Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Bert Kleersnijder and Egon Berghout
prioritization tool and project portfolio sheet were review by the staff of Groningen’s municipality. They
determined that the methodologies comply with the organization. The instrument was adapted using
suggestions from the employees involved, with some expanded additions. The sheet is displayed in
Figure 2.
5. Conclusions and recommendations
In this research, a method has been developed to plan and prioritize projects in Groningen’s
municipality. This method is referred to as the Hourglass method. Decision-making within a
municipality is complex and therefore it is difficult to translate the political priorities. The Hourglass
method increases the transparency of the decision-making in the organization. It is now much clearer
which projects are being implemented and on the basis of which arguments and whether or not this
supports the strategy of the organization. When monitoring business cases and projects, these have
to be checked to establish their contribution to the city council programs. When there is a delay in, for
instance, nationwide projects, or associated organizations stagnate (including municipalities and
provinces), capacity for a certain project can be allocated to other projects. This research has shown
that there is sufficient support from the departments to create a project portfolio overview. However, it
lacks the continuance of the translation of decisions (for example the college program) into the project
portfolio. Ultimately, the governing mechanism I&A for departments should work in such a way that
there is a thorough check on the positioning within the project portfolio of projects from the college
program and of projects arisen from the visions from organization’s objectives. The AMT will always
need to know which projects, within the department, are in progress and when a project is missing
from the portfolio, it should be added and prioritized immediately. Furthermore, the portfolio overviews
can be used for justification towards the Council.
276