Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Table 2: Identified reason of the project to be late
Juha Kontio
Reason Description
Our process complexity The information system provided mostly right features, but the internal logic of
the IS was not correspondent to our processes after all.
Required amount of system
tailoring
A lot of modifications were needed to the user interface of the system –
concepts and term used had to be changed to increase the understandability
of the system and to connect the user experience with the process description
and definitions.
Too positive project plan The first experiences of the system suggested an efficient and straightforward
project. Therefore the project plan was designed and the schedules were set
too positively and too optimistically.
Deficiencies in the IS The experiences of the information system during the two and a half years
have given the impression that the system has been built quickly and flexibility
has not been a major issue.
Piloting poorly resourced In each project phases a piloting group of 10 to 15 people were nominated
from the faculties and administration. However, the piloting group was not
given proper resources to actually focus on the piloting in none of the phases.
The piloting was supposed to happen on the side of the normal daily tasks and
routines.
Goals of piloting unclearly
stated
The piloting goals were not defined clearly. The piloter were not fully aware
what they were expected to do and report. This caused that the time and effort
put on piloting was not at satisfied level throughout the pilot group. As a result,
the piloting did not give reliable answers for the next steps of the project. The
lack of true piloting resources caused phases II and III to happen in two parts –
the next steps were postponed in order to wait better resources.
Quality of test plans During the project test plans were not throughly designed rather testing was
mostly ad-hoc testing. In addition, test reports were not properly produced.
This resulted that certain functionalities were poorly tested.
Not enough time to test Testing was also performed on the side of the normal work which lowered the
quality of testing. Since the project schedule was quite tight and time for
testing was short, decisions concerning the project were sometimes made in a
hurry.
Problems with data
conversions
Connections to information
systems provided by the city
Data conversion and transfer from old systems to the new system turned out
be problematic. The main reason for these problems was the poor quality of
the data – there were inconsistencies, integrity errors and missing data. These
generated problems in setting up the new system and slowed down the
adoption of the system.
The new information system was planned to be integrated with information
systems run by the City of Turku. The connections were mostly designed and
programming had begun when the City announced that the main financials
system will be replaced with a new one (SAP). This delayed the
implementation because the new financials system was totally different and
this required new design and programming as well. The main difference was
moving from one level accounts to two level accounts.
Limited IS Budget The information system was bought after the competitive bidding and at the
same time an agreement was made that a certain amount of maintenance
work is allowed. The phase II was started in the winter of 2008, but in May
2009 the phase was stopped and postponed. The reason this strong action
was that the tailoring and correction works in the phase I required so much
more work than the budget for 2009 allowed.
Lack of resources: the IS
provider
The IS provider had other implementation project going on simultaneously with
our project. Unfortunately they lacked enough resources/manpower to promote
two projects parallel rather the other one would have to wait another.
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