Successful Large Conversion Projects...How to Guide
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Both Plavers
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the conversion vendor and utility is
extremely important. Likewise, the utility is embarking upon a large and extremely
complex and risky venture as well. Not all information is known or understood by the
utility as well. Never assume that the conversion vendor or the utilh y know the answer to
everything in how to do the utilities conversion, and handle all the complexities of the
project. Northern States Power and QC Data established a bond of cooperation; trust and
teamwork to work through all the daunting issues that did arise. Also, h is important to
understand the strengths of each organization. The most important factor here is that
both NSP and QC Data partnered together, and shared complete responsibility. They
worked as a team to resolve problems and issues, and worked through unplanned
obstacles to meet the project's goals.
Establishin Proiect Success Criteria
The goal of any conversion project is to deliver quality data to the utility that can
ultimately be incorporated into that organization's overall Geographic Information
System (GIS). Establishing the criteria that will enable this to occur is perhaps one of, if
not the most, critical activities that has to be established either before or very early on in
the conversion process. The creation of complete and comprehensive conversion
specifications, quality assurance requirements, and overall acceptance criteria are primary
to a project's success.
Conversion specification
This is the focus of the entire conversion process. The specification must include all the
conversion, placement, and business rules necessary for the conversion vendor to
accurately convert manual data into an acceptable and complete digitized format. The
conversion specification needs to be established before the actual conversion has begun
and must be as accurate and as complete as possible. Once the conversion specification is
developed, it should not be changed readily. Instead, it should be maintained in a strict,
version controlled manner, ensuring the conversion vendor has a stabilized specification
that governs all rules and regulations on conversion. It is also important to make the
specification as exact as possible. Vague and unclear placement rules serve as a
detriment to good quality conversion of data. The more specific the specification is
covering as many conversion rules as possible, the better the conversion will ultimately
be. This is particularly true in the beginning stages, where there is a tremendous learning
curve associated with the conversion vendor understanding the utility's data, the
conversion process, and those specific rules and requirements governing actual
conversion.
When the NSP conversion project began, the conversion specification was unstable.
After conversion had already started, changes continued to be made as more details and
questions surfaced. Confusion was caused for QC Data, as well as adding additional
cleanup work for NSP in back filling information not captured previously. As a result of
an unstable specification and a fluctuating project scope, the project had to stop and start
again until the specification was stabilized. After the restart, strict change management
was implemented. As a result, changes to the specification were tightly controlled. This
allowed for a systematic and productive implementation.
Qalitv Assurance Requirements
In addition to the conversion specification, quality requirements must be established prior
to the beginning of any actual conversion delivery. The conversion vendor must have the
opportunity to understand the quality requirements expected in all deliveries to develop
internal quality processes and software tools to meet these stringent requirements. In the
NSP project, NSP set a quality attainment requirements of 99 percent. This was
generally higher than the industry standard (approximately 98.5 percent). QC Data
developed a number of quality steps and processes along with tools to ensure that these
quality requirements were met. Except for the very first few deliveries, which is
consistent with the learning curve, QC Data delivered remaining delivery areas
consistently exceeding requirements.
It is vitally important for the utility to establish the acceptance criteria and processes once
deliveries are being made. There are many and varied ways in which acceptance can be
made. A well-defined and documented process needs to be in place prior to the first
delivery. Northern States Power developed automated software for QC Data to check the
digital content prior to delivery an acceptance process and procedures that consisted of
random sampling review often percent of the delivered data in a visual format. From
this sampling, they were able to extrapolate the overall quality of the entire delivery, and
assign an overall quality acceptance score.
