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Development of an implementation plan for a geographic information system: case of Lincoln County
ARTICLE IN PRESS
International Journal of Information Management 24 (2004) 267–275
Case Study
Development of an implementation plan for a geographic information system: case of Lincoln County James P. Hall* Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business and Management, University of Illinois at Springfield, One University Plaza, CBM 115, Springfield, IL 62703, USA
Abstract Many small to mid-size public agencies are facing a problem of how to develop and implement Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies in their operations. Since most of the information in government agencies has a spatial context, GIS has significant capabilities to integrate data from disparate databases and display information in new and unique ways for decision-making. GIS technologies can have applications and benefits across the enterprise; however, this enterprise-wide nature often hinders implementation. Local government agencies face significant organizational issues including serving a diversity of interests for data quality and database integration, oversight by publicly elected officials, and a lack of resources and technical expertise. This fictional and normative case describes a typical situation in a mid-size county. The case portrays an organizational environment that provides the basis for students to put themselves in the role of a County Administrator to develop a GIS implementation plan. This plan requires an analysis of the formal and informal organization. Major investigation areas include insight into the organizational issues of personnel relationships, GIS project identification and resource prioiritization. Above all, the goal is to plan development of a functional GIS that will be integrated into ongoing Lincoln County operations to improve organizational efficiencies and to increase services to various stakeholder groups. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Geographic information systems; Local government; Enterprise-wide implementation; Organizational issues
1. Case summary This case describes the situation of a mid-size county pursuing implementation of Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities. Nancy Hays, the County Administrator, wants to integrate GIS into multiple county operations. She interviews the organizational areas most interested in GIS and identifies a list of the major potential GIS projects within the County. Her *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-217-206-7860; fax: +1-217-260-7543. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.P. Hall). 0268-4012/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2004.02.006
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next step is to develop an implementation plan that will create a vision for GIS deployment that addresses the organizational and stakeholder issues.
2. Introduction ‘‘That’s not how they do it in Wilson County.’’ Nancy Hays, the County Administrator for Lincoln County was in a quandary. She was talking in her office with Ralph Fox, the Chair of the Lincoln County Board, about GIS. Ralph was discussing some of the county GIS applications that he had seen in nearby Wilson County, a smaller county with less resources. ‘‘They can view zoning maps. They check the assessments of their neighbors’ properties. They can look up an aerial photograph of their house on the web.’’ Even though Nancy was somewhat irritated by these almost weekly discussions with Mr. Fox on GIS, she also knew the issue was not going away. Her discussions with staff and other county officials had also highlighted the need for county GIS capabilities. In fact, there was an increasing perception that Lincoln County was falling behind. Intuitively, she knew that GIS had many potential applications and benefits, but she also knew that implementation would be difficult due to the complex nature of the technology. Nancy had been in her position as Lincoln County Administrator for 10 months. She had heard about Lincoln County’s previous failed GIS implementation efforts, especially one five years previous with considerable expense for software and hardware acquisition. Nancy also knew of horror stories of failed GIS efforts in other counties. For example, McGuire County had spent considerable sums to hire a GIS consultant and acquire software and hardware in anticipation of major GIS products. Three years later with no usable GIS products, there was considerable blaming ultimately resulting in the County Administrator losing his position. Nancy recognized that considerable turf and organizational issues were involved. She believed the county should not act on GIS implementation until a detailed plan was endorsed and approved by the County Board. The Lincoln County administrative structure was complex. Not only did Nancy interact with various county officials, some elected and some appointed, but she was also the primary liaison with the 27 member County Board and various County Board committees. Nancy thought at times that it was similar to working for 27 individual bosses while relying on county staff support, most of whom did not report to her. Nancy believed she was fortunate to have a County Board Chair that not only had an interest in implementing GIS but also had promised to work to find the necessary resources. Joshua Pippen served as Nancy’s Administrative Assistant. Joshua had been an employee of Lincoln County for over 12 years and had served in various offices including the Zoning and Health Departments. He had provided a wealth of insight of the functioning of Lincoln County’s organization and operational history.
