Today, enterprise-wide technology projects are the key to building efficiency into any operation. GIS
systems, and related applications, are among the most important and complex enterprise-wide
technology projects to implement successfully.
Not too many years ago, the most difficult problems in implementing such systems were of a
technical nature:
- Most systems required development of custom software, which required talented (and
expensive) programmers, and took many years to develop.
- Computer hardware often limited design capabilities because it was much more
expensive, less powerful, and more prone to breakdown.
- Problems with computer integration also limited system design options because different
computer systems often had virtually no chance to talk to each other, making information
exchange difficult to impossible.
- And, finally, communicating across distances at high speeds was prohibitively expensive
and—for large files-technically difficult.
Because of these problems, we concentrated on getting data to people rather than integrating data. For
example, if your agency has any networked financial or maintenance or modeling systems more than
five years old, it is unlikely that these systems are truly integrated.
Today’s technology has solved most of the software, hardware, integration, and networking problems:
- We can find off-the-shelf applications to meet most any need.
- Our clients can buy powerful, inexpensive workstations for a few thousand dollars, and
even servers--for much less than the cost of workstations of just a few years ago. And the
computers our clients buy are much more reliable than in the past.
- Interoperability is also becoming a standard with both industry standards and market
pressures providing the motivation for every software vendor to implement
interoperability capabilities into their applications.
- And, finally, high speed communications options are now available at affordable prices.
Like us, our clients enthusiastically welcomed such technical advances. However, our clients’
expectations have grown along with the advances. In our experience, clients are likely to have
unrealistic expectations about what GIS can and cannot do and about the difficulty of integrating
products from different vendors. For example:
In one scenario, the client’s staff had seen so many demos of GIS being used to display information
about tax assessments, permitting data, and utility maintenance data, that they were ready to scrap all
three existing (homegrown) system, and replace them with one application - the GIS ! We had to
spend a significant amount of time educating them that the GIS could not perform the functions of all
those applications by itself, rather that it could help them as a way to visualize the data that was
maintained by those applications. They did need to replace the applications, but with new, off-theshelf
versions that tied to the GIS.
Another area in which client’s expectations don’t mesh with the real world is when clients try to
integrate packages from multiple vendors. All vendors now claim that their solution is “open”, and
most claim compatibility with the dominant products (“Oracle compatible”) and standards (“ODBC
Compliant”). Yet actually getting two products to be integrated to the degree that the users’ desire
(“We can enter data once and it will end up in both places”) often requires expensive customization,
Perhaps because our clients underestimate the complications non-technical situations can create
during the implementation of enterprise-wide systems, we sometimes find it harder to meet clients’
expectations now than in the past. This paper defines a methodical, evolutionary process that has
proven to be successful in implementing such systems. In the paper, I’ll concentrate on eight methods
for ensuring successful implementation of an information system.
- A unified project team
- Permanent client committees
- Defining needs as opposed to “wants”
- Understanding client fears
- Evaluating benefits in relation to costs
- Role-playing new procedures
- Testing assumptions
- Staged implementation
A unified project team
The process begins with a planning session involving all stakeholders. The purpose of the planning
session is to define the needs that the new system is to meet, and define specific goals that the system
will be measured by. This planning session and subsequent meetings of the team are essential in
getting buy-in from users. The members of this team must themselves be committed to the success of
the project, and must convey their belief in the value of the system to those who are not involved.
For many clients, this is where the project success story begins. In one instance, this initial goalsetting
session was the first time two key department heads had worked together towards a common
goal in many years, and their long-standing animosities disappeared as a result. A truthful airing of
everyone’s agenda is essential at this point.
Permanent client committees
Another goal of this effort is to create an ongoing team made up of management and users that will
stay involved in the project throughout its implementation.
For most large GIS projects, we recommend two committees, a policy committee made up of elected
officials and key decision makers, and a technical committee made up of those who understand the
processes and who will be using the new technology. For non-GIS projects, often one implementation
committee will be enough.
Defining needs as opposed to “wants”
Often projects fail because they attempt too much, because no one has told the designers to stop
designing until they have designed an unbuildable dream. This is time for a reality-check: Do we
really need all those capabilities now? Can some things be delayed until a second phase? Are some of
the “requirements” just not necessary? One good way to test each of the needs is to pose the question:
How are we meeting this need today? If the answer is “we aren’t” then you need to objectively
evaluate whether or not the need is critical to the new system.
