Following leads
Hans Silbeek is employed by the Central Services of the Netherlands Police. He is the national business information manager of their tracking systems and, in particular, forensic tracking systems, which are used for fingerprint recognition, iris scans, speech and handwriting recognition and photo identifications, among other purposes. Hans: “As national business information manager, I coordinate the business information management activities for a maximum of 26 police forces supraregional level. For example, the National Tracking System (LSV) is currently being used by three police forces. After this pilot program, the system will be implemented nationally. My responsibility will be to ensure good coordination of the business information management of all the different forces.

National and regional activities
A portion of the business information management activities of each individual force is performed by the regional business information manager. The rest is my responsibility. It is important that we make clear agreements as to who does what. The business information management of tracking systems is often performed by operational staff in addition to their normal duties. They have little BiSL knowledge, which means it is all the more essential to provide a good description of the activities required to support users as well as possible. I therefore used the best practice “Operational activities manual” as a guideline when creating an national handbook, as it provides a good, complete summary of all the business information management activities. To this I added background information from the BiSL book in order to explain the processes, and I also divided the activities according to the level of detail. I then specified which subactivities are performed by whom: the regional or national business information manager. For example, the regional business information manager prepares test specifications, I help him do that and I create the national test plan. I regard this best practice as a guideline that should be fleshed out to the necessary level of detail for each information system.

Benefits of structure
The pilot will be used to examine whether the national handbook is detailed enough, and whether Hans’ proposed delegation of duties works in practice. What has this product achieved to date? Hans: “It made writing my handbook much easier. It provided me with a structure that facilitated the writing process and kept me from leaving anything out. In addition, I hope that if all national business information managers use this guideline, the regional business information managers will be able to identify with it more. If a business information manager has experience with one type of information system, they will be able to more readily understand the business information management of another information system, if they both use the same structure.