GIS Project Failures — Lessons learned from the Big Data Community
Back before the end of the Mayan Calendar, the Tech industry was all aglow with the new concept of “Big Data.”A number of people in the GIS community started to harp that “Spatial data is the original ‘Big Data.’”There are similarities between the two, both aren’t completely understood, even by the experts in the field.Clients and Management normally just wanted to tick it of a check list. “Is it on a map? Check.”“Is it in MongoDB? Check.”
Given that both are misunderstood, when articles started to appear about “Why Big Data Projects Fail” late last year, I started to notice similarities with “failures” of GIS projects.So I set up my Google Alert and started consuming text, looking for trends, similarities, and what we each can learn from each other.I normally try to keep my lists to 5, but this time we’re jumping to 8, so I’ll divide this into three posts.The first two going over what are the problems are, that lead to that failure, and the final one will be how to mitigate those issues.
Lets first define failure.For the purposes of this post, failure and not sustainable are going to be considered the same thing.If your system just works during the project, and once you leave it dies, then its considered a failure.Also, this is all qualitative data and personal experience, nothing scientific was done, I do quote a couple of studies though.
The 8 common themes are
- Decision Maker Resistance
- Biting off More Than They Can Chew
- Not Understanding How to Use it
- In House GIS Capacity
- Unknown Problems Beyond the GIS Technology
- Disagreement on Enterprise Strategies
- Silos
- Problem Avoidance
Management/Decision Maker’s Resistance:
While we all like to think that the people who make decision asses all the data they can to make an informed decision, the Fortune Knowledge Group Found that 62% of all Decision makers rely on ‘real world’ knowledge and tend to ignore statistics and hard analytics.
I remember being on a project where the Owner of the system said, “That parking lot is at least 100,000 sqft.”Using a simple tool in the web viewer, I measured it, and it was 20,000.The owner looked at me and said, “Something is wrong with your code.”So I checked it in desktop software, and the results were about 20,000.
The owner had an idea in his mind, and even when he was shown to be wrong, he still resist it.Do you think that system was sustained?No.Once the contract was up, they turned it over to IT.I’m pretty sure it died on the vine.
Biting Off More Than They Can Chew:
When the project’s scope is so large, and the client is attempting to go from zero to the moon in like a year.They are looking to build in a new architecture within pre existing business system that might not be ready for it.Or the other internal staff might not be ready for a drastic change.They just aren’t ready to tackle this new technology.
The Business Development people in your organization will love this.All they see is the huge project with a shit tonne of FTEs.But, this project is most certainly doomed to failure.Assuming you make your technical milestones, there will be resistance, and political fights that may result in the whole of the application not being utilized to its full extent.
Another issue with this is when GIS data has to be updated.That is normally not cheap, and you might meet management resistance on updates, and over time the project becomes unsustainable.
Not Understanding How to Use It:
This isn’t a training issue, this is a fundamental mis understanding about how GIS can be applied to a problem.Sure, you can get it on the map, but can you understand how to make the map display the options based on your criteria, can your staff?GIS for Hotel Management, is completely different than GIS for Emergency Management.So, a knowledge of not just the domain, but of the methodology for analysis is necessary.
To mitigate this, you must have a consultant, or staff member that has an in-depth knowledge of both your domain, and GIS. Thats more than just some 12 tutorial manual, but to have a functional knowledge of both your domain and Spatial.Without the proper knowledge, the system will answer the few scenarios the staff will have, and then it will seem useless, when its really just wasted potential
In House GIS Capacity:
Does the client have a GIS Staff on board, or do they simply want an application spatially enabled/Geodashboard thing.If they have a GIS Capacity in house, it is more likely that the project will succeed, assuming this isn’t adding an extra system or burden for them to maintain.If they do not have enough capacity to maintain the project, or there simply is not a GIS staff, an on site consultant can help, but that opens a whole different can of worms.
Well, thats it for the first half.I’ll go into the next 4, and some models for helping GIS projects succeed. With Graphics and Venns
Agree, Disagree, just want to complain about being stationed with the rest of us on Hoth?Hit it up in the comments.
Originally published at www.spatialcapability.com on March 5, 2015.
