geospatial maturity index insights report - 2019gmi insights report 2019 in an effort to serve the...

Geospatial Maturity Index Insights Report - 2019

GMI Insights Report 2019

01 Introduction

Geospatial information has become entrenched as a primary data source throughout the public sector to support various activities that relate to service delivery. Ever since its early adoption in the 90’s to support government decision making activities, GIS data has shown tremendous potential to increase objective outcomes and improve service delivery.1 GIS programs have also shown significant advancement in an effort to break free from its previously perceived role of “map-making.” Nearly all business units and activities delivered by public sector organizations have the capacity to improve outcomes through the utilization of GIS data. Fundamentally, GIS data provides a platform in creating relationships between various data points. These relationships allow for enhanced analysis to be conducted and the results to be incorporated into various decision points. Anything that can be placed on a map or referred to in a spatial sense can therefore be incorporated into GIS analysis. Common examples of GIS data usage would be things like the location of all infrastructure assets owned and operated by a local government, which can then be cross referenced to a variety of other data points (e.g. the age of the asset, the historical cost, the current condition, etc.). In this example, when these data points are combined, it allows for the government to better prioritize activities to maintain those assets or replace them when necessary.

GIS data can also be used to support non-financial related activities as well. Commonly, law enforcement agencies will develop crime mapping analyses to assist in the reduction of crime as well as improve overall citizen safety. Enhanced utilization of GIS data for social program development and implementation has also occurred in the past few years. In King County Washington, an entire program was developed to improve equity and social justice through the incorporation of Critical Race Theory into GIS data, which allowed for a mapping framework to be created to support local organizations (e.g. NGO’s, non-profits, social agencies, etc.) to better target communities when developing and implementing social programs.

Understanding the importance and magnitude of GIS data utilization for public sector organizations is vital; however, the development and maintenance of GIS programs are not uniform. There is no standard process or structure across all organization types that public sector organizations can seek to follow. Additionally, adoption of GIS programs has occurred at different times for different organizations, with some showcasing an initial early adoption attitude, while others have waited for significant technological advancements to occur prior to acquiring a GIS platform. As such, no two GIS departments are identical; differences exist in the governance, implementation, and ongoing program development. As a result, performance measurement in GIS maturity has become a significant challenge for many public sector organizations. In order for public sector organizations to develop a plan to address potential gaps in GIS program maturity, GIS practitioners therefore must be able to measure and understand their own current maturity, but also benchmark against other similar organizations to help pace development.

1 Stephen J Ventura, “The Use of Geographic Information Systems in Local Government,” Source: Public Administration Review, vol. 55, n.d.


In an effort to serve the purpose of assisting organizations with collecting and sharing insight and industry best practices related to GIS programs in the public sector, the Geospatial Maturity Index (GMI) was developed in 2018. The inaugural survey provided substantial insight into the common practices and struggles that public sector organizations have experienced in implementing, enhancing, and delivering geospatial services. The GMI is a standardized annual assessment of GIS maturity and capacity in the public sector. The GMI uses survey questions to capture the GIS maturity of respondents within three categories: Readiness, Implementation, and Impact.

In 2018, the GMI survey had 146 public sector organizations identify their current activities and program status to devise a base line maturity assessment. Responses from across North America were obtained, however, approximately 95% of all respondents were within Canada. The results of the survey were analyzed and a GMI report series was developed to highlight key similarities and differences across respondents. Respondents were also ranked according to a scoring model that was developed in conjunction with the survey itself. The scoring model was based in part from the URISA GIS Maturity Model and the Slimgim GIS Maturity Model with slight augmentations based on feedback received from various industry experts.

For the 2019 survey, a number of questions were added, augmented, or removed based on the feedback of 2018 respondents as well as the outcomes from the 2018 survey. In many situations, 2018 responses led to additional questions or insights that had not been considered in the initial version of the survey.

For example, in 2018, the survey asked respondents whether they had Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in place for data maintenance and quality. While 36 percent of respondents indicated that they had SOPs in place, 48 percent indicated that they were employing other methods to maintain data quality. These results led to a change in the question format to provide more defined responses based on the 2018 comments. The 2019 version of the question was modified to ask how organizations maintain data quality and provides “Standard Operating Procedures” as just one option. From this change, the respondents were able to communicate that the most common method of maintaining data quality was the use of proper naming structures. 67.7 percent of respondents indicated that was their primary method of maintaining data quality.

