Modernizing Census Data Dissemination
Strategic Design
The Challenge: The Census Bureau needed to shift from static data products to dynamic, open data that empowers diverse users to make timely, data-driven decisions — requiring a transformative, not cosmetic, change to its dissemination model.
The Team
My role: As lead strategy designer, I directed the strategy design process and facilitated a five-week series of full-day co-design sessions with the Data Dissemination Task Force, shaping the vision and roadmap for transformation.
Team members:
The Data Dissemination Task Force members were 16 cross-functional executives from the bureau. The five MITRE team members were project managers, system engineers, and business strategies.
Strategic Design Activities
Problem definition and scoping
Future state scenario development
Business model generation
Capability definition and integration
Outcomes
Explicit: A comprehensive roadmap that integrated critical change activities for the following five capability areas:
Enterprise Data Dissemination Governance
Metadata Standardization
External Data Services
Enabling Technology Platforms
Customer Experience Management
Implicit: Unified a diverse group of stakeholders with competing interests into a cohesive executive team.
Photo: The Census Chief Technology Officer briefs the Census Bureau Director and teammates on the “What Americans Want” scenario. The Affinity Analysis of the original problem statements / pain points is on the sticky wall in the background.
Photo: The Census Chief Technology Officer briefs the Census Bureau Director and teammates on the “What Americans Want” scenario. The Affinity Analysis of the original problem statements / pain points is on the sticky wall in the background.
Methods and Tools
Affinity Analysis — structure over 100 problems and pain points
“Big picture” landscape — front-stage / back-stage to define problem space
Environmental drivers — Identify, assess, and prioritize external influences
Scenario Development
Collaborative storytelling and whiteboarding
Structured summaries to capture outcomes, actions, risks
Business model generation templates
Observations and Lessons Learned
Simple, large format graphics: Using a simple graphic paired with structured discussion prompts effectively fosters shared understanding, key insights, and alignment.
Silent affinity analysis quickly organized over 100 diverse problem statements into a cohesive set of guiding capabilities.
Storytelling for scenario development helps to make the future tactical. Creating multiple story prompts to describe “a day in the life of” the personas of customers and their differentiated needs.
Working in small groups and dot voting gives everyone a voice in the process.
Time-boxed activities maintain focus and drive outcomes; after four hours of collaboration, the Task Force collectively reimagined the data dissemination environment.
The consolidated high-level shared learnings from using a simple front-stage / back-stage diagram of the Census Data Dissemination environment. Discussing this graphic generated shared learning, stakeholder alignment, and key insights.
The transcribed outputs of the Environmental Drivers activity. The colored dots are the voting results to identify the most volatile, most impactful, and biggest opportunity drivers.
The “What America Wants” future state scenario summarized in a business model generation template.
