GISdevelopment.net ---> GITA 1997 ---> Project planning, implementation and management

Project management in the AM/FM/GIS world

Jack C. Gains
Project Manager, Merrick & Co., Aurora, CO.
2450 S. Peoria Street, Aurora, CO. 80014


Paper
In 1997, hundreds of Requests For Proposals for AM/FM/GIS data will be sent out to AM/FM/GIS vendors around the country. This means that hundreds of people will be asked to do Project Manager or GIS Coordinator duties. What ever you would like to call these people they have now been asked to carry the responsibility of Project Management for a Federal Agency, State Government department, County Government, City Service department or Private User. The RFP’s will vary from small utility projects to major State mapping and conversion projects. There will also be an increased load on AM/FM/GIS vendors in Project Management. This paper will try to put a clear picture together about what is Project Management, who will handle our future Project Management, the importance of a strong AM/FM/GIS Committee in Project Management, how do we select our Project Managers, how Project Managers are trained, Project Management in selecting an AM/FM/GIS vendor and how to support our Project Managers and GIS Coordinators.

What is Project Management and what are the responsibilities of a Project Manager or GIS Coordinator. In Webster’s Dictionary the word Project is explained as “ A particular plan or intention or to plan in the mind.” The word Management is explained as “ The act, practice, or process of managing or those who manage an organization.” If you look up the explanation for Person in Webster’s you will find the following explanation “ A human being”. So if you put all the explanations together you would come up with an explanation for Project Management as, “A human being asked to act, practice or process a particular plan or intention. Sounds simple but it is not. Usually the person asked to manage a project is not the one who had the intent or input. The demand for Project Management in the AM/FM/GIS world will continue to grow as the requests for data conversion and information continue, until everything that can be put into AM/FM/GIS systems is complete. We are not going to be done in my life time.

In 1970 I started working in this industry and I have been involved in all phases of Cartography and AM/FM/GIS. When I started all work was done on mylar using Leroy inking tools. In 1984 I returned to school to learn about GIS and computers. I have seen many positive changes in this industry, but Project Management has always struggled behind. I can probable count on one hand those who I started with that are still in the industry. At times it seems that we have hired and lost thousands of people because we never made this business a real career. I will cover the short falls and goals that need to be established to make the AM/FM/GIS a career for those people interested in Project Management and AM/FM/GIS.

Where will our future Project Managers and AM/FM/GIS Coordinators come from? There is a major shortage of trained AM/FM/GIS people in the market place today. All AM/FM/GIS vendors are spending more time and money than ever before training AM/FM/GIS staff in hopes of finding a gifted Project Managers. All City, State, Federal and Private users of AM/FM/GIS information are looking every day for people. There are some State Agencies that have as many as 20 new or vacated openings for AM/FM/GIS staff. So we take someone from our Mapping departments, Assessor Offices, MIS 508 departments, or Engineering Offices and appoint them AM/FM/GIS Manager. Usually this person is new to AM/FM/GIS but has a lot of excitement for what they have just been asked to do. They don’t always have the engineering, mapping or data background but they are bright and understand computers better than their supervisors. In many cases the new AM/FM/GIS person is in their middle twenty ’s. There is more opportunity for new people in the AM/FM/GIS field and there is more steady growth than at any other time. We are noticing that many of the new people coming into the AM/FM/GIS field, leave after about four years. Some move on to another public AM/FM/GIS office, some go to work for vendors. Vendors typically pay more. Other reasons for new people not staying in the field is the stress of the AM/FM/GIS tasks being put on them and they just pursue another career. We have to work on making career opportunities that have strong competitive salaries. To keep more of our home grown AM/FM/GIS people, we will need to help them develop at a faster pace and allow them to get extra training in the AM/FM/GIS environment. Yes, I know what you are thinking. If I send them to training and work to give them more chances to develop at a faster pace they will leave. If a person is young and just given one task to do, they will leave faster than if you try to make them active in the process. Department managers, Project Managers and AM/FM/GIS Coordinators have to work hard to keep good people, but you can keep more by having employees feel that they can continue to learn in their AM/FM/GIS environment. We need to let young people know about the opportunities in AM/FM/GIS. Most people new to this field are interested in computer programming. If they are not bogged down with making maps, encourage them to write AML’s and query programs for departments. This is a growing world but the expertise is not staying up with demand, both in the user world and vendor world. There are things that need to be addressed and this paper will try to address where we are now, where we need to be and the issues that are associated with it. One thing that all employers have to look at in hiring Project Managers is does the person have a track record with AM/FM/GIS data. It is easier to teach a person computers, than it is to teach AM/FM/GIS.