3. Geographic Information Systems in local government Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a powerful technology for displaying spatially related information for many disparate uses. Huxhold and Levinsohn (1995) defined GIS as ‘‘a
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collection of information technology, data and procedures for collecting, storing, manipulating, analyzing, and presenting maps and descriptive information about features that can be represented on maps.’’ Chan and Williamson (1999) described the unique features that distinguish GIS from other types of information systems as (1) data of entities and relationships managed within a spatial framework and (2) ability to perform spatial analyses. Nedovic-Budic and Godschalk (1996) identified three reasons why local governments find GIS technology attractive: ‘‘(1) spatially referenced data represent a large proportion of data processing in local government agencies, (2) information is considered a fundamental resource of government and (3) pressure for improving government performance has prompted governments to look for more efficient ways of doing their work.’’ More recently, GIS capabilities have included Internet-enabled applications delivering information in map form. As such, GIS has proven to be an effective method for local government agencies to provide information to stakeholders, including the general public. GIS enables the integration of information from multiple sources. Examples of internal data include land parcels, road traffic, subdivision boundaries, public buildings, land waste sites, zoning classifications, bridge condition, aerial photography and emergency address locations. Examples of externally supplied data include census statistics, legislative districts, hazardous waste locations, and wetlands.
4. Organization of Lincoln County Lincoln County is a mid-sized county within the United States with a population of 110,000 and a land area of approximately 900 square miles. Lincoln County’s largest city, Porter, has a population of 70,000. The county’s population and growth had accelerated recently due to its proximity to a large urbanized area. This growth had strained Lincoln County resources to address new subdivisions, transportation bottlenecks and health services. The governance of Lincoln County was composed of a mixture of elected officials, appointed offices, and agencies. Elected officials included the County Board members. Nancy Hays, as the County Administrator, was appointed by the County Board, as were the County Engineer, the Zoning Administrator and the Public Health Administrator. The County Administrator also served as the official liaison between the County Board Office and elected officials, department heads, and county offices. The County Board was responsible for approving the budget and expenditures for each office. Lincoln County had several external agencies and stakeholders interested in GIS applications including the Porter–Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, individual cities within the county and the general public. The recent growth in Lincoln County’s economy had not resulted in increased county resources. Lincoln County had been under economic pressure to do more with less as reflected by a 10% reduction in staff over the last 10 years. There was no existing budget allocation for GIS software and hardware acquisition, much less for consultant and in-house technical support. However, as Ralph Fox observed, GIS was an increasingly mentioned subject at County Board meetings and in discussions with staff, external agencies and the public. It seemed as if every new conference showed GIS applications. ‘‘Why can’t we do that?’’ was a frequent question.
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Jointly, Ralph Fox and Nancy Hays decided to investigate those areas most relevant to County GIS implementation and to perform an internal organizational analysis.
5. Lincoln County organizational analysis To begin, Nancy identified 5 Lincoln County offices with the potentially most significant applications and/or interest in GIS. Table 1 summarizes these offices along with the primary contact official. Nancy and Joshua Pippen interviewed these individuals at their home offices. 5.1. County Board Office The County Board consisted of 27 elected members from defined County Districts representing various urban and rural constituencies. Individual County Board member interest in GIS ranged from none to high. However, Ralph Fox, the Chair of the County Board, was aggressively promoting GIS implementation. Mr. Fox mentioned that his constituents were increasingly demanding access to county information, especially via the Internet. He cited, as an example, the need for access to property parcel assessment data. Mr. Fox was also frustrated by his personal attempts to obtain information from county agencies. For example, he had difficulty in determining the status of completion of the County’s highway program or the degree of inspection of food facilities and buildings. He often contacted county offices to obtain answers to questions from constituents on zoning and assessment issues. Although he had access to county-supplied paper maps, he found that they were often outdated and unwieldy to use. ‘‘I want access to information at my fingertips,’’ Mr. Fox insisted. ‘‘I don’t want to have to look up the highway project number or the property parcel number. I want to be able to point to it on a map and access the information.’’ Nancy, in her relatively short tenure as County Administrator, also had seen the need for GIS-type products. In response to County Board member requests, she often contacted individual county offices to obtain information and routinely asked the County Highway Department, on short notice, to prepare visual maps prior to her bi-weekly County Board
Table 1 Lincoln County Offices with Potentially High Interest in GIS Lincoln County Office
Contact person
Title
County Board Office
Ralph Fox Nancy Hays Joshua Pippen Harvey Twigg Timothy Michael Dexter Smith Tonya Briggs
County Board Chair County Administrator Administrative Assistant Zoning Administrator County Engineer Public Health Administrator Information Services Administrator
