Enterprise GIS: The Minneapolis Model
Minneapolis GIS Program Mission
“To facilitate efficient and effective delivery of City services by providing easy access to
an interactive system of Citywide geographic-based data, maps and other images”
The Minneapolis GIS 2000 program approach is based on an enterprise vision of
providing city staff with a supportive technology, information and organizational
environment for improving the level of services to the citizens of Minneapolis. The
organization of the GIS 2000 and Engineering 2000 programs was designed to
establish departmental ownership of the at an enterprise level The GIS Program
Owner’s Group consisting of all City department heads and was established to manage
the GIS 2000 program through the direct involvement of the Cities executive leadership.
The GPOG successfully defined program scope and deliverables, instituted project
teams to develop a comprehensive project plan and established a GIS Program
Management Office. The GIS Program Management Office was created to define,
develop, deploy and support enterprise GIS. The PMO began by developing a detailed
project plan and creating a comprehensive departmental business process model that
was the basis for defining GIS application requirements and the Enterprise Data model.
The Minneapolis Enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) program is structured
into three phases:
During the first phase, which began in July of 1998, options for the information,
technology and organizational architectures were developed. The second phase
involved the design, development and the rollout of the GIS Web applications, as well
as the creation of a data and technology environment to support the sharing of common
enterprise data. The third phase involves the institutionalization of GIS and continued
deployment across the enterprise of both the GIS Web applications and the workstation-based
GIS tools (a.k.a. the GIS Toolkit).
Business Process Driven Approach
A business process driven approach was taken to define the original objectives and
priorities of the GIS program. The enterprise GIS program used a business process
driven approach, which is different from the traditional department-by-department
application development strategy. The business process driven approach, simply
stated, consists of defining enterprise-wide business processes first, and then selecting
the most appropriate technology solution. Staff from 14 City departments determined
collective needs, prioritized them, and then the EMA team developed the enterprise
applications which would meet the majority of those needs. Business analysts worked
with staff to document the current work flow situation and then define the preferred
future state. Individual department needs were set aside in favor of agreed-upon
enterprise priorities.
The business process modeling phase of the program involved 179 groups throughout
the City who identified 116 work flows, consisting 2069 individual GIS related activities,
and 1314 supporting data sets. Using the business process model, normalized in the
context citywide needs, eight Common GIS Work Flow tools, a GIS Analysis Toolkit and
several department specific applications were identified as initial priorities for
development. In fact, these tools address 90 percent of all the users’ needs across the
City.
GIS Application Development Process
