2. Introduction to the Shared Workspace business

Goals of the Shared Workspace project

This Business case seeks funding to enable delivery of the second of the Shared Workspace project's two goals

First goal

The first goal of the Shared Workspace Project was to: investigate the feasibility of a secure, electronic service to support project work and policy development between agencies and agency stakeholders. [Shared Policy Workspace Project Report Phase 3. E-government Unit, SSC. April 2001,Lessons from Online Collaboration between NZ Government AgenciesE-government Unit, October 2002] It has taken three years to learn what the cross-government need for collaboration is going to be over the next few years and how to best meet it. Costs for this stage have been met by the central agencies.

Second goal

The second goal of the project is a staged implementation. This goal will probably take two to three years to complete. Section 4 of this document (Business Plan) lays out the projects proposed to achieve this. The E-government Unit of SSC is proposing to implement the Shared Workspace as part of its programme over the next few years.

How was feasibility determined

These broad objectives were met as part of the feasibility work.

• Promote and explain the concept of shared workspace.
• Business drivers for sharing - what are these?
• What sort of functionality will be most needed?
• Prototyping technical feasibility and costs of provision.
• Confirming whether agencies supported it
• Validating costs vs. benefits
• Develop business plan and business case for final approval.

Staged implementation

Objectives associated with this goal are as follows.

• Plan the implementation in detail.
• Establish working teams and operations team.
• Purchase cost-effective products and services.
• Manage activities and content that will maximize use of the workspace, including policies that guide use.
• Achieve a successful, staged, implementation.
• Work out appropriate long-term ownership.