From our experience in helping organisations get the most out of the geographic data at their disposal, we’ve put together a quick set of questions to help you think about the most important aspects of your requirement.
1. Data
- Data input – what is your data and in what format does it exist – hard copy, soft copy, CAD plans, Excel listings, Word document, or is there GIS-ready data available such as shapefiles?
- Does the project require any source data extraction or data capture before we can start?
- Does the data quality meet the needs of the project, i.e. is the proposed data fit for purpose in terms of accuracy, granularity and being up to date?
- What other datasets might be needed; for example contextual base mapping and /or further additional data such as socio-economic or geo-demographic?
- Are there licensing / copyright issues around the proposed datasets?
2. Audience
- Who is the audience for the GIS project?
- Is it a technical audience with good mapping skills, a scientific audience, the general public or indeed a mixture of different types?
3. Delivery format
- How will the data be used; as a simple static image such as JPEG / PDF, as a light-weight online interactive map, within an existing GIS software package as a geodataset or even a tool to run semi-automatically?
- Are accompanying tabular reports required as well?
- Are any printed hard copy map outputs required?
4. People
- If the project is being delivered for use in a GIS software environment, what is the skill level of these people and is training required?
- Are the users of the analysis, tool or software capable of editing and maintaining the data in the future?
- If they are only occasional GIS users, should another delivery format be considered such as a managed remote service?
5. Scope of Work
Is the scope of work and project brief fully understood in terms of a clearly defined methodology, objectives and deliverables?
We hope this quick guide has been helpful, now if you’re ready to discuss your project we’d be delighted to hear from you.
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