Department of Zoning and Building Safety County Highway Department Department of Public Health Information Services
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meetings. For one particularly memorable Board Meeting, a map specifically requested by the County Transportation Committee integrating deficient bridges and commercial zoning areas was not ready and she had to face questions with limited visual aid support. She did not want to experience this situation again. For staff technical capabilities, Joshua Pippen, her Administrative Assistant, often acquired data from other offices and prepared simple outputs, such as graphs and charts. He was able to meet presentation needs within short deadlines. 5.2. Department of Zoning and Building Safety Harvey Twigg, the County Zoning Administrator, believed everything was working just fine. ‘‘Why fix something that isn’t broke?’’ he asked. Harvey believed that his Department effectively responded to public queries on zoning boundaries and building safety inspections. A frequent request was for information on property parcels and assessments. Currently the public came to the County Building or telephoned to retrieve this information. ‘‘Parcel information should not be available to the public on the Internet.’’ Harvey opined. Harvey believed his Department needed to control access to this information. ‘‘What’s to stop someone from using old information and changing the data?’’ Harvey believed the zoning maps, currently updated every two years, were sufficient. ‘‘We know when changes are made and we indicate these on our Master Map.’’ Harvey believed he readily met the needs of the stakeholders in supplying information. Although he could envision a few benefits from GIS, he believed it would not be worth the time or effort. ‘‘Besides, I have nobody on staff that has the expertise to learn this new technology.’’ 5.3. County Highway Department Timothy Michael had served as the County Engineer for the past 14 years. The functions of the County Highway Department included highway and bridge design and maintenance. The County Engineer’s Design Office staff used Computer-Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) software for design plan development and to prepare maps for many of the county offices and individual County Board members. Timothy Michael was a proponent of GIS. He had seen applications at County Engineer conferences and he mentioned that state and federal agencies were increasingly supplying data in a GIS format. He firmly believed that a high-resolution GIS base was needed for his office’s engineering and surveying activities. A high-resolution base would require low-altitude aerial photography and the digitization of key layers such as road centerlines and parcel boundaries. ‘‘Although this may be a costly option, the County would be better off in the long run since it will provide a highly accurate base to develop GIS applications.’’ Timothy Michael also believed that the County Board would not provide the resources to effectively implement GIS. ‘‘I told them 5 years ago that just buying GIS software would not work. You need to develop staff expertise to customize products that people will use.’’ Timothy suggested that providing GIS software to other county offices would be a mistake. ‘‘They need to centralize GIS support just as we have with mapping and CADD. Our mapping experience make this office the logical place to house GIS product development.’’
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5.4. Department of Public Health Dexter Smith, the Public Health Administrator, thought that GIS would be a useful tool to display and analyze statistics on health services and social programs such as immunization compliance and maternal/high-risk infant programs. GIS would also help staff manage their inspection process for food establishments and private sewage system permits. Dexter was concerned he did not have the sufficient staff to support inspection requirements and he was falling behind in several inspection areas. He also wanted to be able to conduct spatial analyses of data, such as cluster analysis of health problems. ‘‘We desperately need GIS tools to help us manage our functions more effectively.’’ Dexter believed he had a few technically competent staff that could learn GIS software and develop GIS products. ‘‘I want to be able to analyze information and generate a map internally and not have to wait two weeks after submitting a written request to the Information Services Department.’’ Dexter had previously acquired extracts of relevant county databases to have staff produce their own management reports. The staff had responded positively to these technical challenges. 5.5. Information Services Department The Information Services Department was responsible for managing the county’s information systems. Tonya Briggs had served as the Administrator of Information Services for the last 9 years. She remembered the last failed attempt at a county GIS and she blamed it on a lack of commitment by the County to acquire technical expertise. ‘‘You can’t just buy hardware and software and expect a GIS to work. You need to staff it properly.’’ Tonya felt that GIS consultant services were not needed and that additional staff would be able to provide services to the county. ‘‘They just dumped the hardware and software in our office. We sent three people to training, however we couldn’t reach agreement on what to use for the GIS base. The County Highway Department did not want to use a low accuracy base map for fear it would become a County standard. But this raised the cost of implementation considerably. We can’t develop and maintain three or four separate base maps.’’ Tonya believed the Information Services Department was the logical place to house GIS support staff. ‘‘We rapidly and effectively respond to the information support output needs of 25 different county agencies. There is no sense in training users in each area on GIS software when GIS product development can be accomplished more effectively in one area.’’ Tonya believed that, with the proper staffing and leadership, GIS could be implemented and become a valued agency resource.