Lets start with where we are today. Most AM/FM/GIS Coordinators are from one department in Federal, State, City government or private utilities and you have Project Managers in the vendor sector. There will be a few exceptions where a local City has all the departments in the City participating in the AM/FM/GIS program so you would have one Project Manager or GIS Coordinator for all the city’s effort. Most GIS Coordinators work and develop alone with all the different departments wanting data as soon as it is known that AM/FM/GIS data is available. In some cases the demand for data is so large that the AM/FM/GIS development is slowed so that the AM/FM/GIS Coordinator can work on other projects. There are many of you that make up a one person office for the AM/FM/GIS effort in your Federal, State, City or Private environment. It takes a lot of time answering to the many demands of unparticating users. You will see on Exhibit A what is the most common structure in cities that have AM/FM/GIS. The Project Manager handles all requests from each department. This person carries the load of their city’s GIS effort. This develops stress. In a lot of cases these departments do not communicate with each other and the requests of the GIS person were not laid out at the start of the project. We must create Committees to help carry the load and give the GIS Coordinator a forum to request assistance.

The AM/FM/GIS community must help setup guidelines to help the new users. There has to be understanding that if a person is appointed to be the AM/FM/GIS Manager or Coordinator, they have the full support of the entire entity for where this work is being done. Some of the guidelines that the new AM/FM/GIS Coordinator must have, is be given the authority to create a AMfFM/GIS Committee made up of all the departments in their community. Why should there be a Committee you ask? Even if the project is relatively small, there is a need to make sure that everyone knows what is going on in the area. This is called Communication. If the project is large with mapping, digital orthos and parcel or utility conversion the Committee should help and advise the AM/FM/GIS Coordinator. Remember in most cases the AM/FM/GIS person is new to the AM/FM/GIS world and the experience of others can help this person grow. By having a Committee that works together there is a clear picture created for the future use and needs of the community. Listed below is an idea that might help coordinate a Committee and whom you might wanton the Committee. Exhibit B will give you an idea of how the committee might look.
  • AM/FM/GIS Coordinators
  • AM/FM/GIS Coordinators Supervisor
  • The Person who wanted AMIFMIGIS
  • Someone from the Planning Department
  • Someone from Traffic Department
  • Someone from Highway Department
  • Someone from the Assessors Office
  • Someone from the Local Counsel Committee
  • Someone from the Public Utilities
  • Someone from the Emergence Services
  • Someone from the Engineering Department
  • Someone from the Police Department
  • Someone from the Vendor that was Selected to do the Work.
  • Ask the Mayor or High Official in the area.
  • The person that wrote the RFP.
The group will grow larger as the data is delivered, the vendor is selected and there will be people that will fall off the list as the project moves along. This committee must start meeting six to twelve months before the RFP is sent out to the vendor community, so that all ideas have been reviewed and the review committee understands what will be presented by the vendor. This will also help in making sure there is a backup to the Project Manager or GIS Coordinator. Many times the Project Manager or GIS Coordinator leaves and no one knows what was going on but the vendor is still working under a contract. A new person steps in an there are changes that this person wants but there is already data being produced. The committee can help by holding the project on course until the new Coordinator gets up to speed. By having an idea of what you want from the time you send out the RFP, it will save time in getting you project going once you have picked a vendor. It is important that the committee be the base of the AM/FM/GIS effort and the goals are to supply data to the users. A little insight can be obtained by calling or requesting ideas from vendors. All vendors have ideas and some will help you in setting up your RFP. Also you can request from a vendor a copy of RFPs that the vendors liked and were written well. You are the ones who know your needs and wants. Work together and set a common goals.

