This presentation discusses a project to iteratively develop a business classification scheme (BCS) for managing documentation throughout the lifecycle of African Development Bank (AfDB) sustainable development projects. The BCS is built by working with key users to model the business processes that result in standard documents such as strategy papers, project briefs, impact assessments, and appraisal, progress and completion reports. Classifying documents with their function, activity, project phase, and document type enables effective records management and appropriate access to and disclosure of the Bank’s records. Presented by Joseph Busch, Taxonomy Strategies’ principal analyst at the NKOS Workshop in Daegu, South Korea on November 9, 2023.
- Venue: NKOS
- Date: November 9, 2023
- Broad Topic: Metadata
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Video Script
[Slide 1] Modeling a Business Classification Scheme for Sustainable Economic Development Projects
Abstract: This presentation discusses a project to iteratively develop a business classification scheme (BCS) for managing documentation throughout the lifecycle of African Development Bank (AfDB) sustainable development projects. The BCS is built by working with key users to model the business processes that result in standard documents such as strategy papers, project briefs, impact assessments, and appraisal, progress and completion reports. Classifying documents with their function, activity, project phase, and document type enables effective records management and appropriate access to and disclosure of the Bank’s records.
[Slide 2] Project context
The African Development Bank (AfDB) is a multilateral development bank with the overall goal of sustainable economic development and social progress in African countries that contributes to poverty reduction. The Secretary General (PSEG) has the mandate to provide leadership and sponsorship of the implementation of Bank policy and enabling compliance with it. This includes implementation of records management (RM) and disclosure and access to information (DAI) policies. In practice this means the capture and storage of documents and metadata across activities, from drafts to the final version. The overall goals are to transform the current business practices where documents have been created and stored mostly on personal computers, reviewed and approved using email and hard copies, and shared as email attachments. The desired future state is to break down these silos, implement common business processes among and across business units, regions and country offices, build a shared online collaboration and document repository, and to ultimately achieve the Banks top priorities—The High Fives: Light up and power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Affrica, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa.
[Slide 3] Classification goals and objectives
One of the key bottlenecks in international development is the appraisal and approval of projects. This involves a significant amount of documentation of project development activities prior to implementation. In developing countries, the size of projects varies widely, but the project budget is often smaller scale than in developed countries and the needs are greater. This adds up to more projects with smaller budgets that need to be on-boarded and managed. This is a major documentation challenge and potential project implementation bottleneck. SANKOFA is the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) new document and records management platform. SANKOFA aims to facilitate a digital transformation of the Bank’s documentation facility to address the project implementation challenge and to unify access to documents across all the Bank’s business activities, as well as to enable the disposition of the Bank’s records and their disclosure as appropriate.
[Slide 4] Business classification scheme
A file plan is the documentation of a standard method for organizing documents so they will be filed and named in a systematic way. A file plan may be thought of as business classification categories, for example, by business function and activity, business activity phase, and record type. Figure 1 Slide 4 shows the levels of the Sankofa business classification scheme.
Figure 1-SANKOFA File Plan Classification Levels (*Phase only applies to Development Projects)
[Slide 5] Function
This slide shows the 10 broad business functions at the Bank. These are common business functions that are applicable to any large organization.
[Slide 6] Activity
This slide shows the sub-functions or activities that are related to the Operations, Programs, Projects and Initiatives function at the Bank. The Bank is particularly focused on the Project Lifecycle Management of development projects.
[Slide 7] Project phase
This slide shows the standard defined phases of the Project Lifecycle Management of development projects.
[Slide 8] Document type
This slide shows the list of document or record types that are related to the Identification phase of development pojects.
[Slide 9] Business value and security classification
Classifying documents with their correct function, activity (sub-function), phase (when appropriate), and record type enables effective record retention and disposition of the Bank’s records. In most cases, the business activity in the records management file plan identifies the business value of documents that are classified in that activity.
[Slide 10] Retention and disclosure classification
Each business value has a set retention period associated with it as shown in Table 1. The business value and retention period are the metadata parameters that are used to automate the appropriate disposition of items in the records management system.
| Business Value | Retention Period |
| Transitory | 2 Years |
| Essential | 10 Years |
| Important | 50 Years |
| Vital | Permanent |
Table 1-AfDB file plan business value classification.
