Swedish Transport Administration: Information Modeling in a Big Organization

Since 2010, the Swedish Transport Administration has been working on processes and process development. The purpose of the process work has been to optimize the business so that it can ultimately deliver quality to customers. One component of this quality work has been keeping track of the vast amount of information within the business.

We interviewed Ulrik Sjöström, a Business Developer at Trafic Management, about how they have managed a large amount of information with visual information models in 2c8 Apps.

September 9, 2024

Ulrik and his colleagues manage and develop one of the Swedish Transport Administration’s main processes, a task that directly impacts our daily lives. They deliver train schedules and traffic information for road and rail traffic, information that we hear in speakers and see on screens, both as planned communication and in real-time. This is the information that describes train movements, road traffic, and how capacity is allocated in the facility, making their work crucial to our transportation experience.

“We have a very wide range of applications to manage the information, and these applications often use the same information objects but with different purposes,” says Ulrik.

The amount of information and its connection to all applications that handle it raised the need to gain greater control over what information is used by different applications and in what processes and activities it occurs. This is ultimately to ensure stable and predictable delivery to the customer and contribute to standardized working methods for business development and continuous improvement. It was at this time that they found 2c8 Apps.

Information modeling in 2c8 Apps

The work started with process models. However, the team quickly realized the benefits of modeling business information using the same software.

“We realized that we could reuse the business objects from the process models in information models and look at the information from multiple perspectives of the business,” says Ulrik.

The intention is to have up-to-date and comprehensive information models to base all projects that start in the organization.

“What we want to achieve is that even before a project starts, we know what information we will be working with. It should be clear that: “you are going to work with this amount of information”, says Ulrik.

Recently, work has also started on concept models to facilitate increasingly complex information modeling. From the conceptual models, defined and value-bearing concepts are transferred to information objects, where business architects, along with those who have completed the information modeling training, develop the information model.

The Benefits of Visualizing something Complex

We asked Ulrik what the benefit of describing the information through visualization is.

“Is there anything else?”

The information models are stored in a shared space and divided into object areas so that the five management objects, which primarily work with the same information, have a common view.

“This contributes to collaboration, and we can thereby increase quality. However, not everyone can keep up with the level of normalization; we still encounter questions like “What is an attribute?”, “What is an object?” and “What is a value stream?”. But even though it takes time, we are trying to build an ability to collaborate with these things, and this is where 2c8 comes in as a very easy-to-use tool”, Ulrik says.

Tips for those who haven’t started

Ulrik points out that the most critical component of successful work with information modeling is taking time. Information modeling at a higher level is complicated, and nothing employees learn with a quick review. He also says that it is impossible to force employees to become good at information modeling but instead find those with the ability to think abstractly.

“Information modeling is difficult, but something that helps is to start with concept modeling before moving to the information model. It is important to define the value-bearing concepts and then move them to the information model where you work further,” says Ulrik.

In conclusion, Ulrik says that the Swedish Transport Administration is based on processes, the information they use, and the information they create.

In information modeling, the process is no longer the most important factor. The information domain is often broader than that, and one must not be blind to the information in the process model.