Temporary derailments
I wouldn’t have much credibility if I didn’t admit to glitches along the way. Here are four dynamics that sometimes got in the way.
Leadership changes. Like many public works agencies, Seattle Public Utilities has gone through significant change over the last few years. Most managers had more pressing issues than our attempts to improve the data flow of asset information. To get around that, we persevered quietly inside the GINORMOUS project (see “Asset mapping: Forget what you think you know,” March 2015).
Power struggle. IT wasn’t happy with the RtAM team leading the innovation. They went above my head to try to stop the project, realign the scope, and take over its management.
This is where the GINORMOUS project saved us. There was no stopping or even slowing construction schedules. We severed GIS integration from the project and realigned focus on field data collection and delivery of that data to CAD designers and GIS analysts.
Hope creep springs eternal. Every group (silo) we touched wanted to expand our scope. Most people thought I was inflexible, didn’t listen enough, and was too quick to say no. When I resisted, they took it up their management chain.
It didn’t matter that our pilot project focused only on the GINORMOUS project. When I emphasized that our imperative was “On Scope, On Schedule, On Budget,” people quickly agreed and then said, “Yeah, but what about …?”
- Let’s try this on other in-house projects first.
- Let’s assign a steering committee to oversee the project manager (me).
- Let’s have surveyors go out with maintenance crews.
- Let’s have inspectors do the surveying.
- Let’s evaluate the engineer’s red line process for possible efficiencies.
- Let’s see what other cities are doing.
- Let’s write specs for all municipal projects.
- Let’s talk to the other departments and get their thoughts.
- Since the surveyors are out there anyway…
I learned to actively listen, appear to entertain new ideas (for the next phase), and then resolutely hold to our original scope. This seemed disingenuous to me, but was necessary.
Every idea seems good during planning, but not during implementation. Wish list enhancements by outsiders burden a team with too many variables and blur focus. Changes made by the team based upon their implementation observations, innovation, and desire to deliver quality were considered; almost all simplified and/or reduced scope.
Show me the money. Everyone agreed that bad data was costing us dearly in accidents, delays, and change orders. Everyone wanted better data.
No one wanted to pay for it.
Money politics are always harder than technical hurdles. I spent hours crafting contract specifications, writing Memorandums of Agreement, and negotiating with project managers. We ultimately focused only on surveying our utilities and crossing utilities that were immediately adjacent. We hope that our successes — cheaper, faster, better data — will develop a fan base for surveying subterranean assets on future projects.
Next page: You win some, you lose some
