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Implementing a multi-activity information management system is a complex and time- consuming proposition. Without appropriate support and leadership, it can be a potentially expensive exercise in futility and frustration. To avoid this experience and ensure that you achieve your goals, you should start the process by: ⢠Identifying the person or persons who can effectively market and promote the concept both inside and outside the agency ⢠Obtaining support and leadership from agency management ⢠Putting together a working group with representatives from the different stakeholders ⢠Demonstrating how the system can assist the agency with meeting its performance measures and goals ⢠Researching similar efforts to identify the state of the practice, lessons learned, and an under- standing of anticipated costs, time, and resources. Recruiting a Champion Identifying the person who is enthusiastic about implementing a new and/or expanded information management system and who has the necessary influence to promote the idea to the level of management that writes the check is critical to this process. Without that support, the resources necessary to plan, design, build, and implement the system will not be realized. If at all possible, a second person should also be identified, because individuals with these char- acteristics are often promoted or leave the organization for more challenging opportunities. When agencies are asked for lessons learned from going through a system design and implementation process, having a champion is mentioned without exception. Obtaining Leadership, Stewardship, and Management Support Because of the complexities involved in developing an enterprise-level information management system, this effort must have leadership from someone who has the ability to allocate or obtain the necessary financial, technical, and staff resources. This person may or may not be the same as the champion. One of the important activities of this individual is to articulate the importance and value of the system to upper management, primarily those that allocate your budget, and other stakeholders across and outside the agency. Support from management should extend over the time required to operationalize the system. If the total effort will take a substantial time commitment, phasing the implementation 13 C H A P T E R I I Building Support
and providing short-, medium-, and long-term milestones will help coordination with upper management. Appointing the Working Group Once you have the necessary support, you will want to establish a task force or working/steering group that includes representatives from the different stakeholders and future system users. The primary purpose of this group is to ensure that there is active and appropriate input and feedback as the process progresses. At a minimum, representatives from the following groups should be included: ⢠Right-of-way office leadership ⢠Regional real estate offices ⢠Each functional area in the right-of-way office (e.g., appraisal, acquisition, relocation, property management) ⢠Computer services, information technology unit, and GIS unit ⢠Project design and delivery Depending on the extent of the enterprise (defined in Chapter III), additional representatives could be included, such as a member from mapping, planning, key environmental areas, or legal. As the process proceeds, you should revisit the makeup of the working group to ensure it continues to represent the necessary stakeholders and future users. If this system will be part of a larger agency initiative, you will need representation from this working group on the larger joint applications development (JAD) group. Functions of the working group include directing and overseeing progress toward the development and implementation of the system. It establishes the anticipated level of effort, recommended approach, budget, schedule, and implementation strategy. It also defines whether the work is performed in-house, in cooperation with other organizations both internal and external, by contracting for services, or through a combination of the above. Because working groups are not designed to provide day-to-day management, a project manager should be appointed and given the necessary resources to perform this activity. The functions of the project manager include the following: ⢠Managing required staff and resources ⢠Ensuring schedule adherence ⢠Managing risks ⢠Overseeing quality assurance ⢠Acting as technical contact for contractors and consultants ⢠Acting as point of contact for partners ⢠Providing day-to-day decision making ⢠Communicating with working group, upper management, and stakeholders Linking to Agency Performance Measures and Goals AASHTOâs Standing Committee on Performance Management stated, âThe country needs to establish national performance measures and refine existing state and local measures to begin a shift toward performance-based transportation policy.â (AASHTO 2010) As this statement indicates, there is a strong push for tying policy to performance measures and requiring state agencies to be more accountable for and to those performance measures both at the national level and for agency goals and objectives. As such, funding will probably be tied in some way to 14 Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System
showing how your system can improve performance measures and support agency goals. Therefore, it would be in your interest to obtain your agencyâs goals and measures and establish the appropriate linkages. Of the broadly identified goalsâsafety, performance, preservation, operations, environment, project delivery, and economicsâright-of-way activities fall squarely under project delivery. Table 3 provides some candidates for how the system would improve project delivery as well as other less widely used objectives. As you specify your reporting requirements, identify those that are important to your office and agency and add them to your system requirements. On a more direct scale, your office may also have a series of performance measures that may be reported to the governor, the state transportation commission, oversight board, or other similar group, and the Federal Highway Administration. In addition to the measures listed in Table 3, these can include, but are not limited to, some measure of the following: ⢠Right-of-way certifications delivered ⢠Parcels under contract ⢠Parcels purchased ⢠Right-of-way projects closed and delivered within a specified time from construction contract acceptance ⢠Quality enhancement ⢠Skill development These measures should be included as part of the system design and reporting with explicit linkages as performance measures. Researching Related Efforts At any given time, other operational units and offices across the agency may be expanding or replacing their information management and decision support tools or generating new or improved data. As you move into this process, it is incumbent on you to ensure that you are Building Support 15 Objective Measure Benefit from Having Right-of-Way System On-time delivery Percent meeting deadlines The system maintains date stamps on all activities and can monitor critical dates as established in project setup. On-budget delivery Percent on-budget By project By parcel By type of payment Financial records can be maintained on all specified categories of payments and expenditures. Customer satisfaction Qualitative, hard to measure Responses to queries Real-time accessibility by any authorized person to information associated with parcel, owner, person, or business being relocated Real-time status information Streamlined processing of payments Other: Reduce excess property Parcels sold The system tracks excess parcels and can readily classify those suitable for resale. Other: Social justice Demographics of parcel owners History of all parcels sold is available and could be mined for demographic characteristics. Table 3. Agency goals and measures.
aware of what is occurring to minimize duplication of effort, maximize leveraging these efforts, and ensure that, to the extent possible, your system can communicate with or is interoperable with these other activities, particularly available databases. In most agencies, proceeding with your system will require the approval of the IT department to ensure that this takes place. The sooner you discuss your concept with this office, the better chance you have of proceeding smoothly with minimal delays. Technology changes rapidly and managing information using this changing technology also changes and expands capabilities. For example, the move from desktop computing to operating in the cloud has fundamentally changed how information is handled. (In the cloud or cloud com- puting is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand from distributed sources.) Knowing the state of the practice will be important to the design of your system and, if you are contracting for services, in the request for quote. You may consider requesting a review or survey of compara- ble systems currently in use by other transportation agencies and/or state agencies. This survey can be performed either in-house or as part of a response to your request for services. 16 Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System