2. Anya Somerville
Head of Indexing and Data
Management, UK Parliament
Michael Smethurst
Data Architect
UK Parliament
Silver Oliver
Information Architect
Data Language
Introductions
3. What you will learn
•What Parliament is
•What problems we are trying to solve
•How we are going about it
•What the outcome has been to date
28. IMPOSSIBLE:
Very HARD:
HARD:
Quite HARD:
Quite EASY:
EASY:
Fairly EASY:
Business applications
providing data
Data
platform
Changing workflows/
job descriptions
Union negotiations
Data authoring
tools
Website
THE EVENT HORIZON
30. WHAT
Bridge person
2-3 SME’s
Finding people
Environment
Culture
How wide to go?
How deep to go?
Probe familiar patterns
Cardinality
WHO
HOW
Anecdote
Pens
Whiteboard
Social graph
Domain modelling
Trial and error
Conversation
31. Facilitating not
directing (from a script)
•Congruence – without hiding behind a professional or personal
facade.
•Unconditional positive regard – demonstrating a willingness to
attentively listen without interruption, judgement or giving
advice.
•Empathy – desire to understand and appreciate their
participants perspective.
37. See Also
•Modeling Parliament(s?):
https://pds.blog.parliament.uk/2016/09/09/modelling-
parliaments/
•A routes file for the state: http://smethur.st/posts/176135861
• How we make websites:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2009/01/how_we_make_websi
tes.shtml
• Cynefin for devs: https://lizkeogh.com/2012/03/11/cynefin-
for-devs/
•Beyond the polar bear:
https://www.slideshare.net/reduxd/beyond-the-polar-bear
Editor's Notes
we’re working together on a new website for Parliament
Read these, say how long we hope to take, and there’ll be time for questions at the end
To explain Parliament I need to explain what it isn’t:
Parliament is not government
In the UK, Government
Is accountable to Parliament
Proposes new laws to Parliament
Runs public departments (e.g. Home Office)
Parliament’s main functions are to
hold government to account
allows inputs from citizens
debates current issues to influence government / wider society
It doesn’t really exist
Parliament is not one thing: it’s three things. Two institutions and one person
The House of Commons: the democratically elected house of Parliament.
The House of Lords: the second chamber of Parliament, appointed members.
The Queen is the Head of State: she opens Parliament every year & has to agree legislation
Fact is they’re 2 different orgs; separate but interlinked. In reality it should look like this..
Leaving aside the queen…
Two independent organisations - but interlinked
There is no one person in charge
Given there’s no such thing as Parliament…
How does all this work?
there are rules..
the written rules which regulate the proceedings of each House
There are two sets of rules: two Houses do similar things, but in slightly different ways
And things which are different might have the same name
And the thing about the rules is they don’t cover everything
On top of the rules, there is precedent, or “custom and practice” - things that are permissible because they've been permitted in the past
Much of parliamentary procedure has developed over the centuries, and aren’t written in the Standing Orders.
This is Erskine May. Parliament’s Bible. it collects precedent
So we have a fuzzy rule set: events test the rules, the organisation adapts, new processes emerge
doesn’t end there though
And on top of rules and precedent there are people
A lot of politics is about people: Things happen on stage and off stage
It’s unpredictable
Parliament is not special
This - the rules + customs and practice + people is almost always true, of any organisation
Why can't a visual designer pick up user research and start designing and a dev start building an enterprise data model?
How do you overlay a website that makes sense to users over a organisation that doesn't make sense to its employees
Why can't a visual designer pick up user research and start designing and a dev start building an enterprise data model?
We are going to talk about one aspect of how we are trying to solve it through use of domain driven design
Drawing back at each other
Unpacking the meaning of things by using it to describe what we do (talking about the domain from many perspectives)
Prodding the domain from lots of different angles
Eric Evans if you give someone a diagram they will agree with you. Get them to draw it and you see the difference. We redraw every time.
What it looks like
Simple are those practices any of us could understand
Complicated are those things that are predictable but need expertise to get.
Complex is a space is moving under you all you can do is learn by doing. This is where DM is critical to spend time talking in context about the things people do.
Chaos is accident and emergency
Best practice something we all likely do in a similar situation
Good practice the expertise and rules specific to a team. Often written somewhere.
Complex the co-evolved practices that have developed over time. Practitioners might not even be aware they do it.
Chaos reaction
Member of parliaments calendar system looks like any other
Standing orders are the rules of parliament.
Precedent is the co-evolved practice of each office
Wrong model, mean clerks hack the system and we get bad data
Wrong model, mean clerks hack the system and we get bad data
Wrong model, mean clerks hack the system and we get bad data
Aligning domain understanding all the way through the business
As we start to unpick the domain we see the solving the problem isn't simply a website thing. Spans back through the organisation.