiefdoms began to talk to one another and a cultural change began to occur The idea of having one business system to support a business function was accepted by the masses Now we find we have many different kinds of taxonomies accounting structures, business functions/process/task taxonomies, product taxonomies, taxonomies of job classes, skills taxonomies, organizational taxonomies, personnel profiles, etc. We built taxonomies in these business function systems as we were implementing them - designed to suit business functions and the people who were administering the systems, not necessarily end users Start to understand important of usability and end-user training

From Business to Information Systems

Then a wise counselor (information architect) had a vision of a common enterprise-document management system When we began looking for such a system, though, the commercial products were not up to snuff in terms of our requirements We developed our own in-house system portions of which were/were not using the common foundation The wise counselor had another vision of an integrated enterprise information system that would support a single point of access to all the information within the information empire This was the spark that set a the goal for an integrated enterprise architecture and taxonomy, though we were not sure we could actually achieve it

Document Management Systems

Document management system was like a cathedral that held the church network together smaller churches represented the units contributing to the system Document management system architecture was a little bit different, though Took many years to convince the little churches to send their offerings to the cathedral so they could become part of the larger network Each church could maintain their own filing structures which served the creators not the users Eventually they agreed to use a common prayer book common filing structure Churches can speak different languages but they all have to be able to communicate

Monasteries

Document vs. Information Management Systems

Distribution

Caution here goals of document and records management systems are to store and preserve information from the perspective of those who created the information End user access is not a primary goal of these kinds of systems Taxonomies that you put in place for these kinds of systems dont necessarily serve end users needs Kinds of taxonomies organization filing structures, record series for retention & dispositioning, economic sector and impact categories, some minimal metadata is beginning to emerge, though These taxonomies serve filing and storage goals, not the information access goal of our enterprise taxonomy

Renaissance Creativity Explodes

While we were making good progress in synchronizing different kinds of taxonomies in all of these business areas, a creative renaissance of knowledge creation and sharing began In about 1997, we launched a knowledge management initiative, using Lotus Notes databases to support collaboration and document libraries Knowledge management was a cultural change in itself creativity of organizational units was encouraged and heightened It was a very important source of cultural change within the institution beginning of a transformation to a learning organization It meant that the masses could become interested in taxonomies

Renaissance Creativity Explodes

Proliferation of writing, publishing and organizing of information Dj vu all over again creativity took the form of user-defined metadata, publishing and navigation taxonomies These taxonomies were different from any of the taxonomies we had seen before reflected the new thematic structure of the KM organization In some respects there was more confusion because they were talking about different kinds of taxonomies but trying to fit them into the same structures We began some internal QuickStart educational sessions on metadata, taxonomies, search, semantic web, etc. to provide a framework

Popular Information Revolution

So now we have several business process systems, a decentralized document management system, knowledge management system and there is a popular uprising the web Many web towns are created - 100s of web sites, 1000s of web pages No central coordination of virtual villages Too many different places to go to look for information going back to the medieval monastery network systems Masses begin to surface their discontent with the quality of access and the quality of information that is being published Realization among the masses that not all of the quality information assets are electronic or publicly available

Popular Information Revolution

Begins to look like the Dark Ages again - no profiles, no taxonomies, no controlled vocabularies or values Different systems have different profiles, different taxonomies, controlled vocabularies or values, indexes, search systems We start to see information pollution alchemists and court jesters come back onto the scene advocating magical approach to discovering the enterprise architecture But, we didnt give up we kept working on the components of the infrastructure in the background We knew that the day would come when they would be needed and that day came

Rationalism & Enlightenment

Wise counselor returns to bring back sense of rationalism and enlightenment Counselor commissions a synthesis of content types across systems, standard metadata scheme, and the rejuvenation of the World Bank Thesaurus Content of the information is what we focus on for integration Information architecture then derives from our kinds of content Synthesis and integration work outside of existing systems, but leverages all the work that is done within the business systems Metadata is the central structure (faceted taxonomy) Reference sources for each facet support the governance and quality control (flat, hierarchical and network taxonomy structures)

Scientific Revolution & Industrialization

About this time, the visionary counselor begins to lay the work for a superhighway connecting all information systems using the integrated enterprise taxonomy as a blueprint Content type proposal enterprise-wide review of kinds of information is completed and accepted by Information Architecture Committee Establishment of Bank standard metadata deriving from existing metadata across systems Long-term search strategy proposed and submitted to Information Architecture Committee Simplified Enterprise Taxonomy for topics is formed looking across all systems and looking to the systems that are used by our partners

Space Travel - Portals

The wild and crazy growth of the external website of the Bank, as well as the need to create a new internal web services platform raised awareness of the value of an integrated enterprise taxonomy You need some predictability in the source and target systems before you can syndicate content from an SAP BW cube, a newsfeed source, a DM system, an RM system, Archives, and the InfoShop to a project portal or to a personal portal, they all need to have a common point of reference The portal team tried the vendors suggested approach create and implement simple new hierarchies and use them throughout the portal The enterprise taxonomy actually becomes the technical and information infrastructure of the portal metadata repository, global navigation bars, Taxonomies also now must be an integral part of the content that you are creating in the portals and in the systems that provide content to the portals

Back to Communications
Vision of a whole-Bank search one place to go to find information in any of the Banks systems, speaking any of the languages of our clients Vision involved having a search engine that spoke the Banks business language and the languages of our clients another kind of taxonomy We had a print-based topical thesaurus which needed to be updated and expanded to reflect the Banks business in 2000 (moved this from 10,xxx terms in 1997 to 92,xxx in 2003) Same time the Translations Department was implementing a new parallel translation system which leverages multilingual and cross-language glossaries Translations Department glossaries focus on business functions, WB Thesaurus focuses on topics integration and cross-population now in progress

