"Top-level design" was originally an engineering term, which originated from the design concept of natural science or large-scale engineering technology. It refers to the overall planning and multi-latitude design of all aspects, levels and elements of a task or a project by using the method of system theory, so as to concentrate effective resources and achieve the goal efficiently and quickly.
Top-level design requires paying attention to the close combination of planning and design with actual needs, emphasizing accurate positioning of design objects, structural optimization, functional coordination and resource integration. It is a design method to simplify, concretize, stylize, standardize and integrate related factors for complex objects. It not only needs to consider and clearly define the structure, function, level and standard of the design object from the perspective of system and overall situation, but also emphasizes the technicalization from ideal goal to reality.
After the concept of "top-level design" was put forward, it has been widely used in information science, military science, sociology, education and other fields, and has become an important way of thinking in formulating development strategies in various fields. The connotation of top-level design is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
First, pay attention to the integrity of strategic objectives: after determining the core or ultimate goal according to the task requirements, the "top-level design" must fully consider all aspects and levels of problems, form a set of solutions, mobilize all aspects and levels of resources around the overall goal, and implement and promote them in an orderly and gradual manner, so as to finally produce the overall effect expected by the top-level design.
Second, pay attention to the scientific nature of tactical objectives: after the strategic objectives are determined, in the specific implementation process, in line with the scientific steps of first foundation, then surface, first nature and then personality. In particular, we should pay attention to solving the long-standing imitation construction mode of realizing complex needs and simple needs in our government information society, and optimize and upgrade it into a model work mode of realizing complex work and simple work norms.
Thirdly, it has meticulous logical thinking: "top-level design" is a "top-down" design, but the "top-level" is not built out of thin air, but comes from practice, and is refined and optimized to be higher than practice, which is a rational promotion of practical experience and perceptual knowledge. The key to the success of top-level design lies in drawing an accurate and controllable global "blueprint" between ideal and realization, possibility and reality through careful global logical thinking. Practitioners can build in batches according to the importance of the work according to the "blueprint", which can avoid all kinds of risks to the greatest extent and ensure the smooth progress of the construction work.
Fourthly, the guarantee of execution is emphasized: after the overall strategy, scientific tactics and blueprint of "top-level design" are drawn, if the detailed design is not accurately implemented, the strategic goal will still be a mirage, and the "blueprint" will become waste paper on the wall. The implementation process of "top design" is the embodiment of refined management and total quality management. If the planning and design really takes effect, it must emphasize implementation, pay attention to details, and pay attention to the interaction and connection between all links.
Second, the current top-level design problems in the field of government informatization
(A) the problem performance
For more than a decade, party and government organs at all levels in China have repeatedly stressed the need to do a good job of "top-level design" when promoting information construction, but the results have been minimal. One of the main reasons is that they have a one-sided understanding of "top-level design", which is only literally understood as the top-level, most authoritative and macroscopic design, and they regard "top-level planning and design" and "special preliminary design" as the whole of top-level design, but lack the more important overall basic top-level preliminary design.
A "top-level design" scheme of government information should focus on solving four problems:
First, we should straighten out the overall system and mechanism, that is, sort out the main body of construction and formulate a long-term mechanism for data resource sharing, investment and financing, which should cover at least two levels. First, the top-level design of system and mechanism can solve the mismatch and disharmony of traditional system and mechanism, reduce the obstacles of up-and-down promotion and horizontal communication, and ensure the smooth development of construction; Second, straighten out the overall object, that is, information classification system and data dictionary system, and then distinguish levels and merge similar items; Third, straighten out the overall three-set plan, the job responsibilities at all levels and the list of responsibilities of each department, that is, the right formation and distribution strategy system connecting subject and object; The fourth is to rationalize the top-level design of technology implementation, and carry out overall preliminary design and detailed design of infrastructure, supporting software products, construction of various application systems, exchange and sharing of data resources, so as to lay the foundation for the formation of technical, platform and institutional barriers for the flow of data elements.
In terms of form and content, the top-level design of the overall foundation should at least include "global planning design, global preliminary design and global detailed design", that is, "global top-level three design" is formed.
As far as government informatization is concerned, the overall situation refers to the sum of the businesses in charge of by party committees and government subordinate units and departments, and the basis refers to the reusable management and service business, data, technology, security and confidentiality business and the planning and design of standard units of various information application systems. The symbol of completing the "three major designs in the world" is to form a complete set of technical documents, such as * * * general requirements specifications for government business and technology, background information (metadata) and data structure specifications, interface specifications for software and hardware products and application systems, business functions, and evaluation specifications for compatible safe and controllable environments. Taking e-government as an example, as shown in Figure 2, the "Three Global Designs" at the implementation level should at least include the following contents on the basis of the traditional feasibility study report and preliminary design:
Figure 1 Main Contents of "Three Global Designs" in E-government Implementation Level
Just as buildings, subways, expressway, bridges, etc. need detailed design drawings before construction (as shown in Figure 2), government informatization construction projects should also complete the real "global top three design" before construction, and take this as the main basis and necessary documents for the acceptance of informatization projects. However, the reality is that this complete link is still seriously lacking in the field of government informatization construction in China. Over the years, most of the government information projects organized and implemented by governments at all levels in China have only one subsystem planning and design or preliminary design, and there is basically no detailed design before construction, let alone "the top three design in the world".
