National Statistical Service § News - Completion of the NDN Pilot Project

Completion of the National Data Network Pilot Project

The National Data Network (NDN) Pilot Project commenced in 2004 and was completed in 2008. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) led the development of the NDN in collaboration with a range of organisations which included the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) as well as Commonwealth and State Government agencies.

The NDN project showed that there is an increasing demand for sharing and linking of information across government. This has been borne out in a number of government reports released over the last year.

The aim was to develop low cost infrastructure which would provide a library of data holdings relevant to policy analysis and research. The project attempted to answer key questions for data users in terms of finding, managing and accessing information.

What did we learn?

At the completion of the NDN pilot project, the ABS made a number of presentations about the key learnings to guide other agencies who are working in similar areas. The main issues highlighted in these presentations were:

Projects should be driven by business requirements (i.e why are we doing this?) and not by technology. The NDN project was drawn into technology at the expense of understanding the business drivers and needs of users.

There needs to be strong demonstrable business value (buy in) for government agencies to collaborate and contribute resources. Major projects need 'executive level' support and engagement to succeed.

The scope of projects must be manageable. If the scope is too ambitious then it will be difficult to define and manage.

Project management needs to be realistic about what can and can't be achieved and should include regular reviews. In the case of the NDN, the project would have benefitted if it was identified earlier that substantial work was required to progress from a prototype to a full production system.