Successful Large Conversion Projects...How to Guide

Successful Large Conversion Projects...How to Guide

Allan Radke
GIS Project Team Leader, Northern States Power
Tom Guzman, Senior Project Manager, QC Data Inc.

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to describe in some detail the successfid completion of a large conversion project involving Northern States Power Company and its conversion vendor, QC Data Inc. This paper will discuss the unique circumstances encountered during the project and practices that were implemented, which allowed this large and extensive conversion project to be completed with a very high degree of quality and on time. The paper will focus on those best practices that provided benefit to overall project success, as well as discuss some of the pitfalls and lessons learned in undertaking this complex and challenging project.

Background
Northern States Power Company (N'SP), headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a major U.S. utility with growing domestic and international nonregulated operations. NSP and its wholly owned utility subsidiary Northern States Power Company-Wisconsin, operate generation, transmission and distribution facilities providing electricity to about 1.4 million customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan. The two companies also distribute natural gas to more than 440,000 customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Michigan, and provide a variety of energy-related services throughout their service areas.

QC DATA, Inc. provides Spatial Data Solutions and conducts data conversion, data migration, data maintenance, quality assurance, data management, and professional services to electric, gas, telephone, and water utilities; government sectors; and pipeline and petroleum industries. The QC Data group of companies employs over 800 employees worldwide, with over 540 dedicated specifically to the Spatial Data Services division, which specializes in AM/FM, GIS, and LIS data solutions. Production facilities for the Spatial Data Services are located in Denver, Colorado; Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and Cork, Ireland.

The Project
In March 1993, NSP embarked on an initiative designed to implement a Geographical Information System (GIS). Utilizing the services of a consulting organization, NSP developed a statement of work, and a vendor bidding and evaluation process. As a result,

QC Data, Inc. was selected as the vendor of choice. After conducting detailed surveys of each Minnesota Region's map sources, NSP started developing the processes for the data conversion. The result was a plan that would enable map sources to be converted, provide the means to update the maps during and afier conversion, and implement user training and the eventual data rollout to the user community. NSP went a step deeper and developed area and region preparation procedures, final conversion specifications, quality assurance and acceptance procedures, as well as a detailed schedule for completion milestones. The conversion activity was limited to Minnesota regions only and included the actual conversion of approximately 11,000 electrical distribution maps and 5,000 gas distribution maps of varying scales, and the development of a landbase for the 43 counties within the NSP service territory covering approximately 50,000 square miles. In addition to automated mapping, this project involved the construction of a geographically referenced database that provides numerous facilities management functions. The system allows the ability to map, edit, query and view electric, gas and land features data.

Proiect Startup
In any project, the startup oftentimes represents one of the more difficult periods in the life of the project. Many obstacles are present and the difficult task of implementing the project effort is ofien time consuming and challenging. But there area few important concepts that can be addressed that do tend to make this implementation easier. Most importantly, establishing a spirit of cooperation and teamwork among all organizations seems to be the most beneficial activity early on in the project. A few other concepts to assist in establishing this spirit are addressed as follows:

Understanding the Magnitude of the Proiect
Understanding each other's organizational investment and the importance of a successful project needs to be foremost and highly visible within each organization involved in the conversion effort. Strategic and long range goals need to published and communicated to all stakeholders, as well as all project team members. In this environment of increased competition within the utility industry, it is absolutely essential that organizational goals and objectives, along with the timeline for accomplishment be made visible and understood by all involved. Often the long range and strategic goals within the organization not only have long term implications in terms of their importance to the overall survival of the organization, but also the financial investment. Most of the time, these objectives are linked and obtaining overall success is contingent upon the incremental success of all facets or parts of the entire long-range initiatives. There is usually, tremendous financial implications tied to the success of each segment. Understanding the financial investment and the integrated financial impact is essential.

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.

Implementing Project Management Requirements
Although start up activities are important in any conversion project, specifying and implementing project management requirements is also essential in ensuring project success. Project management requirements that must be implemented early on the project are communication, problem resolution procedures, documentation of all project assumptions and ground rules, and a discussion of overall project schedule milestones.

