National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Chapter V - Defining the System
Page 32
Suggested Citation:"Chapter VI - Developing an Implementation Plan." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System for Transportation Agency Real Estate Offices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14504.
×
Page 32
Page 33
Suggested Citation:"Chapter VI - Developing an Implementation Plan." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System for Transportation Agency Real Estate Offices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14504.
×
Page 33
Page 34
Suggested Citation:"Chapter VI - Developing an Implementation Plan." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2011. Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System for Transportation Agency Real Estate Offices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14504.
×
Page 34

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

32 If you have the resources and commitment to implement your system in a single phase, you can skip the next section. Often, however, you are constrained by resources or having to coordinate with other efforts necessary to support right-of-way activities, such as development of the necessary geospatial layers, i.e., statewide parcel layers. Depending on the reason for phasing your implementation, you will need to determine the appropriate functionality to assign to each phase. If you are coordinating with another effort, you should structure your phases such that one phase consists of the coordinating functions while the other(s) consist of functions that are mostly independent. If you are constrained by resources, you will probably want to group functions by enterprise-wide functionality—data management, document management, geospatial enablement, expanded reporting—rather than by functional area—appraisal, acquisition, etc. Phasing Options Because of the interconnectedness of information in right-of-way offices, an information management system should cover all the functions of the office when it is implemented. However, there are some strategies for this implementation that allow you to phase in some aspects, such as adding geospatial capabilities or electronic document management, after the system is in place. Similarly, modules or tools that improve how certain aspects are performed, such as a contract management module for lease agreements, can be added later. When you perform your capabilities assessment, you will identify what your agency already has and the environment that exists for local versus centralized and distributed systems. Based on this assessment, you will decide which of the following strategies to follow: • Local information management system—This system would consist of a database and the front-end software on a desktop computer or server on a local area network (LAN) that supports staff activities including data access and entry, document generation, and reporting. This configuration would potentially require coordinating the data from different locations. However, given the current state of technology, this strategy would probably be used only if the agency does not yet have an enterprise database system that is accessible throughout the agency. • Centralized information management system—This system would consist of an enterprise database system and either an Internet-based front end or locally installed front end that accesses the database through the Internet/intranet. This configuration is probably the most common for systems that have been implemented over the past decade or are under design. • Distributed information management system—This system would consist of one or more distributed enterprise database systems, an Internet-based front end, and access to other C H A P T E R V I Developing an Implementation Plan

Developing an Implementation Plan 33 applications and systems both inside and outside the agency through desktop, notebook, handheld, or other mobile computing devices. If interagency agreements are in place to allow it, your system could seamlessly access tax records directly from the source or business data for relocation planning, etc. To include geospatial enablement, you also have several strategies: • You include it in the initial design and implementation—The geospatial functionality is included in the use case and business process models and the data are included in the data architecture. The geospatial capability can be built into the system or linked to an external GIS software package. • You have an existing information management system and you want to add geospatial enablement—The 8-55A logical model includes specific locations in the model where data are obtained from or entered in the system as well as activities that could be geospatially enabled. You would identify these areas in your system and expand the capability to provide the necessary functionality. • You have access to an enterprise GIS and want to incorporate it into your information management system—As with the previous strategy, the 8-55A logical model provides specific data locations where data are obtained from or entered in a system. Linkages to the GIS would be included in the system design. Two possible options for adding a GIS are porting the appropriate information to an existing GIS package or programming geospatial capabilities within the information management system. The first approach would establish a method of passing information between the system and GIS software. If staff members are familiar with GIS, they could then use it as desired. If they are not, you could include a macro to perform the desired GIS functionality in the GIS software. The GIS can be launched from within the information management system or as a separate application. The second approach is to build the GIS functions in the system either by using the GIS software application programming interface (API), which allows you to use the functionality of the software but in the system interface without the overhead of the complete GIS package, or by programming the geospatial capabilities directly in the system. It should be noted that there are GIS software packages that are designed to support land management and can be modified to meet the information management needs of your office. Feasibility You will need to determine the feasibility of implementing the various components of your system. If you determine that implementation of a component is not feasible for some reason, you will need to find a strategy to overcome the difficulty or barrier or pursue a redesign that does not require that component. The following types of feasibility should be considered: • Managerial • Organizational • Staffing and other resources • Technical • Financial Implementation Timeline and Milestones Once you have decided whether you will need to phase your implementation, you will want to develop a schedule that shows each phase and the major milestone that will be achieved in the short, mid, and long term. Using a Gantt chart or other project management software to lay out

the major implementation activities within the schedule will help you and the developers stay on track. This schedule will also help to control project creep once development has started because not only does creep affect the cost but also deadlines. Activities should include the following: • Implementation of major layers or modules of the system • Actions to secure resources for implementation including funding, staff, consultants, hardware, and software • Actions associated with software development, testing, and implementation • Training 34 Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System

Next: Chapter VII - Implementation »
Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System for Transportation Agency Real Estate Offices Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 695: Guide for Implementing a Geospatially Enabled Enterprise-wide Information Management System for Transportation Agency Real Estate Offices provides guidance for right-of-way offices in implementing a geospatially enabled enterprise-wide information management system and includes a logical model to assist with this implementation.

NCHRP Reort 695 presents the guide for implementing the logical model; a CD-ROM, included with the print version of the report, presents the logical model and a guide for its use. The annotated bibliography and executive summaries are available online.

The contractor's final report, which documents the research related to development of NCHRP Report 695, may be downloaded from the NCHRP Project 8-55A web page.

The CD-ROM is also available for download from TRB’s website as an ISO image. Links to the ISO image and instructions for burning a CD-ROM from an ISO image are provided below.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

Download the .ISO CD-ROM Image

(Warning: This is a large file and may take some time to download using a high-speed connection.)

CD-ROM Disclaimer - This software is offered as is, without warranty or promise of support of any kind either expressed or implied. Under no circumstance will the National Academy of Sciences or the Transportation Research Board (collectively “TRB’) be liable for any loss or damage caused by the installation or operation of this product. TRB makes no representation or warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, in fact or in law, including without limitation, the warranty of merchantability or the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, and shall not in any case be liable for any consequential or special damages.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!