A Data Asset Approach to Community Development
Community Development Practitioners can implement a Data Asset approach to lifecycle management that becomes cost-saving investment
Community Development managers are recognising that it is possible to implement new resource sharing models based on information management systems.
This approach recognises that the investment in computer-based information support made at the start of the design/build process has value throughout the 25-30 year life of a community development process.
As a result forward looking communities are building development industries using information technology strategies around software that supports the understanding consolidation and re-use of community information and skills.
Businesses increasingly view expenditures on information technology (IT) as capital expenditures with measurable return on investment. This new perspective recognises that computer-generated design data is an asset that is deployable throughout the operating lifecycle of a community development process.
By creating IT systems that effectively reuse data assets at every stage of that lifecycle, managers produce better community designs, reduce capital costs and accelerate "time-to-production".
Implementation of the data asset approach can begin at the earliest stage of the specific community development process. One method could be to link community development funding with project evaluation data in a common database repository.
This reuse philosophy enables data from the front-end process and actual costs to be reused in creating intelligent schematics three-dimensional models and even animated walkthroughs.
In creating and reusing a common database at the earliest stages of the community development process communities are using IT as far more that just a tool to automate back office systems.
In fact, systems used for placemaking design and conceptualisation is poised to become an integral part of an overall community development enterprise.
The design system can be integrated with traditional back office functionality including both the project management process and business management in general.
Implementation of design applications that are data-centric is part of an evolution to data-driven business models that are not unique just to community development models.
It is the result of well-known trends in IT, beginning with the increasing affordability of raw computing power and the ability to link individual computers to a powerful distributed computer system.
In engineering organisations, applications such as 3D modeling and realtime visualisation are now well understood and commonly used and with the connectivity enabled by the Internet and World Wide Web, data sharing and concurrent design practices are increasingly practical, and vital, to ensure maximum performance of any community based organisation.
The opportunity and specifically the technology now exist to ensure that the maximum potential from any community development project is achieved through ensuring all data becomes an asset to and throughout the process.
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Community and Cultural Services – Integrated Delivery Model