Skills, Smarts, Strategy & The Preliminary Plan

By Bill Franklin, P.Eng

Introduction

In the first article, we examined why a city needs to start a large project. Initiatives to address population growth and changing demographics, updating infrastructure, improving downtown transportation, changing aesthetics, the list is endless. The challenge is daunting, as most large projects that fall outside of regular operational activities require skills and knowledge that lay outside of the city’s everyday toolkit.

The second article examined key aspects of a successful project, defining the dream and retaining conceptual integrity, i.e. maintaining control over defining features and avoiding scope creep by keeping a laser focus on the product and project goals. Desired features in citywide parking could include:

• A smoothly operation parking system will be the city’s “welcome mat” to come on in and enjoy what the city has to offer.
• A common payment system
• Smooth and integrated data flow from pay machines and apps to enforcement to auditing
• Intuitive and easy to use apps, pay machines, simple street signage, excellent traffic flow in and out and within parking facilities
• Tough and reliable for software, electronic hardware and mechanical (e.g. gates)
• Excellent data collection and analysis tools
• Facilitates downtown businesses and receives praise from downtown business associations
• Excellent client (i.e. parker) support, whether resolving payment issues, citations, disabilities, call line, YouTube videos on
  “How to”

In this third chapter of a series of articles, we will examine prerequisite skills, smarts, strategy and the plan to move the concept to the RFP stage.

Scoping the Dream

Defining the dream can be hard. Actually really hard. When one has done something for the first time, the second time is easier and third easier still. A big part of the challenge is the deficiency of necessary skills and smarts. Your organization needs at least one smart and knowledgeable person to  lead the charge.

For example, payment mechanisms are required to enable your clients, (e.g. parkers) to pay by:

• App
• Pay at terminal
• Pay by Q-code
• Pay by machine
• Pay online for permits or citations

Understanding these challenges means understanding the payment systems and sweating the details. Do you have someone who can do that?

Another example. How much will the entire project cost?

• $100,000
• $1,000,000
• $4,000,000

Well it depends. If you  have done 20 projects of various sizes with similar attributes, then it’s possible to estimate the cost, effort and duration of the project. But if your city has done it precisely zero times, then the chance of getting it right and on budget and on schedule is also pretty much zero.

The First Step

The first step when the edict is delivered is to learn. Ideally one has seen this coming and has begun to come up to speed already, but if not, the best time is the moment you realize you are getting the BIG assignment.

• Develop an elevator pitch that can be stated in 30 seconds, some examples:
  • this phone will be a computer in your hand and offers you a window into the world, music and entertainment and an abundance of helpful apps
  • this software application will enable any shop owner to have an online presence
  • this parking system will simplify and make parking downtown fast and easy
  • (Can you guess who these are?)
• Look for and consult with other people in similar cities throughout Canada and the USA
  • How did your parking system come about?
  • What are its features?
  • How much did it cost?
  • How long did it take to start? To finish?
  • How many people were involved?
  • How many contractors, vendors?
  • How smoothly did the different systems work together?
  • How did you handle the media?
  • What were the best aspects?
  • The worst?
  • Did it meet your expectations?

Doing these things means getting out of your office, reaching out to other players in the industry, attending conferences and trade shows. Taking classes.

It is also iterative. You read, attend class, fly to and tour other cities. It is now time to define the objective in more detail, the features, general systems design, the moving parts, the data flow, cash flow, people’s behaviour, queueing, construction, city planning, budgeting and more.

If you can present the concept and address most if not all of the things listed above, it is time to expand the reach to include vendors and consultants.

The Role of Vendors and Consultants and AI

As a large potential client, you will soon be barraged by vendors and consultants looking to share their valuable skills with you. But before spending significant money it’s important to have a base of knowledge that gives you the “sniff test” ability. Vendors and consultants want to sell you their stuff. Moreover, vendors and consultants are good at selling. You may want to retain an industry expert that has no  particular allegiance to a product or consultancy, rather they are skilled in the trade, and may be certified with CAPP or be a professional engineer. Nevertheless, your internal expert should have the prerequisite skills as previously described.

In any case, vendors and consultants can add value to your knowledge base. Use your new relationships with other cities to vet potential vendors and consultants.

Finally, how useful will AI be for shaping your new project? The jury is still out, unfortunately as your author has found, AI’s choice of Reddit is not a great resource but oft quoted. Choose your sources wisely.

Recapping Conceptual Integrity

One of the most critical elements to a successful project is a well-defined definition of what it is. All successful projects and launches define the product or system, what it is, what are its goals, its operating metrics (how big, how fast, how much cargo, how efficient), how much it will cost, who will use it, the benefits.

Conceptual Integrity has these attributes:

• Has one leading person with a handful of other contributing people that manage or monitor every significant feature and design of the system
• A well-defined description of the product or system and a detailed description of who the users are and how they will use it
• Features and functions and operation operate smoothly and reliably, with simplicity and intuitiveness. Aspects that seem out of place, disconnected or random are rare or non-existent.
• Descriptions are fleshed out with use cases that provide better insight and drill into details, for example:
• User interfaces
• Data communications
• Online Payment systems
• Integrity of the system
• Feasibility of cutting edge technology or current technology used in a new way

For example integrating different vendors’ products into a cohesive smoothly running system

• User enrolment
• Security: physical and data (infosec)
• People with Disabilities
• Legal, e.g. information privacy
• Look and feel of equipment or applications
• Multi-vendor implications
• Durability, redundancy
• Auditing
• Among many others

Maintaining tight control over the concept and project is critical to deliver on time and on budget.

Ballpark Pricing

By now, one should be able to ballpark a price for the project. You’ve talked to six different cities, and the price for your initiative looks to be somewhere from $2 million to $4 million.

Virtually all successful projects have well informed beginnings: knowledgeable staff, realistic goals, a reasonable budget. If not, they need to. And it costs money to research, learn and develop a detailed plan. A good metric is 5% of the estimated cost should be allocated to up front work. So for the above project, let’s average the cost, i.e. $3 million, then the budget to develop knowledge and to do good planning is $150,000 to $200,000. This will include:

• Educational courses
• Travel to other cities
• Prototypes and pilots
• Salaries
• Consultants
• Planning, talking to stakeholders
• Conferences and trade shows e.g. Canadian Parking Association, IPMI
• Sweating the details, finding the pressure points
• Approximate system and architectural design
• Preliminary staffing, logistics, scheduling, budget, legal, contingencies

This point in the project is an inflection point. Hewlett-Packard coined it a stage gate. The stage where preliminary planning work was done, where ballpark project size and budget and schedule were estimated. The gate is to get buy-in and move on to the next stage, ramping up the project for build out.

In the next article, you’ve got buy-in, acceptance, sign-off. Time to develop a realistic project plan.

About the author: Bill Franklin, P.Eng., President, Tannery Creek Systems