Implementation of Electronic Right-of-Way Management Systems Versus Paper Systems
6 Conclusion and Recommendations
Public sector real estate professionals are continuously challenged to "do more with less," as staffing levels have been reduced in many states and outside consultants are being enlisted to perform more work. In addition, the right-of-way process is very structured based on federal and state laws and highly document intensive. Utilizing only a paper-based system can make document retrieval cumbersome and time consuming.
Implementation of an electronic right-of-way management system can clearly assist a state DOT or other public sector real estate organization to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their operations. A state DOT right-of-way business unit not currently utilizing an electronic right-of-way system should seriously consider investing in an electronic right-of-way management system.
At the same time, implementation of a new electronic right-of-way management represents a significant investment for a public sector real estate organization. Depending on the implementation approach taken (commercial off-the-shelf or custom development), the research team estimated the cost of implementing a new system for a medium sized agency to be approximately $4.5 million with a seven-year total cost of ownership between $6 million to $7 million.
In spite of the significant upfront investment required to implement a new electronic right-of-way management system, the research team's analysis showed for a hypothetical medium sized state DOT that an electronic right-of-way management system does have a positive return on investment over a seven year period of between $1.6 million and $2.5 million depending on the implementation approach. In addition, implementation of an electronic right-of-way management system can provide numerous intangible benefits which contribute to improved efficiency and effectiveness of right-of-way operations, enhanced transparency and significantly improved access to information.
As with any technology or business change project, however, there are also numerous challenges that must be addressed to successfully implement a new system. Based on discussions with agencies who have recently implemented new right-of-way management systems, some of these implementation challenges include:
- Difficulty in achieving and maintaining executive sponsorship for the proposed project through any changes in executive leadership
- Changes in agency management or shifting agency priorities impacting the project including reductions in the project budget and/or changes in project staff
- Organizational resistance to implementing a new system; this may include resistance to change or an unwillingness on the part of some staff to consider using a new system
- Limitations in the overall usability and adaptability of the new system which complicates the ability of agency users to quickly become productive with the new system
- Inability to control/manage project scope leading to an unanticipated increase in the project budget and potential schedule delays
- Technical complexities related to requirements to interface with a number of different agency systems
- Impact of required changes to other agency management systems in order to interface with the new right of way management system
- To ensure a successful implementation, these challenges must be proactively addressed through a structured and on-going risk management process and by applying various best project management practices including:
- Establish and maintain strong executive management support including proactive engagement of any new executive management team members if there are changes in agency leadership
- Establish a clear project governance structure involving representation from all impacted agency stakeholder groups
- Assign both a business and IT project manager, with the IT project manager preferably having prior implementation experience with the selected commercial off the shelf software solution or technology suite being utilized to implement the system
- Ensure a consistent level of participation from agency subject matter experts from project initiation through testing and deployment, even if this requires some backfilling of staff during the project period
- Provide just-in-time end user training using agency business processes and agency data and case examples and not canned materials from the systems integrator or software vendor
- Identify any organizational change management impacts (process changes, organizational changes, etc.) that may result from the new system and putting strategies/ plans in place to address these impacts as early as possible and then monitoring the implementation of these strategies throughout the project