6. External analysis Nancy also investigated GIS activities outside County operations. She knew that the Porter– Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission and the City of Porter were interested in advancing GIS capabilities. She thought the investigation should also include the experiences of peer counties. The Porter–Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission was enthusiastic in the need for GIS. They indicated they were embarrassed by their lack of GIS capabilities. External
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Table 2 Common factors of counties with successful GIS implementation efforts
Active administrative support Adequate budgetary resources Vision for implementation Implementation steering committee Project champion to guide initial implementation Initial focus on quick implementation/high visibility products Focus on high benefit products Development of in-house capability for ad hoc project development Use of consultants to develop base capabilities and to focus on specific products Incremental implementation
agencies often provided data in a GIS format but there was no method to view the data, much less analyze and develop maps. As a result, it was difficult to prepare long-term planning documents. They had been embarrassed by a project which was abandoned because the Commission did not realize until late in the process that it was in a federally protected wetland area. The City of Porter had one personal computer with GIS software which they used for basic mapping of demographic and address data. They saw the need to further develop GIS for more functional uses such as land parcels. The City indicated would be open to support joint collaboration efforts to develop GIS layers of mutual interest. Nancy also had her staff solicit information on GIS implementation activities from other counties of similar size. From these interviews, Nancy compiled a list of traits that appeared to be common factors for successful implementation (Table 2).
7. GIS investigation summary 7.1. Identification of applications After these initial investigations, Nancy held a series of exploratory meetings with other county offices and several Board members. In general, the attitude towards GIS was positive with a realization that Lincoln County needed to move forward. Major concerns were the availability of resources, staffing, and organizational changes. Based on these meetings, Nancy developed a list of the major Lincoln County GIS applications by responsible office as summarized in Table 3. These GIS applications represented a broad range of capabilities. Some had countywide implications while others were focused on individual office requirements. Each project had different database integration needs and base layer structure and accuracy requirements. Arrival at a county standard would be problematic. 7.2. Project rating Nancy evaluated each of the applications in the context of Priority, Ease of Implementation and User Area Commitment. These ratings are shown in Table 4. Nancy assigned a
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Table 3 Potential major GIS applications in Lincoln County as proposed by office Lincoln County Office
Potential GIS applications
County Board Office
County Board Reports Program Accomplishment Monitoring Zoning/Land Parcel Mapping Building Identification Traffic Sign and Guardrail Inventory Roadway/Bridge Program Development Public Health Data Management Inspection Management Ad Hoc Map Generation Multi-Year Program Development
Department of Zoning and Building Safety County Highway Department Department of Public Health Information Services Department Porter–Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission
Table 4 Classification of potential Lincoln County GIS products GIS Project
Priority
Ease of implementation
Commitment
County Board Reports Program Accomplishment Monitoring Zoning/Land Parcel Mapping Building Identification Traffic Sign/Guardrail Mapping Roadway/Bridge Program Development Public Health Data Management Inspection Management Ad Hoc Map Generation Multi-Year Program Development
High High High Medium Low Medium High High High High
Medium Low Low Medium Medium Low Medium Low Low Low
High High Low Low Medium Medium High High Medium High
Priority level of Low, Medium or High based on her perceived relative need for the project. County Board and office manager perspectives were especially significant in assigning this priority. The Ease of Implementation rating reflected the relative effort to develop and place a GIS project into production. This rating can vary widely based on the application. A high rating indicated that much of the preliminary work of bringing information into a GIS platform was available from existing sources. Projects with a low rating would require significant effort to acquire data, perform file integration efforts and create user-friendly development tools and outputs. Nancy found another useful measure was an end user commitment assessment. This was her subjective rating of low, medium or high based on discussions with the user areas. This rating was significant in that the success of individual GIS projects would be based in part on the willingness (high) or unwillingness (low) of the user area to commit resources to utilize and support GIS project activities.
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7.3. Implementation options Nancy developed a list of the methods she could employ to implement GIS. She realized that actual implementation could incorporate several of these techniques as follows: * * * *
appoint GIS coordinator within the County, hire GIS consulting firm, allow each interested area to develop their own applications, develop a vision for enterprise implementation.
Nancy now felt she had enough information to develop a GIS implementation plan to present to the County Board. References Chan, T. O., & Williamson, I. P. (1999). A model of the decision process for GIS adoption and diffusion in a government environment. URISA Journal, 11(2), 8, Summer. Huxhold, W. E., & Levinsohn, A. G. (1995). Managing geographic information system projects. New York: Oxford University Press. Nedovic-Budic, Z., & Godschalk, D. R. (1996). Human factors in adoption of geographic information systems: A local government case study. Public Administration Review, 56(6), 554–567, November/December. James P. Hall is an Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems at the University of Illinois at Springfield and is a Registered Professional Engineer. He holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Springfield and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has 25 years experience in the management, implementation and application of information systems in government and transportation.
