Needs Assessment
April 5th 2006
Geog 463: GIS Workshop
Outlines
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Rational behinds needs assessment
Benefits of GIS projects
Hierarchical view on needs assessment
Information product description
Rationales behind needs
assessment
• What is needs assessment?
– Process of identifying what is expected from the
project
– Can be thought of as a blueprint (i.e. planning)
• Why needs assessment?
– Cost of not planning?
– Expectation management
– Helps you identify potential problems
• Why do we have to know about organization?
– Is need-to-know question in alignment with goals of
organization?
Why expectation management is critical… picture of the reality…
This image is retrieved from Tom Nolan’s lecture note
Importance of communication!
What are benefits of GIS projects?
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Save money/cost avoidance
Save time
Increase efficiency
Increase accuracy
Increase productivity
Increase communication and collaboration
Generate revenue
Support decision making
Automate work flow
Build an information base
Manage resources
Improve access to government…
Which of the following categories does your project fit into?
From “measuring up the business case for GIS”
The scope of GIS projects
• Will determine
– The level of benefits
• Large-scope GIS projects is more likely to reduce cost since
it will make the use of shared database (e.g. centralized
database) and benefit from automation
– The roles of GIS in an organization
• Large-scope GIS is more likely to change the way the
organization does business
– Strategies for needs assessment
• The larger the scope of GIS projects, the more it is necessary
to find out the organization and business work flow
Given the scope of your project, how would you assess these three items?
Application, Information product,
data, business work flow, and GIS
To find out business workflow, ask “what do you do?”
To find out information product, ask “what do you need to do that function?”
Image source: Tomlinson (2005)
What is business work flow?
– Models of complex business processes
– Can be thought of the way the organization does the
business
• E.g. land-use development approvals, building loan
approvals, permitting, conservation land planning, service
delivery, and distributed facilities management
– Information products comes out of that work flow
– GIS functionalities can be utilized within the context of
business work flow, and also have a potential to
change/redesign business work flow
How does need-to-know question of your project fit into the larger business
work flow?
Hierarchical view on needs
assessment
Goal
Function
Facility
Entity
Attribute
Adapted from Huxhold 1991, Introduction to Urban GIS
Hierarchical view on needs
assessment
• Goal: one of the major strategic directions for the
organization
– E.g. Maintain the urban infrastructure
– E.g. Reduce crime
– E.g. Create jobs for the citizens
• Function: a major activity within the organization
which supports a goal of the organization
– E.g. Repair city streets
– E.g. Enforce the building codes
– E.g. Assess the value of property
For geog463 candidate projects, think of “need-to-know” question as function
Hierarchical view on needs
assessment
• Facility: the physical, legal, or other object upon which a
function of the organization is performed (i.e. database:
a collection of related entities)
– E.g. Street, Building, Parcel
• Entity: Components of the facilities that are managed by
the various responsibilities of the organization (i.e.
spatial object)
– E.g. pavement, curbs, cutters
• Attributes: descriptive data that define the characteristics
of the entity
– E.g. location, condition, size, date, type
Information products description
• What is information products?
– What comes out of the GIS
– Output that answers need-to-know questions
– Such deliverables would include
• List of potential sites for skate park or bridge construction &
associated rankings (tabular requirements)
• Narratives of ranking methodology (text requirements)
• Map of socioeconomic variables in China
• Map showing changes in income gap in Seattle
• Diagram that shows the potential database design
(schematic requirements)
Steps for information products
description
• What would be the title that best describes information
product?
• What’s the name of the department and person who
needs information product?
• Write the synopsis of the information product needed
• Sketch requirements of information structure which can
be any combination of the following:
– Map, tabular, text, image, 3D, schematic requirements
– Work on details of each requirement (e.g. which feature should
be included in the map?)
– What would the requirement look like? Draw possible outcomes
– Similar to Map Inventory from MPLIS chapter 16
For each information product
Input data
Processing needs
Information
product
Step1: ___________________
Step2: ___________________
Step3: ___________________
Step4: ___________________
Step5: ___________________
Which GIS
functionalities are
needed for each
step?
Steps for information products
description
• Which data set is needed for meeting
requirements of information structure?
– If you can, come up with standard name for each data
set
– Is the data set available?
– If data is not readily available, where is data? how
can we obtain the data?
• Which GIS functionalities are invoked at each
step to make the product?
– Attribute query, data input, spatial query, display, edit,
label, symbolize, create list
Frequency of use
• Identify the most frequently used GIS functionalities
– If IPD leads you to the conclusion that satellite image processing
is the most frequently used functionality and the organization
does not have image processing (e.g. ERDAS IMAGINE)
software, you should consider purchasing the software.
• Number of times a product is created in one year *
number of times a functionality is used = number of
times a functionality is used to create the product in one
year
• Create top-ten functionalities list required from the GIS
overall; the list will be useful in scoping your system
requirements particularly s/w and h/w requirement
Logical linkages
• Determine the relationships required between the data
elements (does an information product require the
linkage between data elements?)
• Three types of logical linkages
– Relationships between lists and graphic entities (e.g. land parcel
and its value) for attribute/spatial query
– Relationships between maps (e.g. hazard zone and population)
for spatial overlay where coordinate systems of two maps should
be considered
– Relationships between attributes (e.g. house and sewer);
referential keys should be established
• Helpful in scoping the system requirement particularly
data requirements
Error tolerance
• How much error would clients tolerate?
• No error is good, but costly
– The second best is sometimes optimal as suggested by
economists
• Data quality vs. fitness-for-use
– Meeting the expectation given by a particular application, not
necessarily meeting the generic use
• Helpful in seeking the balance between benefit and cost;
you should find “bargaining position”
• Consider possible occurrence, results of error, impact on
benefits, and concerns for error tolerance (see p. 60-61
in Tomlinson for examples)