Abstract
This study examines 101 geospatial projects and the perception of participating geospatial professionals on their success. It organizes their discussion of technical aspects of the work and managerial problems that arose within the frameworks of the geographic information science and technology (GIS&T) and the project management (PM) bodies of knowledge (BoK), respectively. Based on this author's appraisal of projects perceived as failure-prone (those perceived as failures, containing significant pitfalls, or of uncertain outcome by the professionals), technical issues are rarely cited as the cause of failure-prone projects, and integration of more numerous GIS&T BoK knowledge areas are associated with a smaller percentage of failure-prone projects. Results also reveal that most failure-prone projects have serious management issues in more than one nonfacilitating knowledge area of the PM BoK, a trend that could be useful in tracking at the onset of a project at risk of being failure-prone. Finally, by mapping managerial problems within PM BoK knowledge areas to GIS&T knowledge areas, this study identifies problems in particular managerial areas for projects with particular GIS&T components. Such competency-based approaches will allow geospatial project managers and professionals to better plan projects and recognize common pitfalls.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 5-18 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | URISA Journal |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| State | Published - Aug 20 2013 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Engineering