International Journal of Information Management 24 (2004) 267–275
Case Study
Development of an implementation plan for a geographic information system: case of Lincoln County James P. Hall* Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business and Management, University of Illinois at Springfield, One University Plaza, CBM 115, Springfield, IL 62703, USA
Abstract Many small to mid-size public agencies are facing a problem of how to develop and implement Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies in their operations. Since most of the information in government agencies has a spatial context, GIS has significant capabilities to integrate data from disparate databases and display information in new and unique ways for decision-making. GIS technologies can have applications and benefits across the enterprise; however, this enterprise-wide nature often hinders implementation. Local government agencies face significant organizational issues including serving a diversity of interests for data quality and database integration, oversight by publicly elected officials, and a lack of resources and technical expertise. This fictional and normative case describes a typical situation in a mid-size county. The case portrays an organizational environment that provides the basis for students to put themselves in the role of a County Administrator to develop a GIS implementation plan. This plan requires an analysis of the formal and informal organization. Major investigation areas include insight into the organizational issues of personnel relationships, GIS project identification and resource prioiritization. Above all, the goal is to plan development of a functional GIS that will be integrated into ongoing Lincoln County operations to improve organizational efficiencies and to increase services to various stakeholder groups. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Geographic information systems; Local government; Enterprise-wide implementation; Organizational issues
1. Case summary This case describes the situation of a mid-size county pursuing implementation of Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities. Nancy Hays, the County Administrator, wants to integrate GIS into multiple county operations. She interviews the organizational areas most interested in GIS and identifies a list of the major potential GIS projects within the County. Her *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-217-206-7860; fax: +1-217-260-7543. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.P. Hall). 0268-4012/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2004.02.006
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next step is to develop an implementation plan that will create a vision for GIS deployment that addresses the organizational and stakeholder issues.
2. Introduction ‘‘That’s not how they do it in Wilson County.’’ Nancy Hays, the County Administrator for Lincoln County was in a quandary. She was talking in her office with Ralph Fox, the Chair of the Lincoln County Board, about GIS. Ralph was discussing some of the county GIS applications that he had seen in nearby Wilson County, a smaller county with less resources. ‘‘They can view zoning maps. They check the assessments of their neighbors’ properties. They can look up an aerial photograph of their house on the web.’’ Even though Nancy was somewhat irritated by these almost weekly discussions with Mr. Fox on GIS, she also knew the issue was not going away. Her discussions with staff and other county officials had also highlighted the need for county GIS capabilities. In fact, there was an increasing perception that Lincoln County was falling behind. Intuitively, she knew that GIS had many potential applications and benefits, but she also knew that implementation would be difficult due to the complex nature of the technology. Nancy had been in her position as Lincoln County Administrator for 10 months. She had heard about Lincoln County’s previous failed GIS implementation efforts, especially one five years previous with considerable expense for software and hardware acquisition. Nancy also knew of horror stories of failed GIS efforts in other counties. For example, McGuire County had spent considerable sums to hire a GIS consultant and acquire software and hardware in anticipation of major GIS products. Three years later with no usable GIS products, there was considerable blaming ultimately resulting in the County Administrator losing his position. Nancy recognized that considerable turf and organizational issues were involved. She believed the county should not act on GIS implementation until a detailed plan was endorsed and approved by the County Board. The Lincoln County administrative structure was complex. Not only did Nancy interact with various county officials, some elected and some appointed, but she was also the primary liaison with the 27 member County Board and various County Board committees. Nancy thought at times that it was similar to working for 27 individual bosses while relying on county staff support, most of whom did not report to her. Nancy believed she was fortunate to have a County Board Chair that not only had an interest in implementing GIS but also had promised to work to find the necessary resources. Joshua Pippen served as Nancy’s Administrative Assistant. Joshua had been an employee of Lincoln County for over 12 years and had served in various offices including the Zoning and Health Departments. He had provided a wealth of insight of the functioning of Lincoln County’s organization and operational history.
