Development of Taxonomy for the Tertiary Education Commission.
Background
Tertiary Education Commission is a Crown Owned Entity. It is responsible for administering $2.1 billion of funds for tertiary education. It regularly communicates with over 400 key stakeholders. The processes used by the Commission and the language used to describe these has changed over time.
Our Role
X4 Consulting was asked to design, build and implement a taxonomy for use within TEC. The purpose of the taxonomy was to act as a single source of terms and definitions for all of TEC’s systems and processes.
X4 developed a set of design principles that would guide the development of the taxonomy. Once these design principles were signed off by the Senior Leadership Team, X4 drafted a taxonomy model and discussed this in a series of workshops with staff. Over 900 terms were identified and defined. The contents were agreed to by the business and a “taxonomy online” was built on a Confluence platform. Mind maps were also developed as a quick visual reference for staff.
An impact assessment on applying the taxonomy to information systems across the business was undertaken and advice provided on the best approach for implementing the taxonomy.
Maintenance processes were developed using Promapp. These processes have been designed to ensure that staff can easily request changes to the taxonomy, so that the taxonomy remains “a living document” and relevant to the business.
Benefits & Outcomes
As a result of X4's efforts, TEC has a taxonomy that :
Improves TEC staffs' ability to request and find relevant and related content;
Supports standard practices and reduces the time spent looking for information;
Provides consistency for managing information across TEC through a single source of terms;
Avoids re-work when designing patterns for arranging information;
Improves the ease, speed and accuracy of reporting;
Reduces confusion – staff are now speaking the same language;
Improves consistency in how TEC speak to their customers; and
Supports the business process improvement work by reducing waste.
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