Proper Naming Structures

Data Uniformity Protocols

None

Other

Standard Operating Procedures

00.0% 20.0% 80.0%60.0%40.0%

Figure 1. Methods of Maintaining Data Quality


Fundamental Statistics

In total, there were 127 respondents to the 2019 GMI survey. 104 respondents were from public sector organizations located in Canada and 23 respondents were located within the United States. With the level of participation in the United States, there was enough comparative data to facilitate a dedicated GMI ranking for the US and for North America to supplement the existing Canadian ranking. As leading GIS programs seek other organizations to learn from and share best practices with, our inaugural North American rankings will provide a new platform for cross-border participation.

This report serves as a summary of the overall GMI results for 2019 and highlights the trends and patterns in organizational geospatial maturity. The report will highlight key findings from within the three primary categories: Readiness, Implementation, and Impact.

The sample of respondents from the 2019 survey is characterized into two primary distinct variables. The type of organization that responded and the size of the organization. These variables were treated as a method of grouping as it determined the baseline of similarities across all respondents. In other words, organizations of similar size and type may have completely different governance structure, technical infrastructure, budget dollar allocation, program staff size, and general program structure; yet, the comparison of two organizations of similar type and size produced the most alike organizations for best comparison.

Figure 2 details the representation of the different type of organizations that were surveyed. 88.2 percent of all organizations surveyed were some form of local government, with single-tier governments representing the largest share of respondents with 50.4 percent. Figure 3 provides the make-up of respondents based on total organization size.


Figure 2. Percentage Representation of Organizations Surveyed

Figure 3. Size of Organizations Surveyed


02 Readiness

The Readiness portion of the GMI survey consists of unique questions designed to evaluate the extent to which a public sector organization is ready/capable of fostering desired outcomes through its GIS program. The Readiness section has four sub-categories: Program Structure, Strategic Alignment, Program Funding and Program Capacity.

Program Structure and Capacity

As Figure 4 shows, the most common staff size for GIS departments and teams was between 2 and 5 full time staff (FTE) with 46.46 percent of all respondents indicating that was their current staff allocation. Additionally, it wasn’t until organization size exceeded 200 total staff that any GIS staff allocations were reported greater than 5 FTE. However, the relevance of these staff figures is amplified when also comparing to the results of whether staffing levels were considered sufficient to meet the current demand of services of the GIS department. In total, 62.99 percent of all organizations surveyed indicated that staffing levels were sufficient. However, once organization size was greater than 200 total staff, staffing levels were deemed to be insufficient for a number of respondents, and only started to improve as the staff size increased regardless of the increase in total organization size.

Figure 4. GIS Staff Size


In terms of the structure of the GIS program as it relates to organizational makeup, Figure 5 illustrates that the majority of respondents (50.4%) reported having a hybrid GIS program structure, followed by 40.2 percent reporting a centralized structure, and 9.5 percent with a decentralized structure. These results differ slight-ly from what was reported in the 2018 survey results where centralized GIS programs were most common. However, this variation in program structure across surveys is likely due to a change in survey respondent sampling as 57 new organizations participated in 2019 that did not participate in 2018.

Hybrid GIS programs are typically those in which the organization’s GIS department and core activities are centralized, but GIS projects and engagements, including some key personnel, are dispersed throughout dif-ferent departments of the organization. However, some respondents such as the City of Kitchener, indicated that while they may have “different departments that utilize and manipulate GIS datasets throughout the or-ganization, the core GIS database is managed in a centralized manner” and therefore they view their structure to be that of a centralized GIS program. Kitchener did indicate that they have allowed more business units to have more access to GIS datasets as the GIS program has evolved, and that notion was common across many