Transparency
Policy on Information Disclosure (2002) approved by the Board of Executive Directors required that we: develop a metadata based, cross-system Catalog to surface disclosed and disclosable documents for the external public user put in place a system that would support the capture and tracking of disclosure requests in the future and record changes in disclosure status This effort funded the first release of whole-Bank search Disclosed and disclosable documents lived in all of those systems above and were not tagged with their disclosure conditions or status In order to deliver WB Catalog, we had to integrate all of those taxonomies described above as well as the long-term search strategy

Information Universe
Lets jump to the 21st century Enterprise Content Architecture and Enterprise Content Management All those taxonomies we worked on for the past 15 years are now integral components of the enterprise content architecture Were finding that these taxonomies are critical to efficient and effective use of portal technologies Allows us to shift the focus to information content, metadata management, taxonomies, search, access, security, disclosure. Now the impetus is to bring them all under central control so that they can be managed and used by systems across the enterprise Lets see what the enterprise taxonomy looks like today, its content, how we maintain and manage it

Information Universe
We realize that we really do want to work and travel in a 21st century universe of information Space travel is not magical, but is based on good engineering and maintenance Managers need to understand that quick fixes and solutions do not result in sustainable systems, but rather result in significant investment losses A multi-dimensional design approach supports flexibility, extensibility, and customization We can view our information universe from several different perspectives
Individual systems landscape A technical architecture landscape Users view of the enterprise taxonomy An information architecture landscape

All of these views make up our Enterprise Content Architecture and allow us to move to the next step Enterprise Content Management

Systems Architecture
Site Specific Searching Publications Catalog World Bank Catalog/ Enterprise Search Recommender Engines Personal Profiles Portal Content Syndication

Browse & Navigation Structures Metadata Repository Of Bank Standard Metadata (Oracle Tables & Indexes) Reference Tables Topics, Countries Document Types (Oracle data classes) Data Governance Bodies Transformation Rules/Maps

Metadata Extract

Metadata Extract

Metadata Extract

Metadata Extract

Metadata Extract

Metadata Extract

Doc Mgmt System

People Soft

JOLIS Metadata

InfoShop Metadata

SAP Financial System

Web Content Mgmt. Metadata

Concept Extraction, Categorization & Summarization Technologies

Technical View of the Enterprise Architecture

End User Content Contributor

Metadata Management and Security Services

Content Systems DELIVERY

ePublish PDS .

access rules

Content Access Services

view multilingual srch syndication versioning browsing notification workflow

Content Management Services

create/del. declare check in/out classification

retention schedule

search

reference data

taxonomy

Content Integration and Archives Services

relate Connector Concept extraction rules evaluator harmonize Adapter

thesaurus

data dic.

monitors Archives Store logs

Over Time

SAP (R/3, BW) Documents, Images, Audio, Data records Metadata warehouse

Notes / Domino

People Soft

iLAP

Repositories Services

Business Systems

Users View of the Enterprise Taxonomy

Information Architecture

Title Author
Keyword

Topics

Content Type

Bus. Activity Disclosure

Format

Bank Standard Metadata by Purpose

Identification/ Distinction Search & Browse Use Management Compliant Document Management

Agent

Country

Authorized By Rights Management Access Rights Location

Record Identifier

Title

Region

Disposal Status

Date

Abstract/ Summary Keywords

Disposal Review Date

Format

Management History

Publisher

Subject-SectorTheme-Topic Business Function

Use History

Retention Schedule/Mandate Preservation History

Language

Disclosure Status

Version

Disclosure Review Date

Aggregation Level

Series & Series # Content Type

Relation

Taxonomies in Action
Metadata in Fielded Search Faceted Taxonomy Topics Taxonomy Shallow Hierarchy Business Activity Taxonomy Deep Hierarchy Organizational Taxonomy Faceted Taxonomy Country Region Taxonomy Hierarchy Thesaurus in Search Faceted Taxonomy Disclosure Status Flat Taxonomy

Top Tier Content Type Examples

Documents in IRIS, ImageBank, IRAMS Data in BW, DEC SIMA queries in central, regional & agency databases, CDF indicators, GDF data reports, . Publications in JOLIS, Office of Publisher, Thematic Group databases Communications in External Affairs, Office of President, DEC, IRIS People & Communities in YourNet, PeopleSoft, WBDirectory, Knowledge in Notes databases, Oral History program, Services in WB Yellow Pages, Service Portal, Collections in EIU database, Oxford Analytica

Lessons Learned
You can change some of the information architecture, but some of it you will have to adapt or map Business functions are the most critical for standardizing to single business taxonomy the move towards standardization has to come from above Map business system taxonomies to enterprise taxonomies - help the business system owners to see the value of being part of an enterprise taxonomy (no value, no buy in) Expect change and be ready to integrate and map, but educate your users to alert you to changes make it possible for them to work with you Do outreach and consciousness raising (QuickStart programs on metadata, taxonomies 101, search engines, semantic engines,

Lessons Learned
Move forward on the end user front while youre working on the backend when people can see the actual value they will buy in (now no one wants to be left out of the WB Catalog now we created it, so they are coming) Have to have a goal and a vision you will never succeed at creating an enterprise taxonomy if you dont know why youre doing it We are putting in place an enterprise architecture based on welldefined and managed taxonomies that are used within and by internal systems This gives us flexibility to build different products and views for end users, while internally managing our information assets