Figure 2 Intelligent Building Model
(B) objective reasons
First, although the informatization construction has been going on for more than 20 years, there is still a shortage of informatization talents, especially the compound talents who know not only government management business, service business, office business, security and confidentiality business, but also technology realization business and standard refining. Government users and IT companies don't know how to make the overall detailed design, so they can only write the working ideas into project proposals, add some computer principles and functional requirements that have not been refined and optimized to assemble a feasibility study report, and add some non-standard schemes and company product introductions to write a preliminary design.
Second, in the current information budget management, there has been no clear planning and design budget, especially detailed planning and design budget, which is also an important reason why some users can not carry out this work. Therefore, in the field of smart city engineering in the past few years, major enterprises have been running around in the name of free design for the government, and government officials have signed agreements with major enterprises with the idea that they can achieve great achievements with little or no investment.
Thirdly, on the technical level, for a long time, the construction mode of various government information systems in China has been that IT enterprises customize some application-level information application systems with low technical content based on basic software products and common tool software provided by foreign IT enterprises or open source communities. Enterprises responsible for development often can't really control the technical details and design architecture of these software products, so they can't form a comprehensive detailed design.
(3) Subjective factors
First, because there are many IT companies and the market competition is fierce, traditional IT companies often protect the detailed design work as a trade secret, and they don't want the user units to carry out this work and understand the detailed content in order to achieve the purpose of controlling users for a long time; At the same time, in order to occupy more markets, various large enterprises often sell their own private, scale-free and unsystematic solutions and products to government users in the name of various cooperation and free design.
Second, government departments are seriously short of compound talents, especially those who know both technology and business, and are often misled by enterprises in the project planning stage, design stage and construction stage.
(d) There are no top-level detailed design results in the world.
The direct consequence of the lack of overall detailed design is that after more than 20 years of construction, governments at all levels have planned and built dozens, hundreds and thousands of independent information systems of different scales, and built countless technical islands and data islands in various cities, forming countless logical shanty towns (Figure 3). Various information systems and formed data systems cannot be directly interconnected, safely exchanged and shared, and cannot be analyzed and utilized in any dimension according to requirements.
Fig. 3 is a traditional pattern without global top-level detailed design.
Third, the "top three design" is the foundation of the new smart city government information construction.
At present, the society has entered the information society, the development trend of technologies such as cloud computing, Internet of Things and big data, the development concept of new government information system, new smart city and "internet plus" and the requirements of safe, independent and controllable alternative development. Facing the opportunities and challenges of new information development, unifying standards, especially business requirements standards, data format standards and service standards, is the key. Relevant documents at the national level, such as the Outline of National Informatization Development Strategy, the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for National Electronic Document Management and the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for National Informatization, also put forward higher and more specific requirements for standardization, intensification and integration of government affairs. Government informatization, especially in the field of smart city central management service platform system construction, "top three design" is the foundation of new smart city construction.
For example, cloud computing technology requires data concentration (physical or logical concentration, and more importantly, logical concentration) and unified data format standards.
The Internet of Things technology also requires the unification of standards: for the narrow sense of the Internet of Things, it is necessary to unify the communication interface standards of various instruments and sensors and the unified standards of the attribute code authentication center to facilitate data interaction and centralized sharing; For the generalized Internet of Things, IT is necessary to unify all kinds of IT hardware devices, all kinds of data recording formats (relational and non-relational), as well as the ID and identification standards of records, so as to realize data exchange, concentration and sharing.
The needs of big data, smart cities and self-control also need unified standards. To separate dozens, hundreds and thousands of personalized government information application systems into data, it is necessary to realize the interconnection of various information systems according to unified standards, and clean, summarize, integrate and upgrade the data according to unified standards, so that government leaders and staff at all levels can slice, analyze, drill and analyze big data applications in multiple dimensions, and truly improve the government's scientific decision-making, precise management and efficient and convenient services.
To achieve a unified data service format standard, only by unifying business management and service requirements in various fields can a unified business architecture and technical architecture be formed. Unified technical implementation scheme, unified metadata and data format specification and overall "three major designs" are effective ways to achieve this goal. Especially in the central management and service platform system of smart cities, it is urgent to adopt the "top three design" to truly promote the standardization, intensification and integration of smart cities and government information construction.
Jin Peng Information Security Controllable New Smart City Research Center cooperates with National Information Center, National School of Administration, Peking University and National Standards Committee to devote itself to the research, planning, design and construction of safe and controllable new smart cities and provide in-depth support and services for the construction of new smart cities.
Ren Jinhua, director of the Center: former deputy director of the Information Office of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee, distinguished researcher of the Smart City Development Research Center of the National Information Center, director of the Information Society Governance Innovation Research Center of the Digital China Research Institute of Peking University, and member of the Standardization Working Group of the National Government Affairs Hall of the National Standards Committee.
Top-level Design of Jin Peng Information Smart City