The 5 Most Common Mistakes
When Scoping a Geospatial Project.
1
Defining Priority Areas And Deadlines – You may have a project that requires tight deadlines. Depending on the project’s size and complexity, it may be unrealistic to complete the entire project as quickly as desired. In these situations we can work with you to determine priority areas and establish milestone deadlines and deliveries to get your team moving quickly on what’s most important.
2
Using Boilerplate RFPs – You will often hear your industry colleagues rave about the success of their recent geospatial project. Because your time is precious, you may be tempted to borrow their RFP, replace their name, firm, and project AOI with your own, and request the bid. This can result in the realization that the details weren’t reviewed closely enough to establish the needed deliverables specific to your project, and you end up with unneeded data or a change order. Please take the time to carefully consider the project’s downstream usage and whether its current scope will get the job done. We specialize in understanding how our data fits as a critical cog into your larger analysis, and we enjoy helping you select the cog’s best size, material, and installation settings that will make the machine hum smoothly.
3
Improperly Planned Boundary Coverage – At times there will be a need for additional mapping or imagery adjacent to your originally scoped AOI, either within the acquired source imagery or elevation data, or perhaps even outside of it. Obviously another flight after the fact can add significant cost, but even data processing additions within the originally acquired aerial data can be costly due to fixed project setup costs, data restores, and other factors. It is best to consult and then double check with your colleagues and clients to ensure that your boundary covers all anticipated project needs ahead of time. Asking again may save you and your client significant costs.
4
Mapping Schemas and Formatting Requirements – Certain clients, such as Departments of Transportation and other Government Agencies, publish very specific mapping elevation, and other geospatial data formatting requirements, such as layer naming conventions, line styles, tiling schemes, software versioning, delivery file naming and folder structure, accuracy reporting, and metadata specifications. Do you or your client require the data to meet specific layering and formatting requirements? Customized parameters can require some initial project setup, but they can be reused in future projects, reducing turnaround time and cost. Significantly, this customization can enable you or your client to automate ingestion and processing of our data within existing systems.
5
Buying The Buzz Words There is a reason buzz words exist – because their technology can make your life easier! It’s critical, however, to understand and recognize the specific situations and applications where your use of technology buzzwords like “LiDAR” and “Drone” can provide you the maximum ROI, and where other methods might be preferable. Use care and consider your downstream software, hardware, and personnel capabilities when performing your analysis. We stand ready to consult with you and help formulate an approach that will best meet your projects outcome.
THANK YOU!
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