PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
March 2017
179
• What level of process or control make sense relative to the number of
individuals in the organization?
•
Transparency –
How visible is this process going to be to others.
•
Opinion or fact based –
Are the process steps driven by facts or
opinions or both. Often our processes can be improved if they are
driven by opinions vs facts. Likewise, there can be processes that are
driven by numbers (facts) only but lack input from other sources of
consideration.
• Is there real value in each step? Are we not doing something because
it is easier not to. Is it labeled a waste of time by the user? Is it being
done incorrectly?
Where to start? Begin by assessing what you already have in place. Stop and
consider the PMBOK® process groups and what you would ideally need or
want to accomplish in each of those areas. If your process is all oral and just
“known by all” and simply passed down, then start with writing it down.
Consider in general where things have always been “tough” during your
projects or areas that never really seem to work and enhance those. Like all
good quality improvement activities this isn’t static This activity should be
considered as ongoing. No matter what you come up with today, to remain
viable and useful it should be revisited as time and circumstances change.
The internet is full of resources that can be used as jumping off points. Be
aware that it’s not always going to be simple and at times will be messy.
Documents and processes will come into being and then will phase out.
That said a good process is one that grows and considers the changes that
are taking place around it, controlled change can be a real indicator of a
process’s health.
When is enough? It’s hard to get the ball moving but once it’s going it’s
easy to get on a roll. The one thing you don’t want to do is paralyze anyone
through process. If “no process” is one end of the spectrum “paralysis by
process is the other”. Here again we are looking for balance, enough rigor
to control the outcome but without adding unnecessary steps.
There are opportunities to improve first time right, on time and bottom
line all along in the project management process, we just have to find
it. Consider reviewing and improving your project management process,
creating one if you don’t already have it and move forward from there.
You’d be amazed at what it is that you can find that will improve your
project and organizational health.
Raquel Charrois is the executive vice president of Continental Mapping
Consultants, Inc., a Project Management Professional (PMP), and an
ASPRS Certified Photogrammetrist.
Raquel is very focused on process based approaches that unite program and
business objectives, resulting in portfolio success.
If you have questions or topics that you would like to see discussed,
please email them to
The Kingdom of Morocco added two more
zones to their national Grid system to cover the
annexed former Spanish Sahara. Maintaining
a single national Central Meridian (
l
o
) = 6
G
West of Greenwich; for Zone III the Latitude
of Origin (
f
o
) = 29
G
North, the Scale Factor at
Origin (m
o
) = 0.999616304, and the False Origin
is 1,200 kilometers Easting, 400 kilometers
Northing. For Zone IV the Latitude of Origin
(
f
o
) = 25
G
North, the Scale Factor at Origin (m
o
)
= 0.999616437, and the False Origin is 1,500
kilometers Easting, 400 kilometers Northing.
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency
(NIMA) lists the shift from “MERCHICH
Datum” (sic) to WGS 84 Datum as:
Δ
X = +31
meters ±5 m,
Δ
Y = +146 meters ±3 m,
Δ
Z = +47
meters ±3 m. This relation is based on nine
stations somewhere in Morocco.
U
pdate
In 2004 a team of Spanish and Moroccan geod-
esists performed a GPS campaign to map the
Strait of Gibraltar and produce a map at the
scale of 1:25,000. Referenced to the GRS80 el-
lipsoid and projected on the Lambert Conformal
Conic secant projection, the point of origin is at
j
o
= 35° 57′ N,
l
o
= 5° 37′ 30″ West of Greenwich,
and a scale factor at origin of m
o
= 0.999995266
(
Geodetic works carried out in the Strait of Gi-
braltar, Almazan Garate, J.L., et al, Human
and Social Sciences at the Common Conference,
Nov. 18-22, 2013, pp. 301-306
). In 2011, The
Cartographie et Geodesie Nationale du Maroc
reported that the fundamental network of Mo-
rocco consists of approximately 9,000 points, a
permanent GPS network of 15 stations, a new
national leveling network covering 13,806 kms,
and a unification of the system of coordinates
(
Cartographie et Geodesie Nationale, Hmamou-
chi, Y., FIG Working Week 2011, Marrakech,
Morocco, 18-22 May 2011
).
The contents of this column reflect the views of the
author, who is responsible for the facts and accuracy
of the data presented herein. The contents do not
necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the
American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote
Sensing and/or the Louisiana State University Center
for GeoInformatics (C
4
G).
This column was previously published in
PE&RS
.
Project Management