3. Geographic Information Systems in local government Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a powerful technology for displaying spatially related information for many disparate uses. Huxhold and Levinsohn (1995) defined GIS as ‘‘a
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collection of information technology, data and procedures for collecting, storing, manipulating, analyzing, and presenting maps and descriptive information about features that can be represented on maps.’’ Chan and Williamson (1999) described the unique features that distinguish GIS from other types of information systems as (1) data of entities and relationships managed within a spatial framework and (2) ability to perform spatial analyses. Nedovic-Budic and Godschalk (1996) identified three reasons why local governments find GIS technology attractive: ‘‘(1) spatially referenced data represent a large proportion of data processing in local government agencies, (2) information is considered a fundamental resource of government and (3) pressure for improving government performance has prompted governments to look for more efficient ways of doing their work.’’ More recently, GIS capabilities have included Internet-enabled applications delivering information in map form. As such, GIS has proven to be an effective method for local government agencies to provide information to stakeholders, including the general public. GIS enables the integration of information from multiple sources. Examples of internal data include land parcels, road traffic, subdivision boundaries, public buildings, land waste sites, zoning classifications, bridge condition, aerial photography and emergency address locations. Examples of externally supplied data include census statistics, legislative districts, hazardous waste locations, and wetlands.
4. Organization of Lincoln County Lincoln County is a mid-sized county within the United States with a population of 110,000 and a land area of approximately 900 square miles. Lincoln County’s largest city, Porter, has a population of 70,000. The county’s population and growth had accelerated recently due to its proximity to a large urbanized area. This growth had strained Lincoln County resources to address new subdivisions, transportation bottlenecks and health services. The governance of Lincoln County was composed of a mixture of elected officials, appointed offices, and agencies. Elected officials included the County Board members. Nancy Hays, as the County Administrator, was appointed by the County Board, as were the County Engineer, the Zoning Administrator and the Public Health Administrator. The County Administrator also served as the official liaison between the County Board Office and elected officials, department heads, and county offices. The County Board was responsible for approving the budget and expenditures for each office. Lincoln County had several external agencies and stakeholders interested in GIS applications including the Porter–Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, individual cities within the county and the general public. The recent growth in Lincoln County’s economy had not resulted in increased county resources. Lincoln County had been under economic pressure to do more with less as reflected by a 10% reduction in staff over the last 10 years. There was no existing budget allocation for GIS software and hardware acquisition, much less for consultant and in-house technical support. However, as Ralph Fox observed, GIS was an increasingly mentioned subject at County Board meetings and in discussions with staff, external agencies and the public. It seemed as if every new conference showed GIS applications. ‘‘Why can’t we do that?’’ was a frequent question.
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Jointly, Ralph Fox and Nancy Hays decided to investigate those areas most relevant to County GIS implementation and to perform an internal organizational analysis.
5. Lincoln County organizational analysis To begin, Nancy identified 5 Lincoln County offices with the potentially most significant applications and/or interest in GIS. Table 1 summarizes these offices along with the primary contact official. Nancy and Joshua Pippen interviewed these individuals at their home offices. 5.1. County Board Office The County Board consisted of 27 elected members from defined County Districts representing various urban and rural constituencies. Individual County Board member interest in GIS ranged from none to high. However, Ralph Fox, the Chair of the County Board, was aggressively promoting GIS implementation. Mr. Fox mentioned that his constituents were increasingly demanding access to county information, especially via the Internet. He cited, as an example, the need for access to property parcel assessment data. Mr. Fox was also frustrated by his personal attempts to obtain information from county agencies. For example, he had difficulty in determining the status of completion of the County’s highway program or the degree of inspection of food facilities and buildings. He often contacted county offices to obtain answers to questions from constituents on zoning and assessment issues. Although he had access to county-supplied paper maps, he found that they were often outdated and unwieldy to use. ‘‘I want access to information at my fingertips,’’ Mr. Fox insisted. ‘‘I don’t want to have to look up the highway project number or the property parcel number. I want to be able to point to it on a map and access the information.’’ Nancy, in her relatively short tenure as County Administrator, also had seen the need for GIS-type products. In response to County Board member requests, she often contacted individual county offices to obtain information and routinely asked the County Highway Department, on short notice, to prepare visual maps prior to her bi-weekly County Board
Table 1 Lincoln County Offices with Potentially High Interest in GIS Lincoln County Office
Contact person
Title
County Board Office
Ralph Fox Nancy Hays Joshua Pippen Harvey Twigg Timothy Michael Dexter Smith Tonya Briggs
County Board Chair County Administrator Administrative Assistant Zoning Administrator County Engineer Public Health Administrator Information Services Administrator
