For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of GIS technology is the inspiration it provides people once they see what it can do. In short order the wish list for additional functionality and data grows. Although the enthusiasm to put the GIS to use is admirable, I often find that I have to temper that enthusiasm with a dose of reality. Just because you can do something in the GIS doesn’t necessarily mean you should!
A common request for local government GIS is to include inventories of all manner of municipal infrastructure. This has recently come to the forefront with changes in many jurisdictions surrounding accounting reporting of tangible capital assets. But even before accounting rules changed there has been an almost irresistable lure to use GIS to capture inventories. What more could one ask for than to simply and quickly bring up all of the infrastructure you are responsible for on a computer screen to report and print to your heart’s delight?
There is, of course, no doubt that a GIS is a wonderful tool for managing and reporting on this type of information however what often gets lost is the need to maintain the data once its in the system. Consider this scenario
Public Works has seen the GIS and would love to use the system to keep track of street signs that, at this point, is kept track of in the head of the Roads Superintendent. It makes perfect sense to get this data in a form that can be shared and seen by all those responsible for road signs. A project is quickly undertaken to capture the location of all the street signs using GPS and load the data into the GIS. Not too long after the data is displayed, staff begin to notice a difference between what’s in the sign database and what’s in the field. The GIS becomes unreliable and staff go back to using their heads to manage the sign inventory.
During the course of implementing the sign inventory no one bothered to consider how or even who was going to maintain the inventory once it had been created. If a sign is replaced, how would the database get updated with the change? If a sign is cleaned, who updates the database to reflect the service was performed? If a new sign is installed, how does the new record get added to the sign database?
These might seem like simple questions but once an organization starts to consider the implications of maintaining new datasets the reality soon becomes apparent that managing the technology is one thing . . . managing people is another. In the example of the sign database, who’s job responsibility will change to add the responsibility of updating data records? Most organizations, particularly municipalities, do not have a lot of excess resource capacity so where will the new responsibilities fall? Are there additional training requirements? In unionized environments, will positions need to be reclassified to allow for the changes in a job function? Solving these issues can be far more difficult than any technical hurdles.
How do you avoid the proliferation of stale inventories? As with any information system, a proper implementation plan is critical that must include a full understanding of the problem and its implications on the organization before touching any of the technology. Understand why you need the inventory, what will be the benefits and, most of all, who is going to be responsible for its maintenance. Once you understand the business you’ll be ready to pick up the tool!