Figure 5. GIS Program Structure

Centralized

Decentralized

Hybrid


Strategic Alignment and Funding

One of the most important determining factors of an organization’s GIS program maturity can be identified as a GIS Strategy or Multi-year plan. While the existence of a GIS Strategy or Multi-year plan only accounted for 2.1 percent of all possible scoring marks within the survey. The organizations that indicated they had a GIS Strategy or Multi-year plan scored 47.9 percent higher on average than an organization that did not have a GIS strategy or Multi-year plan. This result is in line with the assumption prior to the assessment scoring, as the GIS strategy is designed to be the fundamental guiding document for the GIS program. While this score does not indicate the robustness of the GIS Strategies the organizations had, nor did it investigate how recent the GIS strategy was, the exercise in producing the GIS strategy was on average sufficient for many organizations to help prioritize their program’s goals in order to strive towards continued improvement.

The fundamentals of a GIS Strategic Plan should encompass the resourcing, governance, departmental usage, training and education, IT infrastructure, software, and public access to GIS. Assuming most of the GIS strategic plans fit these criteria, it would explain the substantially greater score from those organizations that reported having such a plan in place.

Additionally, a best practice in the development of GIS strategic plans is to gather unbiased feedback from both users and managers of GIS data and technology. As such 68.2 percent of organizations that indicated they had a GIS strategic plan, reported that it was developed either by an external consultant or in partnership with an external consultant. Engaging external experts is suggested as best practice as they can act as a neutral party when gathering feedback from all key stakeholders which should allow for improved buy-in for the strategic plan once the organization seeks to implement the plan.

With relation to funding, the median Operating Budget for all organizations was approximately $300,000, and the average Operating Budget was $599,450. While there were some organizations with significantly higher operating budgets that created outliers in the dataset, the majority of respondents were clustered around that $500,000 budget amount.

As additional context, respondents were asked if a cost sharing agreement existed between business units and the GIS program as it relates to data and technology (e.g. software, IT infrastructure, data analytics, etc.). 69.3 percent of respondents indicated that such a cost sharing agreement existed, and 30.7 percent indicated they did not have a cost sharing agreement. For those that had cost sharing agreements, the median Operating budget was 34.9 percent higher than those organizations that did not have a cost sharing agreement. While this correlation cannot be fully explained, a hypothesis can be constructed that organizations with cost sharing agreements have a better understanding of the benefits of GIS technology and service and therefore provide the GIS program with additional funding to support those goals.

To strengthen the readiness of any one GIS department, it becomes optimal to align the GIS data work with the organization’s strategic goals and plans. This is enhanced further by the need to incorporate senior management buy-in.


03 Implementation

The Implementation section of the GMI survey is designed to measure the extent that an organization has developed its geospatial maturity and has begun to achieve planned objectives. The Implementation section has two sub-categories: Geospatial Data and Geospatial Technology.

As mentioned above, a GIS program is an invaluable resource for public sector organizations, providing a plethora of benefits beyond its commonly perceived role of ‘map-making’. These benefits, such as cost savings, enhanced service delivery, improved organizational decision-making capabilities, increased government transparency, and much more, would not be possible without quality geospatial data and technology.

Geospatial DataOrganization and Availability of Data

The organization and usage of geospatial data are important factors when measuring the maturity of GIS programs within public sector organizations. When asked about the applicability of GIS data, a significant majority (85%) of organizations indicated that their GIS data is stored in a single centralized location (Figure 6). A centrally managed production database refers to the organizations’ spatial data warehouse, which contains all the authoritative GIS data for the organization and is free from editing or testing of data within the database. Maintaining a centralized database can be instrumental in reducing inefficiencies and preventing duplicate GIS data and work.

Published in a Dedicated Environment for Consumption and Distribution

Maintained with a Centralized Managed Production Database

Automatically Populates in Other Business Applications Across the Organization

Undergone Data Modelling

Developed Environment for GIS Data Testing

Other

Figure 6. GIS Data Applicability


When determining the maturity of geospatial data, a key factor to assess is the availability of metadata. Utilizing metadata is fundamental in understanding at what level of completeness and accuracy exists for the GIS dataset. The more layers that metadata exist for usually indicates a higher quality of dataset that can be accessed. As shown in Figure 7, the majority of respondents (55.1%) reported having metadata available for some foundational and business layers, while 23.6 percent indicated that no metadata was available for their database, and 21.3 percent of organizations had available metadata for all business and foundational layers.