Similarly, classifying documents with the correct record type enables the effective disclosure of and access to Bank information. It automates the identification of a document’s disclosure and access to information (DAI) class and level. The DAI class and level are the metadata parameters that identify the appropriate disclosure series in which the document belongs as shown in Table 2. The disclosure series in turn provides the triggers for automating the appropriate disclosure of and access to the items in the records management system.
| Class | Level |
| Public | Public |
| Restricted | Confidential |
| Strictly Confidential |
Table 2-AfDB file plan disclosure of information (DAI) classification.
[Slide 11] Centralized file plan model
The master Sankofa file plan is updated using an iterative process as new business units are onboarded to the application. First, new business units identify which existing functions, activities, phases, and record types apply to their documents. Then any gaps are filled with new business classification categories, and any changes to existing categories are made. Finally, business value and DAI classifications are determined. Any conflicts with the master file plan are resolved, for example, harmonizing variant names for the same business activity or record type, and then any changes are made to the master. Figure 2 This slide is a diagram of the Sankofa file plan management model. The Sankofa application keeps track of which business units include which functions, business activities, phases, and record types so that a specific business unit file plan view is displayed when that business unit uploads documents.
Figure 2-SANKOFA File Plan Management Model
[Slide 12] Editorial rules for activity and record type labels
Editorial guidelines and naming conventions are important for having a consistent file plan, records schedule, and for the disclosure and access to Bank information. The goals are to avoid duplicate categories and enable harmonization of similar categories. Table 3 This slide shows examples of the business classification scheme editorial rules. This will improve predictability when staff are searching for an appropriate category when classifying new documents, or when they request a new category to be added to the business classification scheme, as well as when they are searching or browsing for documents in Sankofa. One of the biggest challenges in implementing an effective information retrieval application is confidence that you have found the specific document you are looking for, or confidence that the document truly does not exist in the system. The objectives of editorial guidelines and naming conventions is to improve label predictability when searching for an appropriate category.
| Rule | Description |
|---|---|
| Label | Use the most common form of the label found in AfDB documents or other authoritative sources (called literary warrant). Prefer UK spelling and punctuation. |
| Plural vs. Singular | Use the singular form for labels, e.g., “Agenda” or “Presentation”, except for collective nouns, e.g., “Minutes of Meeting” or “Regulations and Rules”. |
| Direct Order | Do not use inverted terms. Terms should be in direct order or qualified. E.g., “Annual Report” NOT “Report, Annual”, but “Correspondence (Internal and External)” is OK. |
| Capitalization | Use title capitalization. (Sometimes called camel case) |
| Abbreviations | Spell out abbreviations and acronyms unless the most common usage is the abbreviated form. Append the abbreviation, acronym, or spelled-out term to the label in parentheses. E.g., “Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)” or “Country Resilience and Fragility Assessment (CRFA)” |
| Ampersand | Do not use ampersands. Instead, spell out the word “and” E.g., “Pictures and Videos” or “Quarterly Climate Change and Green Growth Report”. But the ampersand can be used in acronyms and abbreviations. E.g., “Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Contract”. |
| Special Characters | Avoid using special characters such as forward slash, m- and n-dash, etc. Note that m- and n-dashes may be separated from the noun phrases by spaces. E.g., “Protocol and Liaison Services (Executive Directors)” NOT “Protocol and Liaison Services – Executive Directors” |
| Compound Names | Avoid combining multiple activities or record types. Whenever possible make these two or more record types. E.g., “Activity Work Program” and “Action Plan”, NOT “Activity Work Program / Action Plan”. |
| Label Length | Labels should not exceed 255 characters. |
| Hyphens | Follow the most common UK usage. Generally, use a hyphen to link compound nouns and prefixes. Capitalize each noun in a hyphenated compound noun phrase. E.g., “Aide-Mémoire”. |
| Serial Commas | If a category name includes more than two items, separate the items with commas. The last item separated by “and” or “or” should NOT be preceded by a comma. |
Table 3-AfDB business classification scheme editorial rules.
[Slide 13] Summary
A business classification should enable:
- Efficient project documentation.
- Compliance with records management, security and disclosure policies.
- Effective and reliable search to find what you need, or confidence that what you need doesn’t exist,
Good business classification practices include:
- Broad and shallow hierarchies, no more than 4 levels deep.
- Simple naming conventions following organizational standards.
- Harmonization of variations of the same label.
Citations
- “African Development Bank Mission & Strategy.” https://www.afdb.org/en/about/mission-strategy.
- In most cases the business activity defines the record series, and the same business value applies to all record types in the activity. However, there may be exceptions where record types within the same business activity have different business values.