Reference no: EM133188649

The Australian Government is investing $250 million over five years to transform the ABS (Australian bureau of statistics) infrastructure, systems and processes used to produce official statistics. The investment will improve ABS capability and responsiveness, ensure continued delivery of trusted, world class statistics, and better support decision-making and innovation by providing more timely and integrated statistical services. The investment will also help maintain the integrity of the ABS's core services and make the best use of modern technologies to improve data access and ensure the ABS is well positioned to meet the information needs of today's dynamic economy and changing society. The following questions refer to this initiative.

• a)  Ackoff characterised problems according to their complexity. The classification can be helpful in defining a problem and determining possible approaches to solving it. Describe one of each of Ackoff's types of problem that the "Transforming for the future" initiative might encounter. Explain your reasoning. 
  [10 marks]
• b)  Develop a multi-criteria decision matrix, following the examples in the lecture and 
  tutorial for Topic 5:
  • Identify the top 5 features you would want the hardware/software for 
    "Transforming for the future" initiative to possess. Give a brief reason for 
    each of your choices.
  • Use these features to rank the following environments: ABS internal 
    operations; industry partnership; 'footprint'. Remember to note any 
    assumptions you make.
  • Create a weighted grid by rating each feature out of a total of 100, according 
    to the priorities you consider should apply. 
    [3 *5 marks]
• c)  Based on your analysis in b), what is the best environment for the "Transforming for the future" initiative?