Establishing Communication Requirements
It is essential that all organizations involved in a large conversion project have specific communication processes and procedures in place necessary for communicating general project information, project progress, technical information, and any and all management decisions and directives associated with the project. Because of the mere size of these types of projects, communicating data to a large number of project team members scattered across many cities, counties, and even states can be a daunting task. Therefore, developing and implementing means of communicating information must be established and maintained throughout the life of the project. In the NSP project, NSP developed and implemented a communication program designed to keep project team members appraised of project progress, and issues. Specifically, NSP developed a newsletter that was published periodically with the intent of keeping all team members, and management informed of current, and pending Geographical Information Systems (GIS) issues, and project progress. This newsletter not only addressed the current conversion project, but all projects associated with the entire GIS initiative.

Problem Resolution Procedures
In large conversion projects, there will always be technical issues or questions arising on the actual conversion of source data. There needs to be a vehicle or process established and implemented designed to handle questions of ambiguity. This process needs to be in place and understood by virtually all stakeholders in the project and must be done at the outset of the project. Technical issues are linked to schedule performance, thereby making this process all the more important. In the NSP project, the Reconciliation or RECON process was established specifically to handle this. This important process was implemented across the project, and virtually all project members, from both NSP and QC Data, knew the importance of the process. It is important to note that because of the size of this project, strict control, tracking and resolution of each and every RECON was maintained.

Documentation ofAll Project Assumptions and Ground Rules
As with all projects, there are often many ground rules and assumptions that are made that impact the overall performance of the project. This was especially true for the NSP conversion project. It was virtually impossible for every situation that came up during conversion to be covered in the overall conversion or placement rules. Assumptions and/or ground rules were made that governed certain situations. These ground rules and assumptions were readily accessible and available to production staff during day to day business. They were also reviewed periodically to ensure that they were current. As things progress in the project, many assumptions and ground rules changed or no longer become germane. Keeping assumptions and ground rules current proved to be another key to successful conversion success.

Overall Project Schedule Milestones
Perhaps one of the most important Project Management requirements is to ensure that key milestones are kept current and published. Particularly, major milestones of key deliveries and major events need to be highly visible. All conversion projects are generally schedule driven, with delivery often tied to other aspects of the GIS program. Most of these aspects generally involve commitment of many resources and other key activities. It is generally an integrated program. Therefore, contractors and all internal organizations need to be cognizant of relevant delivery dates and other key milestones. The NSP conversion project was tied to many milestones, all of which were linked in some manner to other schedule milestones, which were part of the overall GIS program. Any impacts to conversion dates generally impacted other downstream milestones. It was; therefore, vitally important to maintain adherence to dates as much as possible. Conduct Project Pilot

As in any conversion project, conducting a pilot program for a large conversion project is essential for overall project success. The pilot program is so vital and provides tremendous benefits for the overall project that it should not be overlooked. In the NSP project, a pilot program was conducted and the specific benefits of conducting this pilot are as follows:

Processes were vertjied-, As with any conversion project, the actual conversion process is the key to successful and quality results. In the NSP project, the actual conversion process was developed and refined during the pilot program. This provided the opportunity to determine which sub processes were working to achieve maximum efficiency as well as to determine which ones needed to be reengineered or improved upon.
Conversion Specl~cation validation- The conversion specification needs to be stabilized as much as possible prior to actual data conversion. In the NSP project, careful evaluation of the specification occurred during the pilot phase and adjustments were made. Once the pilot was concluded, the conversion specification was frozen and changes were maintained under strict version management control.
Resource ver~&7cation-The project pilot should also be used to verify and validate proper resource allocation. This is true for both human resources as well as hardware, soflware, facilities and support equipment. Certainly, human resources are the most critical in any conversion project and most important in large and complex projects. The proficiency of the work force is often the key to both schedule and quality performance. In the NSP project, the pilot program was used to determine the proficiency of the work force, and appropriate training programs were implemented as necessary. The pilot should was also used to verify whether QC Data and NSP had sufficient processing capability. This was important because at times the size of the deliveries were significantly large, and that data processing oftentimes challenged the capacity of the processing capability of QC Data, and the evaluation capability of NSP.
Acceptance/Quality Assurance criteria- The pilot program provided NSP the opportunity to review all acceptance and quality assurance criteria. Data was submitted for review and acceptance and NSP reviewed it for completeness and accuracy, ultimately accepting or rejecting the data. During this process, it was often the case that NSP found that there were potentially many flaws in the actual acceptance and/or quality assurance criteria. It was during the pilot that NSP and QC Data reviewed these processes and procedures and made the necessary changes. These changes were documented, reviewed with QC Data, and then were "frozen" as part of a baseline for all data quality assurance and acceptance.

