Understanding Client Business Practices and Needs
The first and foremost (and some would say the most obvious) thing that needs to be done is to gain an understanding of the business practices and needs of the client. It would be impossible to provide a solution that helps to streamline a client's business practices if those practices are not fully understood. This step is crucial to identifying where an enterprise data management system utilizing GIS can aid in eliminating inefficient steps in day-to-day processes and providing easier access to important information. All possible stakeholders should be involved as much as possible to ensure that the entire problem is understood instead of just one aspect. This understanding is most often gained through the following:
- Individual interviews with both potential every day users of the system and those who might have an even better view of the big picture as to what the system could provide. If possible, interview people separately from their superiors so as to encourage openness about their expectations or concerns for the system and where it is likely to help them in their daily jobs.
- Facilitated workshops with the project and client team to discuss topics such as user and functional requirements of the system. It is important that these workshops be interactive and solicit group participation instead of just a presentation. This is also the opportunity in most projects to educate the client on aspects or general technical issues that they may yet be familiar with. Most importantly though is to listen and to help steer the workshop in a productive direction.
- Following potential users through their daily job functions that will pertain to the system. Many times it can be useful to sit with users during their daily tasks to help better understand where a GIS and enterprise data management solution can aid them to perform their duties more efficiently.
Regardless of the methods used to gain this understanding, it is important to remember that the primary purpose is to learn the client's existing business practices and discover how a GIS and enterprise data management solution can aid in improving the quality and efficiency of those practices.
Identifying a Business Champion
Developing and implementing an enterprise GIS and data management solution can many times be a lengthy process. Therefore the most important person in this process is your business champion. The business champion is the person from your client who will fight for the success of the project. This is the person who understands the benefits an enterprise GIS and data management solution will bring to his/her company or agency and is excited about the opportunities such a system will provide. Enthusiasm is contagious and if this person is enthusiastic about the project then others will be too. Participation in the development of the system will be high and feedback will be productive. If this person is not excited about the project and does not take it seriously, then others will see this and feed off this as well. Feedback will not be as productive and ultimately the solution provided will be incomplete and will "live down" to their low expectations.
Utilizing a Development and Implementation Strategy
The third key to a successful implementation of a GIS and enterprise data management solution is to develop and follow an implementation and development strategy. There are many documented strategies that would serve as a good reference. A good example is Steve McConnell's Rapid Development or Software Project Survival Guide from Microsoft Press.
At Idea Integration we have a documented methodology we follow called Idea RoadMap. Idea RoadMap is a powerful family of methodologies for planning and implementing solutions that leverage the best emerging technologies and connect to the real world of existing enterprise business systems. It includes developing strategies for application development and design, to project management, to risk management and has proven to be a valuable and successful tool in our implementations.
Regardless of how your implementation and development strategy is created, it should at least include sections for the following:
- Documenting an implementation schedule specific to your project
- Defining user requirements
- Defining functional requirements
- Documenting application design
- Quality control procedures
- Testing and acceptance procedures
- Project management
- Risk management
- Contingency plans
Irrespective of your specific plan, simply know that the old maxim of "plan your work and work your plan" definitely applies.
Prototyping / Early Wins
Early wins during a lengthy enterprise GIS and data management system are important. They show progress to your client and most importantly they keep the client portion of the project team excited and involved in the process. Instead of just defining the specifications for a system and then "going away" for 4 months before the system is put in place plan for the system to be implemented in functional pieces. This lets the client slowly integrate the new system, piece by piece, into their every day procedures instead of overwhelming users with a sometimes-daunting system at the conclusion of a project.
An easy way to obtain these early wins is to prototype pieces of the system. This has many benefits to both you and the likely end users of the system. It allows you to fine-tune and troubleshoot the system based on feedback you receive from those using the prototypes and allows some of the users to become familiar and comfortable with the system prior to completion of the project.
It is recommended that for successful prototyping prototypes should be deployed to small number of people whose composition is made up of both likely users of the system on a day-to-day basis and key decision makers in the project team. This creates an environment where users can give feedback on how to improve the systems and enough decision makers are familiar with the prototype and then end goal of the project to make a decision should conflicting requests from users be made. In addition, prototyping should be limited to a controlled system environment, or test machines, to prevent substantial time spent on solving miscellaneous system problems.
Soliciting and Responding to Useful User Feedback
As mentioned above, one of the purposes of prototyping is to obtain feedback from users to aid in designing a system that will completely meet their needs. However, just as important as the feedback you receive is how that information is organized. Feedback should be structured and should be made publicly available to all stakeholders.
The web is the perfect tool for this. By having users give feedback through the web you can achieve the following:
- Structure their comments through the use of forms they complete.
- Make these comments publicly available to aid in reducing repeat comments.
- By allowing everyone to see everyone else's comments, you ensure the feedback you receive will be thought through and useful in nature.
- Responses to comments can be made immediately available to the project team.
- Resolved comments can be archived for later reference.
The following example shows a commenting engine built for an enterprise GIS and data management system implementation project for one of our clients. Users can make comments through completion of a form, read past comments and the project team response, read resolved comments, and even subscribe to comments so that when new comments are made they are received in the users e-mail. This commenting engine has proven to be extremely useful during the development of this system.
Just as important as obtaining feedback is quickly responding to feedback. By providing a tool such as the one above users will expect some kind of response almost immediately. A response does not have to be an actual implementation of a change but just acknowledgement that you are working the issue. This aids in keeping users involved with the implementation of the system.