It is important that an effort is made to get with each department in your community and get them on board. One person will have to take the responsibility to go to each department. This is Project Management. Because tax dollars are usually the only funding for AM/FM/GIS projects, all departments must work together and get the most AM/FM/GIS data for the lease dollars. All vendors are use to working with multiply community department AM/FM/GIS projects. An example is if you are a county and you have five cities in your county, all the cities need to be brought together so that you can do data sharing with the cities. You can split your aerial flying cost, survey cost and conversion cost. This is also Project Management. Where does Project Management go after you have everyone on board for this project. It is important to hold meeting each month even if you have received all you data. There will be times that it will be made known in the meeting that someone needs new data or a different kind of data. Make sure that you have your hardware and software in place before you are scheduled to get you prototype data. The vendors can help you in knowing how much disk space you will need to have for your data.

One of the hardest decisions that a AM/FM/GIS Coordinator has to make is which vendor to use. Most RFP mailing lists have all the vendors listed. Most vendors will respond even though they are booked up for a year or so. It is important that you as the AM/FM/GIS Coordinator understand that all AM/FM/GIS vendors have a very full plate because of the market demand. It would be great if an RFP could be sent out but the work is not needed for four years, but most of the time you want your data in about a year, unless you have a two year budget plan. All vendors will work with you on a multi year budget plan. If you plan ahead you could have your budget work for you over a two budget cycle. When picking a vendor you must call references and even though one reference might not be a big supporter of that vendor, give the vendor a chance to explain. Sometimes it might be out of the vendors control. Always have a shortlist and request a presentation by the shortlisted vendors. A shortlist can be created by first qualifying vendor as to the needs of your project. A shortlist should be around 5 to 8 qualified vendors. In the presentation you will find which company you are most comfortable with and see representative data that the vendor is producing. Never go with the lowest bid, because you usually get what you pay for. You do not want a throw away job. Look for the vendor that would like to give you some new ideas but still wants to meet you goals. Remember the teamwork part of this process. If you pick the right vendor or supplier, you will have a better chance at a successful project. The Project Manager or AM/FM/GIS Coordinator should work with the GIS Committee and it should be unanimous decision on who to choose. The time to talk final price is after you have selected the vendor to do your project. Something to remember when you are scheduling your project is if you wait until the fall to send out you RFP you will be putting a vendor in a rush to get the aerial flights laid out, the ground control paneled and the flying done. If you can send out you RFP in the Spring or Summer you will give the vendor the time to do a better job. Because of all the requests for flying and the different weather, vendors and pilots are looking for a few good days. It is very hard to get 3 to 5 good flying days in a row. Planning always helps control cost and frustrations. One of the best ideas for picking a vendor is the user needs to understand what is being requested.

When looking for ways to make you project run smoother, make sure that the vendor that you are using has procedures in place for Bi-Weekly Reports, Delivery Reports and charts. You need to be able to go back to you GIS Committee and report on the project and status of the project.. Also request that a Procedures Manual will be delivered after the prototype is completed. Communication should be once a week and letters should follow each phone call. When calling references ask if the vendor has been sending Bi-Weekl y Report and tracking forms. It is not enough to just say that you have them but do they get sent out. Communications means teamwork. Request the vendor Project Manager visits you site once every two month and you visit the vendor twice a year if possible.

