SageTeam Visualization

SageTeam Visualization:  An innovative, cost-saving technology solution that supports the Prime Minister’s promise to trim spending across the public service and achieve $4 billion in savings, one year ahead of schedule.  Visualization technology will allow the Government of Canada to leverage information more efficiently at a lower cost than current technology and communicate its issues and success stories more effectively to citizens, stakeholders, and other important constituencies.

SageTeam Visualization (SageTeam) is an integrated data visualization program with a reusable library of shared modeling and analytical resources. Its web based work environment preserves valuable methods and motivates sharing and reuse of knowledge resources. This gives SageTeam the power to continuously reduce costs for both quantitative and qualitative analysis components for a variety of publications in any department.

Adopting SageTeam’s just-in-time technology will enable Deputy Ministers to quickly implement cost-saving measures by automating work done in Excel using a more efficient visualization solution and certified training package. With minimal operational impact, departments will be able to enhance their administrative capacity by using technology to lower costs for generating timely reports to Parliament, central agencies, stakeholder and public consultations, posting of more effective and interactive information on web sites and regulatory bodies.

The SageTeam solution offers significant, timely government-wide savings and enables departments and agencies to manage lower cost operations for the benefit of all taxpayers. SageTeam requires less person hours than the outdated Excel method and generates more user-friendly information for the general public and media to understand and support Government of Canada initiatives.  Moving to SageTeam meets the needs of departments undergoing strategic reviews focused on finding significant and incremental budget savings and innovative ways to do business in the most cost effective manner possible for the benefit of Canadian citizens and taxpayers.

A picture is worth a thousand words: our proven approach achieves information density in a far more effective way than Excel alone. Currently, little to none of the modeling work done in Excel is retained, improved or shared. This represents a hidden and ongoing cost for analytical work for the Government of Canada.

We recommend the maximization of information density and reuse of visual components in reports so that the Government of Canada can commence with implementing real cost reduction starting in 2011. Consider the value of this practical example for sharing services across departments using SageTeam:

• Preserve a method that was first developed by a research analyst at Statistics Canada over two months.
• Automate and reuse the method on a new data set at HRSDC and add further analysis. This saves several months in analyst time.
• Export a new analytical model for use at DFAITT. This saves an additional two months in a second department.
• Apply saved scientific methods to diverse analytical problem domains (ie social sciences) such as at Heritage. (more savings)
• Preserve the knowledge investment in this example from start to end for reuse in subsequent years and projects. (ongoing annual savings)
  

Next Step - SageTeam Cost Reduction and Benefit



    In pilot setups, SageTeam takes Excel data directly from its source (such as a sensor) and highly automates the task of visualization. This lowers the quantity of written (and repetitive) effort that analysts currently need to do in order explain sophisticated concepts in reports. With SageTeam, Excel becomes just another format for data and SageTeam automates the work.

    SageTeam is in keeping with the Government of Canada’s modernization goal and commitment to responsible and effective stewardship of public resources. SageTeam enables departments and agencies to continue to maintain existing operating levels while shifting the way business is done towards lowering costs while simultaneously bringing a more effective way to present and communicate information to a variety of audiences. SageTeam also appeals to a younger demographic which is a key target audience that departments and agencies are trying to reach in the most effective and user friendly way possible.

SageTeam itself is a management-consulting consortium organized under the auspices of SageTea Group. SageTeam  is based on the Visualization Development Work Station tool developed for Environment Canada (2010/2011). SageTeam expands on the success of the EC program for visualization through a new program of training, deployment and mentoring for the Government of Canada. The SageTeam tool is based on Mathematica. Visualization technology is growing by leaps and bounds via Mathematica. This step would allow the GoC to catch up lost IT ground and position itself to strategically leverage technology for achieving  operational savings across the board. Large organizations including the US Government are already using Mathematica for advanced visualization. Within GoC,  SageTeam is operational with a business case developed independently by Government Consulting Services. (Ref. GCS “SageTeam Visualization.final draft.ppt”).

SageTeam provides:

• A visualization tool training & certification program
• An efficient “Train the trainer” method for multi-department training
• Mentoring and support for Directors & Executives 
• Performance metrics & monitoring for program delivery
• Upcoming Generation 3 – Web Based Visualization
  

Elements of SageTeam Communications Module



Perform environmental scan to determine willingness of organization to undergo change and to establish success evaluation criteria.



Develop organization specific communications strategy, plans and products to ensure employees understand the reasons for moving to SageTeam Visualization and become active champions for using this new and valuable tool.



Undertake follow-up survey to evaluate success of both communications and training and to identify and address any challenges to a successful roll-out.

Key Opportunity –  Lower Costs & Improve Quality

We are a visual society and the need has never been greater for telling stories through pictures. This is part of modernizing the way that government communicates with citizens – on its web pages, in public consultations, with stakeholders, and with its own employees.

Increasing capacity requires change management. Our team will assist Directors with setting goals that shorten schedules for reporting projects; commit to project size reduction; change standards so that the old way of doing business ends, and optimize hiring practices to take advantage of retrained workers.

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