The AIIM StratML committee is a perfect example of otherwise obscure work by local tech workers which has a huge impact on our country and industry. AIIM is an organization devoted to helping organizations organize and management content, whether it be documents, records, email, web content, or any other type of digitally stored content. Its Standards Program exists to help the industry develop standards. Betsey Fanning, author of AIIM Standards Watch, presides over AIIM's standard's program and chaired the meetings of the StratML Committee. The StratML Committee was established for proposing an XML vocabulary and schema for strategic plans as well as performance plans and performance reports.
The following is our interview with Owen followed by some additional thoughts:
What is the StratML committee? Why should anyone care?
The StratML Committee is a group of volunteers collaborating to specify an XML standard for the elements that are common to the strategic and performance plans of all organizations worldwide. Adam Schwartz of the Government Printing Office (GPO) co-chairs the StratML Committee with me.
Everyone should care about the goals, objectives, and performance of organizations whose activities affect them. Unless they have money to burn, they should care deeply about the performance of .gov agencies who are spending their hard-earned tax dollars pursuant to law as well as nonprofit charities who are spending their contributions in voluntary efforts to do good works.
It is difficult to understand exactly what those organizations are trying to accomplish without a standard way of documenting, indexing, querying, and referencing their goal and objective statements. Moreover, it is impossible to track how effectively they are using our money to accomplish those purposes without a standard means of documenting and reporting their performance against those goals and objectives.
Lacking such information, it is inevitable that too much of our money will be wasted on needlessly redundant, ill-coordinated, and ineffective activities. In these economic times, we simply can no longer afford such waste. As the old adage goes, if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem. That's why each and every one of us should care about standards like StratML.</blockquote>
How did the StratML committee come to be established?
In 2003, when AIIM was marketing itself as the "strategic content management association," I contacted Betsy Fanning, AIIM's director of standards, about prospects for having AIIM foster the establishment of an XML-based standard for strategic plans. She encouraged me to submit a proposal for consideration by AIIM's Standards Board. I did so on December 19, 2003. The proposal is available at http://www.xml.gov/draft/AIIMProjectProposalXSDforStrategicPlans.htm. In September 2007 the Standards Board accepted the proposal for incorporation into AIIM's standards program and the StratML Committee was established to begin specifying the standard. The history of StratML is documented at http://xml.gov/stratml/index.htm#History.
How will the standard benefit citizens?
If and, hopefully, when .gov agencies, charities, and other organizations are posting their strategic plans on the Web in StratML format, value-added intermediaries can aggregate and index them for the benefit of myriad stakeholder interest groups. That will enable citizens more easily to discover goals and objectives to them as well as to provide targeted feedback to the officials responsible for achieving those goals and objectives.
To the degree that agency performance reports are also posted on the Web in conformance with Part 2 of the StratML standard, citizens will be able to track performance on goals and objectives of interest to them. (The StratML Committee is currently specifying Part 2 of the standard and would welcome participation by anyone who would like to assist.)
Ultimately, citizens will benefit through wiser use of their money resulting in more effective performance by the organizations they are supporting through taxes and contributions.
How will the standard influence private industry?
Since Adam is with GPO and I am a retired Fed, we have a special interest in the performance of .gov agencies. However, the StratML Committee has done its best to ensure the standard is being specified generically enough to apply to all organizations worldwide. We hope it will become an international de facto voluntary consensus standard and perhaps a de jure standard as well, through ISO.
Unlike .gov agencies and nonprofit, public service organizations, who have an obligation to share such information freely, commercial enterprises will naturally want to keep some of their goals and objectives "private" until they've had a chance to exercise their specialized knowledge, expertise, and intellectual property for competitive advantage in the market place. However, companies that are smart and hope to succeed in the future will recognize the need to move beyond marketing hype, to demonstrate superior performance on features valued by their existing and potential customers. As consumers continue to expect more and better information, companies who fail to deliver it will face increasing risk of failure.
Of course, too, expectations are growing for companies to act as good corporate citizens, and that means not only being clear and straight with the public about what they are aiming to do and why but also the results of their actions, not only in terms of direct benefits to their customers but also indirect impacts, environmental and otherwise, upon others.
Why should government and private companies donate the time of valuable employees to participate in this and other standards negotiations?
U.S. Executive Branch agencies are directed by OMB Circular A-119 to participate in the development and use of voluntary consensus standards, like StratML. However, the reason they as well as private companies should participate is to improve performance. Business "as usual" is simply no longer good enough. Time, effort, and money spent on key standards are not "donations" but, rather, investments.
As consumers grow wiser, companies who fail to invest sufficiently in the specification and implementation of standards that are critical in their industry risk failure. Indeed, those who are wise will view leadership in the establishment of voluntary consensus standards as a potential source of competitive advantage.
While .gov agencies don't face the pressures of the commercial marketplace, they are not immune to the wrath of citizens and taxpayers, through their elected officials. Moreover, .gov officials and employees are good people, trying to do the work of We the People to the best of their ability. Thus, their primary motivation for participating in the development and use of standards important to their responsibilities is not that they have been directed to do so but because they want to do the right thing.
For Examiner.com's more technical readers, what are the major coding/scripting issues that the committee is wrestling with?
With increasing complexity, risk of failure also increases. Thus, the StratML Committee made a conscious effort to keep Part 1 of the standard pretty simple and straightforward, containing only a small "core" set of elements that are commonly included in strategic plans. The "goodness of fit" of the elements of Part 1 has been demonstrated with more than 550 strategic plans. So while it may not please everyone, we're pretty confident it is adequate as a first step. (To the degree that anyone may wish to see it improved and extended, the StratML Committee welcomes their participation.)
In Part 2 the committee is taking on additional complexity in the elements of performance plans and reports. While most of those elements are also fairly commonly recognized, perhaps the biggest challenge is how best to represent the elements associated with the metrics of performance, i.e., exactly how to document measurement of progress against goals and objectives. We would especially welcome participation of those with expertise in performance assessment metrics, both substantively and technically.
Note - Another member of the committee, Art Colman of Drybridge Technologies, highlighted is the goal of providing a universal means of identifying portions of StratML documents on the web.
Readers with an interest are encouraged to contact the StratML Committee.
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