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Friday, May 18
Machine Learning
Statistical Machine Learning Applications in Surveys
Fri, May 18, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Regency Ballroom A
 

Calling All Stakeholders: Developing a Demographic Statistical Redesign Agenda (304503)

*Richard Levy, US Census Bureau 
Jimmie B Scott, US Census Bureau 

Keywords: Redesign, business process reengineering

Since the 1960 decennial census, the demographic statistics area of the U.S. Census Bureau has carried out redesigns to take advantage of contemporary innovations in sampling and survey life cycle methods. The goal of these redesigns is to stem costs while maintaining or improving data quality.

The range of possible innovations is immense. Also the scope of Redesign is broader than in the past, in that sampling innovations are not the sole focus. And, the current idea is Redesign as more of a continuous process, so that research ideas could be presented on an ongoing basis.

Still, the Redesign program must take into account the short- and long-term needs and wishes of the various stakeholders involved with the five demographic surveys most directly impacted by any Redesign initiatives. As such, the Redesign program manager consulted with sampling and survey methods experts, survey directors and their teams, and survey sponsors at external agencies. The manager also consulted with former participants in Redesign, in particular to learn from their experiences of what went well and what could be improved.

The manager packaged and presented the ideas to consulted stakeholders for a final review before presenting the ideas to senior management for prioritization. Several ideas were delegated to sampling and estimation experts so they could prioritize them. The result was an initial research agenda to help kick-off the Redesign effort. All stakeholders were informed of the results of the prioritization and had the chance to weigh in on the initial research agenda.

The process of gathering ideas, prioritizing and building consensus could serve as a model for similar Redesign efforts involving multiple stakeholders with diverse agenda.