Public usability of GIS data continues to be an area that most public sector organizations have yet to explore. Performing usability analyses to determine how the public use(s) GIS data and/or web applications will inform GIS programs on how to better structure their datasets to include the most pertinent information to the public, but also how web applications can be tailored to better inform and communicate with the residents of the government. In the 2019 GMI survey, 64.6 percent of respondents reported having not performed a usability analysis in the past 5 years, while 16.5 percent had completed at least one, and 15 percent of respondents reported that a usability analysis was either in the planning and development stages or currently underway.

Data Quality and Maintenance

A strong indicator of maturity in GIS implementation is the extent to which an organization is maintaining and ensuring the quality of its geospatial data. As previously mentioned in Figure 1, Proper Naming Structures was the primary method of ensuring data quality within the GIS datasets. Yet, less than half of respondents reported having Data Uniformity Protocols in place or a formal Standard Operating Procedure as it relates to maintaining data quality (47.2% and 44.9% respectively). While this may cause some concerns for GIS programs looking to maintain pristine GIS data, the variation in data management practices can be partially explained by the increase in Hybrid GIS programs.

The City of Calgary employs a more decentralized approach when it comes to end user GIS data usage, which inevitably creates some variability in the data format for its end purpose. To employ more strict data uniformity protocols decrease the use of GIS data by end users. The City reported that they ensure any data created in the enterprise geodatabase follows and adheres to the strict naming structure protocols, thus ensuring that the base data is maintained at a higher level of quality across the organization. This reasoning was found to be somewhat consistent across some hybrid GIS programs. However, for smaller organizations or those that are still not as mature, investigating data uniformity protocols was still recommended as a best practice as it allows for easier scalability of GIS usage across multiple departments and users as the data can be viewed as more trustworthy.

In addition to determining how respondents maintained the quality of their GIS data, the 2019 survey also inquired about the existence of data security policies that pertain to GIS data. Data vulnerabilities continue to rise in increasing concern for public sector organizations and appear to affect all sizes and types of organizations. To that end, Figure 8 highlights the concern that the majority (61.4%) of organizations do not have a data security policy that specifically ties to GIS data. While this does not mean that respondents in general have not worked diligently to create some form of data security policy, it does highlight a potential gap in any data security policy captured under the majority of respondents.


Figure 7. Availability of Metadata

Figure 8. Existence of a Data Security Policy that Pertains to GIS Data


Data Technology

Another key contributor to the maturity of a GIS program and the implementation of GIS initiatives is the software that is used to visualize or build decision support systems for use within an organization. GIS software is traditionally designed to store, retrieve, manage, display, and analyze all types of geographic and spatial data, which in turn allows organizations to produce maps and other graphic displays of geographic information for analysis and presentation. A substantial 89 percent of respondents indicated having a GIS software suite that “meets desired operational needs.” However, 19.7 percent of respondents indicated that the current software solution in place does not meet the desired security level.

With that said, the majority of respondents reported that plans were in place to either modify existing software to fit current or future needs, acquire additional supplemental software, or in some cases even replace the primary GIS software platform (See Figure 9). A common theme mentioned by respondents within this question was the desire to transition from a Commercial GIS Enterprise solution that may have significant licensing fees, to an increased usage of Customizable-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. Within the context of GIS software, COTS is referring to a hybrid software solution which utilizes open source software with custom programming that allows for the user/GIS department to essentially load their GIS database into the open source solution with very little programming required of the GIS department for initialization. These solutions can offer significant cost savings, with similar or better usability to the commercial enterprise software options.

Further supporting the interest to investigate COTS software solutions, 44.9 percent of respondents reported having specialized staff with experience in utilizing open source and hybrid software solutions. As well, 61.4 percent of respondents reported having staff with software development experience as it relates to GIS software. While many of the respondents did not indicate an urgent need to transition to a Hybrid solution, the desire to explore these options remain ever-present.