The Prototype Phases has become a major part of the AM/FM/GIS environment, both for the AM/FM/GIS users and the AM/FM/GIS vendors. What is a Prototype Phase? With all new projects that cover a City, State, or large area there is some unknowns. The vendor’s bid in a competitive bid in a competitive market and the new AM/FM/GIS project or user is still not working with AM/FM/GIS data. If the project was for a 100 square mile area with planimetric/contour/parcel/utility mapping and conversion, the pilot should bean area that represents a good cross section of the project. Some rural and urban data in the same area. The vendor would then work with the user to come up with a few tiles that join in the same area and this would be the prototype area for this project. If this project has planimetric mapping, digital orthophotography and parcel conversion, the prototype would start after the targeting, aerial photography, GPS ground control and FAAT is complete. There should always be a short time frame used for the prototype area. Most of the total project development by the vendor and client happens in these prototype tiles. For most prototype areas should last no longer than two months. It is the vendors responsibility to create the prototype data to the understanding of the signed contract. It is the AM/FM/GIS users responsibility to not request more in the prototype data, than what is stated in the signed contract. Understanding that the vendor will come back and request additional funds from the AM/FM/GIS client for additional scope of work.. We need to make sure that everything is spelled out clearly in the signed contract and follow it until both parties agree on a change. For the new AM/FM/GIS user or client, the prototype has two important functions. First, it is to show that the vendor has a complete understanding of what the user has contracted. Second, to give the user digital data to take to the people who have to approve funding. If the prototype takes six months to develop and complete, the people who approved the funding are going to get very impatient and will put a lot of undo pressure on the AM/FM/GIS Coordinator. This industry has lost more good people because of the pressure from the prototype phase than from any other source. Vendors must help by attacking a prototype area sooner in the contract. Vendors and users must understand that 909. of all problems within the industry come in the prototype phase. The Vendors and AM/FM/GIS users must work together in the prototype phases and speed up the time on compilation of the prototype data. Project Management from both sides must make this happen, Once the prototype data is in hand, there is something to build on. To keep good Project Managers in the AM/FM/GIS field they must be continually working on the next phase goals for GIS in their community.

If the AM/FM/GIS Coordinator would like to make life a little easier, they can start understanding that sometimes it is not cost effective to try and develop a new database design for their project. All vendors that have created 100 or more AM/FM/GIS projects have about that many database designs on tape and have worked out the bugs in these database designs. Most vendors, if not all, would like to work with a database design that has worked for another client. This is one area that the AM/FM/GIS user can save a lot of time and money. Request in the RFP that the vendor uses a database design that is similar to the project that is being bid on. With these database designs the vendor has already developed a QA/QC routine that will check the data being sent to the AM/FM/GIS user. This could be the starting point for the prototype phase. You would find out if it covers everything that you would need for the near future. Understand how your project can be managed better from a clear understanding of what you are asking and what you are getting. Project Management should not be trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to things that have already been done. In some cases you might change to the database that the vendor has used. Use the market place to help you save time and money, do not reinvent the wheel with your project. If the vendor is bidding competitive, they are looking for ways to lower their cost and reusing databases is one of the ways. There will be a cost but not like building a new database design.

Now that the Prototype Phase and Database Phase is completes your project is ready to go full speed ahead. But wait, have you signed off on the Prototype and Database data? Never start full production until you have finished the Prototype and Database design. Your asking way? Project Management in the AM/FM/GIS world is made up of small steps that must be climbed before you reach your goal of a AM/FM/GIS system. Lots of headaches happen in the process of getting data into the system. These come about because we do not pay attention to the small details. The full production data is usually pushed through because someone wants data quickly. In a AM/FM/GIS committee the schedule should always be spelled out and everyone needs to know that the completed project is maybe a year to two away. Good Project Management makes sure that each detail is completed before going to the next step. Teamwork between vendor and user will be better if there is competition to tasks in steps. Most new GIS users get new ideas when they start having data and show it to others, but the vendor has a set contract to perform. The time to ask for changes to a contract or task is after the prototype and database is completed and before the full production phase starts. Remember that your vendor is a partner in you project.