Department of Zoning and Building Safety County Highway Department Department of Public Health Information Services
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meetings. For one particularly memorable Board Meeting, a map specifically requested by the County Transportation Committee integrating deficient bridges and commercial zoning areas was not ready and she had to face questions with limited visual aid support. She did not want to experience this situation again. For staff technical capabilities, Joshua Pippen, her Administrative Assistant, often acquired data from other offices and prepared simple outputs, such as graphs and charts. He was able to meet presentation needs within short deadlines. 5.2. Department of Zoning and Building Safety Harvey Twigg, the County Zoning Administrator, believed everything was working just fine. ‘‘Why fix something that isn’t broke?’’ he asked. Harvey believed that his Department effectively responded to public queries on zoning boundaries and building safety inspections. A frequent request was for information on property parcels and assessments. Currently the public came to the County Building or telephoned to retrieve this information. ‘‘Parcel information should not be available to the public on the Internet.’’ Harvey opined. Harvey believed his Department needed to control access to this information. ‘‘What’s to stop someone from using old information and changing the data?’’ Harvey believed the zoning maps, currently updated every two years, were sufficient. ‘‘We know when changes are made and we indicate these on our Master Map.’’ Harvey believed he readily met the needs of the stakeholders in supplying information. Although he could envision a few benefits from GIS, he believed it would not be worth the time or effort. ‘‘Besides, I have nobody on staff that has the expertise to learn this new technology.’’ 5.3. County Highway Department Timothy Michael had served as the County Engineer for the past 14 years. The functions of the County Highway Department included highway and bridge design and maintenance. The County Engineer’s Design Office staff used Computer-Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) software for design plan development and to prepare maps for many of the county offices and individual County Board members. Timothy Michael was a proponent of GIS. He had seen applications at County Engineer conferences and he mentioned that state and federal agencies were increasingly supplying data in a GIS format. He firmly believed that a high-resolution GIS base was needed for his office’s engineering and surveying activities. A high-resolution base would require low-altitude aerial photography and the digitization of key layers such as road centerlines and parcel boundaries. ‘‘Although this may be a costly option, the County would be better off in the long run since it will provide a highly accurate base to develop GIS applications.’’ Timothy Michael also believed that the County Board would not provide the resources to effectively implement GIS. ‘‘I told them 5 years ago that just buying GIS software would not work. You need to develop staff expertise to customize products that people will use.’’ Timothy suggested that providing GIS software to other county offices would be a mistake. ‘‘They need to centralize GIS support just as we have with mapping and CADD. Our mapping experience make this office the logical place to house GIS product development.’’
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5.4. Department of Public Health Dexter Smith, the Public Health Administrator, thought that GIS would be a useful tool to display and analyze statistics on health services and social programs such as immunization compliance and maternal/high-risk infant programs. GIS would also help staff manage their inspection process for food establishments and private sewage system permits. Dexter was concerned he did not have the sufficient staff to support inspection requirements and he was falling behind in several inspection areas. He also wanted to be able to conduct spatial analyses of data, such as cluster analysis of health problems. ‘‘We desperately need GIS tools to help us manage our functions more effectively.’’ Dexter believed he had a few technically competent staff that could learn GIS software and develop GIS products. ‘‘I want to be able to analyze information and generate a map internally and not have to wait two weeks after submitting a written request to the Information Services Department.’’ Dexter had previously acquired extracts of relevant county databases to have staff produce their own management reports. The staff had responded positively to these technical challenges. 5.5. Information Services Department The Information Services Department was responsible for managing the county’s information systems. Tonya Briggs had served as the Administrator of Information Services for the last 9 years. She remembered the last failed attempt at a county GIS and she blamed it on a lack of commitment by the County to acquire technical expertise. ‘‘You can’t just buy hardware and software and expect a GIS to work. You need to staff it properly.’’ Tonya felt that GIS consultant services were not needed and that additional staff would be able to provide services to the county. ‘‘They just dumped the hardware and software in our office. We sent three people to training, however we couldn’t reach agreement on what to use for the GIS base. The County Highway Department did not want to use a low accuracy base map for fear it would become a County standard. But this raised the cost of implementation considerably. We can’t develop and maintain three or four separate base maps.’’ Tonya believed the Information Services Department was the logical place to house GIS support staff. ‘‘We rapidly and effectively respond to the information support output needs of 25 different county agencies. There is no sense in training users in each area on GIS software when GIS product development can be accomplished more effectively in one area.’’ Tonya believed that, with the proper staffing and leadership, GIS could be implemented and become a valued agency resource.