It was the ultimate criteria on whether QC Data performed to requirements.

Project Implementation

Establish Proiect Control Mechanisms
Once the pilot was complete, the project was then ready to assume full up production on data conversion. It is vitally important that proper project control mechanisms be implemented in order to keep the project running as smoothly as possible, and adhering to and meeting all project requirements. Some important project control mechanisms that need to be implemented are refining project schedule, and conducting periodic project review meetings.

a. Refine Project Sc/zedule-In the NSP project, the schedule was perhaps the most difficult singularly thing to refine; yet adherence to delivery milestones was so important. Therefore, it was extremely important for QC Data to completely refine the schedule as much as possible. QC Data needed to understand the conversion process within its own organization, the effort required to complete the conversion tasks. One thing that proved to be most beneficial was that QC Data actually reviewed each and every source map. This evaluation allowed an assessment of complexity and the opportunity to assign density. This then allowed the creation of a detailed estimate for completing each individual task for each map. The detailed schedule was then developed and refined. Once the level of effort was determined, it was possible to refine the necessary staff and infrastructure needed to support the schedule. It was then possible to develop and baseline appropriate project Gantt charts. It's extremely important to establish a baseline of delivery dates for the project, as it's the basis of comparison for whether areas or data are delivered on time or not. Also, once baseline dates are established, then recovery plans can be implemented to correct any schedule variances that may exist.

Periodic Project Review ikleetings- These were management meetings and are designed to work off action items or at least report their progress or resolution, schedule progress and issues, and any other items of a management or technical issue that needs top project management attention. These meetings were conducted frequently at the beginning of the project, and tapered off as the project was winding down. The attendees at these meetings were the project management individuals from both NSP and QC Data, as well as key technical or lead personnel. In the NSP project, these meetings were held monthly. The agenda for these meetings included standard items for discussion along with those unique or special items required for discussionhesolution. As a result of these meeting, minutes were published and kept as a matter of record.

c. Technical Interchange Meetings--Similarly to periodic management meetings, technical interchanges occurred as well. These meetings were set at least monthly at the beginning of the project, continued for most of the life cycle of the project. These meetings involved technical lead personnel, as well as key production individuals from both NSP and QC Data. The topics for discussion at these meetings should include a review and discussion surrounding peculiarities, or unique characteristics of current or near term delivery areas, review andlor modification of assumptions and ground rules, plus any conversion specification issues or updates. Meeting minutes and action items of these meetings were maintained, and kept as a matter of project record.

Monitor Proiect Progress
Monitoring project progress is most important in any large conversion project. Understanding the current status of the project in terms of schedule and current technical issues is essential to managing the project to successfid completion. The important thing to remember is that in order for project management to make rational and meaningful decision, prompt and accurate status or progress needs to be assessed. Specifically, it is highly suggested that the current state of the project be assessed at a minimum of weekly. The progress of in process delivery areas needs to be accurately assessed in order to determine its adherence to schedule. Once this is done, then variances, both favorable and negative can be assessed. In the area of negative or adverse variances, impacts to downstream deliveries can be determined, and the necessary recovery plans or work arounds can be determined. Once these have been determined and implemented, then the schedule can then be updated.

Status reports also need to be provided to management, and all project stakeholders, whether it be the utility or the conversion vendor. In the case of the NSP project, project progress was assessed weekly by QC Data. Weekly status reports were submitted to NSP. NSP and QC Data worked together to develop an overall project schedule in Microsoft Project. QC Data kept this data current.

Conclusion
Large conversion projects are complex with a tremendous amount of risk. This risk is often associated with an integrated program that the utility has embarked upon as part of its long range and strategic plan. The implementation of a functional GIS is key to the future success, and often contingent upon successfid data conversion. Successful data conversion requires and involves a tremendous investment from the utility and the conversion vendor. This investment is not only measured in terms of budgeted values but perhaps more importantly in the manner in which they are guided, and managed. There are tremendous variables and unknown factors associated with any data conversion project. In large projects, these variables and factors can be daunting and if not managed in the proper manner, can be the difference between project success and project failure. Establishing a strong bond between the utility and its vendor, embedding a spirit of cooperation and trust and sharing responsibility and working together for successes as well as failures must be established and implemented from the beginning of the project. There needs to be a substantial investment in developing and refining processes and procedures associated with every aspect of the conversion process.