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2. WHY DO GIS PROJECTS OFTEN FAIL?
For an organisation intending to introduce a GIS, there are five
different layers of experience, which should be clearly
distinguished:
The organisation's top management
The proposed project management level
Personnel involved at the GIS level
The system environment both at the
hardware level and the system
administration level
5 Proposed system implementation
4 39 2 -—
The level of know-how and experience within these five
categories are rather diverse from organisation to organisation
according to a company's structure, history and area of
responsibility.
The top management is typically unaware of the impact of
introducing a new information technology. The strategic
potential possibilities are often underestimated. Through lack
of communication between top management and the project
team it is often the case that the final objectives of a system are
not clearly understood. Top management must be prepared to
backup the project management team with full support,
including all necessary human and financial resources. Failure
to recognise this fact will certainly force lower level managers
to make decisions which exceed their level of expertise or
responsibility. There is also the danger of creating a certain
degree of antagonism between other departments which are
more or less uninterested in GIS technology.
The project management team often underestimates the time
and effort as well as the necessary human resources at the
project start. The potential of conflicts is considered a major
problem and normally overlooked. If a conflict arises, such as a
conflict concerning part of the data model, there is a lack of
experience concerning the solution to the problem. Project
managers are normally not trained to handle such problems.
Lastly, project managers are normally not able to create an
inter-departmental co-operation during the initial stages of a
GIS into an organisation as a whole.
The personnel involved at the GIS level are in fact the users.
The first task for the users of a new system is to learn it's
capabilities. When a GIS is first introduced, it's users are often
new employees to the organisation or employees transferred
from other departments with little or no training in GIS. These
users typically have no idea concerning such issues as data
modelling, data distribution, data interaction or inter-depart-
mental co-operation. Once a system has been introduced there
are often problems related to the acceptance by one depart-
ment's users due to a dependency created by another depart-
ment.
At system environment level, the existing hardware and
software components are often not considered from an overall
point of view. Existing system administrative requirements
may not be adequate and commercial databases may be
neglected. Only a vague overview may be understood at this
level.
81
The proposed system implementation shows a gap in the know-
ledge of the feasibilities and possibilities of a modern GIS.
Often benchmarks are not undertaken but rather brochures are
studied. Project teams consider only maps and graphics with
respect to cartographic aspects rather than analysing future
business and work processes. Very seldom the present work
processes are not analysed, and missing the know-how of
performing a system definition.
Due to these reasons many GIS projects fail. The costs are
immense and in end all involved parties are frustrated.
One solution to overcome these problems is to create a detailed
procedure for outlining the steps involved in introducing a GIS.
The introduction of GIS is unique in so far as the investment is
high and the duration of time between the initial prototype to
production until the first usage is very long. Therefore it should
be defined as a strategic project, where the management is not
only involved, it should even be guided by the management.
Conflict management has to be provided as a tool.
3. OBJECTIVE ORIENTED INTRODUCTION OF
GIS
When starting a GIS project it is most important to define the
objectives. At the top of a target pyramid, there are the strate-
gic targets of the organisation. From these strategic targets the
objectives of each department's requirements should be
derived. This may take place in form of brainstorming and
written requirement specifications. All results must be
classified and organised. From these results the targets of end -
users of applications can be derived. This will be the criteria
for the requirements of the system. Figure 1 shows an example
for deriving targets, subtargets and requirements.
Strategic
objectives
objectives of
departments
spl umm targets NN NO
requirements to system
AL AL
requirements to requirements to EDP
organisation system
Figure 1: Deriving requirements from objectives
As an example, a strategic target may be an attractive
industrial location. A subobjective might be the increase of
competition and better use of diversification potential or more
competent decisions. These result in the requirement to shorten
the work process and make use of historic data. This suggests
the system must support integrated data and a sophisticated
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B6. Vienna 1996
