2005

In its critical review the Court of Audit urged the IND to take the time to structurally work on improvements.

 Part of the problem was IT support of the primary processes. Because of changing regulations, growing complexity and expanding responsibilities, IT support of IND’s primary process did not suffice any longer. This resulted in arrears, leading to complaints which taxed the organizations capacity beyond limits. Errors and incidents were picked up by the media, leading to a feeling of isolation.

 2006

From 2005, IND started an elaborate change program. First, all arrears were cleared and urgent problems were solved, providing the necessary stability to the organization. At the same time, a new vision on the organization and IT systems was developed and an innovative tender procedure for IT environment supporting the primary process was prepared.

IND initiated a twinning program with the Dutch executive organization for social security, leading to a number of insights which, in combination with internal analysis, resulted in a new awareness of the bureaucratic, internally oriented and formal character of the organization.

 In 2006-2007, IND decided to embrace a Greenfield approach: completely abandoning the traditional way of working and the supporting legacy systems in order to reinvent an immigration service with an open attitude towards its environment that would be customer oriented, leading to satisfaction with both its workers and its principal.

 Concerning the workforce, IND’s top management spoke of ‘derobotization’; giving back to its professionals the full responsibility for their decisions. This called for a working environment which would allow them to determine for themselves how to organize their work. This vision of the role of the workforce was crucial for the development of the new information system, but also for the future organizational structure of the IND.

 2007-2010

The Greenfield approach allowed the IND to invite IT suppliers by tender to enter into a dialogue on how to solve these organizational and primary process issues through co-creation. Not with IT staff, but with the professionals active in IND’s primary processes. This approach required an open and transparent attitude from all parties concerned: management, workforce, and suppliers. A hands-on, learning-by-doing way of working, where errors and mistakes had to be openly signalled and discussed in order to proceed in the best possible way and a radical change from the traditional way of risk-avoiding, isolated and formal working of the organization. It also required benevolent leadership; everyone involved was convinced of the importance of the success of the change program. Managers would make way for each other, if the program required them to do so.

 2011

Eventually, in the spring of 2011, INDiGO, which is how the program and the IT solution were named, went live. Not marking the end of the change program, but the start of yet a new phase in which the organization will be able to continuously improve itself. Through so-called Straight Through Processing, the IND will be able to process an increasing number of requests automatically, allowing professionals to focus on applying their knowledge where it is most needed. No longer will knowledge capacity be wasted on routine activities. Instead it will be engaged in further development of a service organization without internal borders. 

Key Innovation

Realizing INDiGO, IND’s new way of processing applications, has been a unique adventure. Unique, because INDiGO is one of the first projects within Dutch government where the entire primary process support has been replaced. The success of INDiGO, in a world of dynamics and disruptive change, is an inspiration to organizations facing similar challenges. One of the critical success factors of the program was the absolute belief in transparency and openness. Mistakes should not be avoided, but faced and openly discussed in order to learn from them.

From an information system perspective, a better alignment between the business and IT was created, through a clear separation of tasks. This is achieved by a complete separation of the “know” (all the business rules in the system that are maintained by the policymakers themselves) and the “flow” (the process itself that is strictly managed by IT).

All of IND’s activities were standardized from 165 processes to a single one, eliminating overlapping and duplicate activities between departments, while at the same time creating countless combinations within that process through the use of “business services”.

INDiGO has proved to be an example of management innovation, both in the way it was developed, and in the way it works in practice.

 Business services

Traditionally, similar activities would be carried out by different parts of the organization in different ways. An interview, for instance, where asylum seekers are invited to explain their application, could be subject to different rules in different circumstances, but still be recognizable as the same activity.

With in a small team, IND took inventory of all activities across all departments and developed a clear understanding of them. The team came with a revolutionary organizational design, consisting of “business services”. A business service is a unit of work that leads to a transferable result: the result is sufficient for the next person to continue with, even if the next person is the customer. Viewed from the IT perspective a business service represents the functionality to be developed to support the task. And from the perspective of the organization model, a business service represents the role an employee performs to complete the task. In addition, the business service represents a number of information elements: to perform the task, you need certain information, and performing the task also leads to more or new information to be registered in the system.

There can be no duplication of a business service; there is only one interview activity, only one application activity, only one decision activity, and so forth. But as every case is different, the way a business service is performed can be different every single time.  In fact, IND has some 65,000 business rules that apply to the various business services, carefully modeled in an enterprise “ontology”.

Because of this innovation, the business performance of IND has not only greatly improved; it marks a complete transformation of its way of working. There is only a single business process left, but it has the flexibility to process all kinds of combinations of business services. Furthermore, these generic business services are completely tailored for each case by the business rules.

At the same time, IND professionals have much more freedom in the way they to handle cases. However, because all the business rules are semantically modeled and accessible, it has become much easier to collaborate with a colleague or transfer a case to another professional.

Finally, even though the IND applies some 65,000 business rules, legal and regulation changes are processed in a matter of days or even hours, instead of months. Business services are also recognizable for the IT professional: the business service requirements and desires are drawn towards realizing system functionality.