It would be at this point that if the prototype phase had lasted six months, the AM/FM/GIS user would be mad at the vendor for being slow on the project. But AM/FM/GIS projects are one of the biggest Teamwork environments that you can be in. So if the project is a one year project and you had used eight months to do the flying, A.T., database design and prototype phase you only have four months to complete the project. If you had used the vendors database design and not let the prototype phase go past two months you could have about 8 months to complete. At this time vendors would like to really get going on the production phase because all the questions and unknowns are out of the way. If you have 180 tiles to QA/QC in the production phase of the project and only had four months to do the QA/QC. This equals to check 10 tiles a week. But, if you had eight months to check the same 180 tiles you would only have to check five tiles a week. It makes it easier and if you had other things that needed you attention, you put the checking aside for a day and still get it the delivered data check on time. All AM/FM/GIS Coordinators need to understand that the checking of data being delivered to you by a vendor can not rest solely on your shoulders. All vendors should be using automatic QC/QA checking and this should be requested in your RFP. Use the tools that are out there. Departments need to have someone that will check the delivered data and free up the Coordinator to do the things that are being asked by other departments. Also this is the time that future development can begin to take shape. Project Management in the user area has to be looking at next years budgets and future needs of the community.

One thing that goes unnoticed is that a vendor does not like to send data that the client will sit on for four months and not QC. There is a schedule by now that the vendor is trying to meet, so work is going on even if the client is not checking. Project Management needs to understand that a whole project can be completed at the vendor’s shop and if a GIS Coordinator has not check the data, than starts checks it and has changes that are out of scope, the vendor is going to charge the client more to reset models or move data off backup. As a GIS Coordinator, you can get more by understanding that the vendor Project Manager can do more for a client if there is not an effort of backing up. If you can not check the data as fast as the vendor is delivering it, call the vendor Project Manager and work on a better delivery schedule.

You now have gone through a project where everything has gone correctly, but most project now are not going as smooth as they could. Where do we go from here? I have worked as a vendor and a user/client of AM/FM/GIS data for many years and the GIS Committee is really the starting point for a successful GIS project. Most issues can be talked about and developed in this committee. One idea that might help a new user is to develop a wish list and request your favorite vendor or advisor to price out your wish list. I have worked with clients that have a list that might take four years to complete because of funding restrictions, but they have a plan and have worked hard to get input from all departments. The GIS Committee is the users Project Management. If the advisor is giving good solid advice everything will be covered. Just look at everything that you use on a daily basis and that is what you will need to have in a AM/FM/GIS system, but do not forget that in about five years you will need to look into updating your GIS data. In the Denver area you have some counties that will have as much as 30% in changes over a five year period. Look into the future is the responsibility of the GIS Committee. You always want to be moving forward. You have data like Zoning, Land Use, Payment Management, Planning and Flood Management that will need to be put into your AM/FM/GIS system, but your effort so far has been to complete a good solid base that everything can be built to.

I have tried to give some ideas that needed to be covered in Project Management, but the real issues are how do we keep AM/FM/GIS people in this field, how do we come up with ideas to make the best decision for our project and community. Project Management is Teamwork at its best. AM/FM/GIS is still a new endeavor and we are learning new thing everyday, but we need to keep the process some what simple. Lets get data into the system. Break it down so that attributes can be added by programs and useful coverages or layers can be created. We must follow steps to get to our goal. Remember that when we are taking about Project Management, we are taking about a group of people interested in a solid AM/FM/GIS system and not just a pretty picture.. Vendors must be willing to present a plan that gives the user the best product, even if it means that the vendor might not be rewarded the contract and the user must understand that the vendor is not a money hungry company that is only interested in the dollars. Yes there are the bad stories of cities and counties having to redo all their data, but the industry is getting better and vendors are making changes. We have to get more people into AM/FM/GIS and get more future users going. GIS Committee’s need to call vendors more about what are they doing for other clients. GIS users need to take an interest in what all vendors and suppliers are doing. If you are looking for something, don’t wait until just anyone calls. I have always said that I want to be the Hunter and not the Hunted. I have always said that I hope everyone that will have AM/FM/GIS data does not request data at once, because right now their are not enough vendors to do the work. If you want AM/FM/GIS data now is the time to get it and there are people in the market place to help you with information and Project Management.




Exhibit B
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