6. External analysis Nancy also investigated GIS activities outside County operations. She knew that the Porter– Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission and the City of Porter were interested in advancing GIS capabilities. She thought the investigation should also include the experiences of peer counties. The Porter–Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission was enthusiastic in the need for GIS. They indicated they were embarrassed by their lack of GIS capabilities. External
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Table 2 Common factors of counties with successful GIS implementation efforts
Active administrative support Adequate budgetary resources Vision for implementation Implementation steering committee Project champion to guide initial implementation Initial focus on quick implementation/high visibility products Focus on high benefit products Development of in-house capability for ad hoc project development Use of consultants to develop base capabilities and to focus on specific products Incremental implementation
agencies often provided data in a GIS format but there was no method to view the data, much less analyze and develop maps. As a result, it was difficult to prepare long-term planning documents. They had been embarrassed by a project which was abandoned because the Commission did not realize until late in the process that it was in a federally protected wetland area. The City of Porter had one personal computer with GIS software which they used for basic mapping of demographic and address data. They saw the need to further develop GIS for more functional uses such as land parcels. The City indicated would be open to support joint collaboration efforts to develop GIS layers of mutual interest. Nancy also had her staff solicit information on GIS implementation activities from other counties of similar size. From these interviews, Nancy compiled a list of traits that appeared to be common factors for successful implementation (Table 2).
7. GIS investigation summary 7.1. Identification of applications After these initial investigations, Nancy held a series of exploratory meetings with other county offices and several Board members. In general, the attitude towards GIS was positive with a realization that Lincoln County needed to move forward. Major concerns were the availability of resources, staffing, and organizational changes. Based on these meetings, Nancy developed a list of the major Lincoln County GIS applications by responsible office as summarized in Table 3. These GIS applications represented a broad range of capabilities. Some had countywide implications while others were focused on individual office requirements. Each project had different database integration needs and base layer structure and accuracy requirements. Arrival at a county standard would be problematic. 7.2. Project rating Nancy evaluated each of the applications in the context of Priority, Ease of Implementation and User Area Commitment. These ratings are shown in Table 4. Nancy assigned a
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Table 3 Potential major GIS applications in Lincoln County as proposed by office Lincoln County Office
Potential GIS applications
County Board Office
County Board Reports Program Accomplishment Monitoring Zoning/Land Parcel Mapping Building Identification Traffic Sign and Guardrail Inventory Roadway/Bridge Program Development Public Health Data Management Inspection Management Ad Hoc Map Generation Multi-Year Program Development
Department of Zoning and Building Safety County Highway Department Department of Public Health Information Services Department Porter–Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission
Table 4 Classification of potential Lincoln County GIS products GIS Project
Priority
Ease of implementation
Commitment
County Board Reports Program Accomplishment Monitoring Zoning/Land Parcel Mapping Building Identification Traffic Sign/Guardrail Mapping Roadway/Bridge Program Development Public Health Data Management Inspection Management Ad Hoc Map Generation Multi-Year Program Development
High High High Medium Low Medium High High High High
Medium Low Low Medium Medium Low Medium Low Low Low
High High Low Low Medium Medium High High Medium High
Priority level of Low, Medium or High based on her perceived relative need for the project. County Board and office manager perspectives were especially significant in assigning this priority. The Ease of Implementation rating reflected the relative effort to develop and place a GIS project into production. This rating can vary widely based on the application. A high rating indicated that much of the preliminary work of bringing information into a GIS platform was available from existing sources. Projects with a low rating would require significant effort to acquire data, perform file integration efforts and create user-friendly development tools and outputs. Nancy found another useful measure was an end user commitment assessment. This was her subjective rating of low, medium or high based on discussions with the user areas. This rating was significant in that the success of individual GIS projects would be based in part on the willingness (high) or unwillingness (low) of the user area to commit resources to utilize and support GIS project activities.
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7.3. Implementation options Nancy developed a list of the methods she could employ to implement GIS. She realized that actual implementation could incorporate several of these techniques as follows: * * * *
appoint GIS coordinator within the County, hire GIS consulting firm, allow each interested area to develop their own applications, develop a vision for enterprise implementation.
Nancy now felt she had enough information to develop a GIS implementation plan to present to the County Board. References Chan, T. O., & Williamson, I. P. (1999). A model of the decision process for GIS adoption and diffusion in a government environment. URISA Journal, 11(2), 8, Summer. Huxhold, W. E., & Levinsohn, A. G. (1995). Managing geographic information system projects. New York: Oxford University Press. Nedovic-Budic, Z., & Godschalk, D. R. (1996). Human factors in adoption of geographic information systems: A local government case study. Public Administration Review, 56(6), 554–567, November/December. James P. Hall is an Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems at the University of Illinois at Springfield and is a Registered Professional Engineer. He holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Springfield and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has 25 years experience in the management, implementation and application of information systems in government and transportation.