Attachment 7–2
Tips and tricks for selecting and implementing a spatial information
system
The following list is a summary of the 'tips and tricks' presented by
Peter Thorpe (Peter Thorpe Consulting) at the Royal Town Planning
Institute's (Planning and Environmental Training) GIS Selection and
Implementation Conference at the Cavendish Centre, London on 19 April 1996
(Source: http://www.planweb.co.uk/tip1.htm).
Selecting
| |
- First develop your vision for how
GIS will support your business priorities, then fill in the
details of your requirements.
- Focus on your key requirements,
not on the GIS technology.
- Decide the overall shape of your GIS
procurement at the outset ― Map management? Full GIS? Integrated
systems such as Development Control? Land and Property Gazetteer?
Links to databases such as Census? Links to existing Council
systems such as Land Charges?
- Identify the first 'showcase' project so
as to ensure high visibility and maximum chance of successful
implementation.
- Get commitment from Elected Members, Chief
Officers and Senior Managers.
- Refine your requirements through supplier
demonstrations and visits to local authorities which are active in
GIS ― but don't get deflected from your own priority needs.
- Review the British Standard BS7666
('Spatial Datasets for Geographic Referencing') and put in place
'home grown' standards for your geographic data ('streets',
'properties', 'addresses').
- Consider the Local Government Management
Board's GIS Functional Specification ― but treat it with
healthy suspicion and don't use it indiscriminately!
- Structure your Invitation-to-Tender to
ease direct comparison between suppliers ― if possible in a way
which can be quantified.
- Call the tune in assessing suppliers and
ensure that presentations, demonstrations and benchmarks are
carried out to rules that you define.
|
Implementing
| |
- Set 'benefit targets' in advance as the
challenge for implementation.
- Hand pick the 'Project Leader' (skills in
GIS, people management and trouble-shooting equally important).
- Dedicate adequate resources
(human and financial) within the Project Team.
- Keep alive a detailed Implementation Plan
and use it rigorously as the basis on which to monitor progress
and take corrective actions.
- Don't skimp on training, which is a
fundamental investment without which the project is unlikely to
succeed.
- Administer geographic data as a major
corporate asset and put in place procedures to ensure standardised
definitions, responsible ownership and quality.
- Maintain the support of Chief Officers and
Members in order to underpin ongoing success.
- Exploit the opportunities for new ways of
working which GIS can offer the local authority.
- Promote the successes and achievements
accruing from the implementation of GIS, in order to sustain and
justify continued commitment.
- Keep it all under review because things
never stand still (vision, strategy, implementation plan,
benefits, future direction)!
|
Copyright © 1996, Peter Thorpe Consulting, 18 Mercia Avenue,
Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 1EU. |
|
