The Tricks and Traps of Managing an Enterprise gis
Charles Rogers, Jr., P.E.
South Carolina Electric and Gas
Mail Code J-19
Columbia, SC 29201
Abstract:
After managing a GIS project for 9 years through data conversion(s), software migrations, application
interfaces, there are several pieces of advice I would give to new project managers. In addition to the
technical issues that are now becoming solvable, there are the people issues that can trip even the most
successful technical project. How do you prevent the user community from sabotaging the project? How do
you prevent senior management losing faith? How do you finish your project? These issues will be explored
in this presentation.
After having managed a GIS project at South Carolina Electric and Gas for the last 9 years, it is common to
have people visit us from all over the world. I think that the closer their project is aligned with ours, the
more specific and more useful is the advice that we can give them. Sometimes we can give them specific
RDBMS or GIS platform advice, or even advice about some of the 3 rd party vendors that we might be using
in common. But, no matter how disparate our projects might be, there is some advice that I can give anyone
who visits.
First let’s talk a little bit technical. For better or for worse, there are a handful of GIS platforms that can
support your project’s needs. Each will have its own advantages and disadvantages, of course, but there are
no clear standouts among that handful. You can probably make your project work regardless of which
platform you use. So, when I am asked, “What is the most difficult technical challenge that I can expect to
encounter?”, my answer is simple. Try not to buy software that doesn’t exist!
I guess a corollary to that would be try not to buy applications that don’t exist and that need other software
that also doesn’t exist. It seems silly to write these words, but I long ago stopped worrying about being silly.
The fact is that people buy software that doesn’t exist every single day. They buy the “demo”. Most vendors
will actually direct you away from the software and applications that they have in production at the time that
you are making your purchase. They describe functionality that you will need that is “just around the
corner”. They confidently state, “By the time you are ready to implement, we will have released our next
version”.
Maybe their latest, greatest version will be ready when you need it. Maybe it won’t be the bug ridden,
feature deprived, pseudo-beta version that is so common in large version releases today. Maybe. But are
you willing to bank your career on it? If there is one lesson that I have learned over the years it is that nearly
everyone is chasing some new release, some future enhancement, some bug fix that is due out next month.
Then, it is next month, and the month after that. Finally the release arrives, but the fix isn’t in it, or it
doesn’t work, or there are 15 other problems that prevent you from being able to apply that release to solve
your problems.