The value of good geospatial data is significant for public sector organizations. From a cost savings perspective, housing and maintaining GIS data in a centralized managed production database offers efficiency gains in preventing some duplicate data and work from being produced for similar purposes. The ability to provide quantifiable efficiency gains and cost savings from the implementation of a GIS program has the capability to strengthen stakeholder buy-in, which can be recognized through further empowerment of GIS programs. The Impact section of the Geospatial Maturity Index measures to what extent an organization has defined its goals related to its GIS program and is able to measure the impact of its geospatial initiatives.


Figure 9. Plans Related to GIS Software

Figure 10. GIS Software Suite Details


04 Impact

Collaboration

In both the 2018 and 2019 surveys, the Impact section of the GMI survey opens with a question regarding whether “a standardized process exists for external business units to provide feedback to the GIS department to ensure that GIS projects are contributing to departmental objectives?” In 2018, 58 percent of respondents indicated that a standardized process was lacking to ensure project alignment with departmental objectives.

In 2019, a similar result was found. Again, 58 percent of respondents indicated a lack of a standardized process through which feedback can be gathered. However, in many cases there remains a regular and open channel of communication between the GIS department and external business units for a number of respondents. Both the City of London and the City of Welland reported having regular touch points with external business units to gather input throughout the process of implementing GIS related project, but both reported the process to be more on an ad-hoc basis as opposed to something formal. Manatee County in Florida recognized that more could and should be done in the area of gauging client satisfaction and that they hope to strive towards developing a more formal feedback gathering process.

A new component that was investigated in the 2019 survey was an advanced look into how the GIS program often collaborates across departments. Figure 11 highlights the results, which identify that the most common approach is project specific or ad-hoc. Similar to the impact of the GIS Strategic Plan as explained in the Readiness section above, those programs with a Formal GIS Committee had a 28.8 percent higher maturity score on average in comparison to organizations that did not have a formal GIS committee. A formal GIS committee often assists with the ranking of projects based on the priorities of the organization, which often leads to better outcomes in general for the organization.

Figure 11. How Does Your GIS Department Collaborate Across Departments?


Partnerships

The survey sought to understand more detail as to the number of GIS programs that engaged in formal external partnerships. Unsurprisingly, the most common form of partnerships was with other levels of government, where 71.7 percent of respondents indicated the existence of a formal partnership, and with neighbouring municipalities, where 60 percent of respondents reported a partnership. However, one area of partnership that appeared to be surprisingly lacking were partnerships with local academic institutions. Nearly every single respondent had some form of academic or post-secondary institution within a reasonable proximity to their community. Yet only 28.3 percent of respondents reported a partnership with an academic institution.

Establishing more formal partnerships with academic institutions would serve two potential benefits to public sector organizations. First, the access to significantly inexpensive labour would greatly improve, as a number of post-secondary students are regularly looking for internship opportunities for them to further enhance their understanding of the practical uses of GIS data and technology. Second, improved relationships with academic institutions can provide the public sector organization with access to new and upcoming research and technology related to GIS.

Figure 12. Formal Partnerships with GIS Department


No two GIS programs are the same. From structure, to technology, to availability of funding, the supporting evidence continues to illustrate that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for how a GIS program can or should be structured. However, from the results of the 2019 GMI survey, we find that there are consistent best practices that stretch across all organization types and sizes.

Within the development of the GIS program from an organizational theory perspective and governance of the program, activities such as developing a GIS Strategic Plan and having access to appropriate funding levels continue to shine through as glaring examples of where organizations can prioritize improvement efforts. As it relates to GIS data and technology, improving processes related to data maintenance and quality as well as increasing the number of metadata layers may be challenging, but are important to ensure that GIS data is accurate, precise, and reliable. The increasing interest from organizations to investigate new and alternative software solutions has the potential to provide significant changes to GIS data usability as well as potentially improve GIS usage across new types of users.

Finally, measuring the impact and communicating the outcomes of GIS projects to external groups can only continue to enhance organizational buy-in efforts and improve interorganizational relationships. Taking that same approach to communicate with the public also has high potential for significantly improved public relation outcomes as it can illustrate in a visual sense exactly what kinds of services are being provided to residents.

We would also like to thank all survey participants and are excited for the launch of the 2020 GMI survey.

05 Conclusion

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geospatial maturity index insights report - 2019gmi insights report 2019 in an effort to serve the...

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