GIS Consulting and Planning Services

AG Research provides a full range of consulting services for GIS program and project evaluation, needs assessment, and planning. We are active in GIS industry research through partnerships with the National Research Council (NRC) and support standards initiatives from the Open Geographic Consortium (OGC), Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA). AG maintains GIS, Business Analysis and Project Management certifications involvement in organizations and professional societies. We are an authorized ESRI partner and a Microsoft Gold Partner.

GIS Needs Assessment and Design

AG’s GIS needs assessment services provide a foundation for GIS project and program planning. We provide these services to address a range of organizational or project environments:

• New GIS development initiatives
• Expansion or re-alignment of existing GIS programs
• Technical Refresh or Application Migration efforts
• Educational or promotional campaigns to increase GIS program support and awareness
  

AG’s methodologies establish a clear baseline, identify current spatial assets, resources and gaps, and define priority areas for GIS improvement. Our needs assessment approach begins with an examination of an organization’s mission, programs, and business requirements. We define GIS opportunities that respond to the business problems and use this as a foundation to identify needs that address all functional and operational aspects of a GIS program.


Our conceptual design work creates a technical and organizational structure for subsequent detailed design and development. The conceptual design typically encompasses three main areas: system configuration, database, and organizational structure. Based on the results of GIS needs assessment, we create a plan that gives a clear picture for the future and allows for appropriate budgeting and initiating GIS development or enhancement work.


We use efficient techniques for information gathering and consensus building including surveys, interviews, focus groups, and interactive brainstorm sessions. We examine the organizational environment and technical infrastructure to deliver a comprehensive picture of current resources and requirements. We engage management, technical staff, and business users to build understanding and a unified consensus for GIS development and deployment issues and decisions. In addition, AG experience with client centric e-Services delivery models can be used to engage public stakeholders on their own requirements governed by organizational policies and procedures.


GIS needs evaluation and conceptual design projects can include the following main components:

• Targeted Client Centric Needs Assessment
• GIS technology training and orientation sessions
• Evaluation of business drivers and organizational mandates for GIS
• Evaluation of operational and technical deficiencies and gaps
• Review and Assessment of organizational structure, regulations, policies and practices, staffing, and GIS governance
• Definition of technical needs (system, data, applications)
• Inventory of current systems, data resources, software, and applications