Project: MicroStation/InRoads Comprehensive Migration from MicroStation/J
Client: Oklahoma DOT (ODOT)
Prime Contractor: Bohannan Huston, Inc. (BHI)
Primary Collaborators: Janet Griffen (ODOT) and Brad Adams (BHI)
Work Scope: Precursory Education, Needs Assessment, Standards Development ("integers to names"), Software Setup
2002-2003
While the OpenRoads transformation is the biggest I've seen in a three-decade career, the jump from the integer-based MicroStation/J platform (63 levels) was the second biggest transformation.
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation's (ODOT) comprehensive migration from the MicroStation/J InRoads platform was led by Project Manager Janet Griffin on the ODOT side and Brad Adams on the Bohannan Huston (BHI) side. Scope spanned from survey through design and production.
My role was Technical Lead. I was assisted by Pat Callahan for plotting and Nick Johnson for MicroStation.
I created a website early in the project so that the widely-distributed BHI migration and management team members (San Diego, Dallas, Albuquerque) had instant access to in-progress material and near-live project status (email is not a management tool, it's a notification tool).
This project had the typical inherent Transformation Project Problem: the owners, users, and decision makers of the new system had to be educated about the new system and its decision points before they could make informed decisions.
Because travel added directly to the cost of the project, we had to maximize communication during and between on-site visits, which were typically a week in duration.
By 2003 I had eight years of designing and delivering professional training systems under my belt and a few years of website design. It was natural (and easy and cheap) to extend our internal collaboration web to a client-facing education, training and coordination site.