The application of methodologies to ensure the success of the different projects related to software engineering has always been a common objective of all project managers related to this area, where by their nature they should also include projects based on geographic information systems. (S.I.G). Given the proliferation of geographic information systems in different aspects of our environment: including areas such as marketing for the correct application of market strategies; at the cadastral level for a complete and efficient registry of the urban and rural land of a community; in agriculture to categorize and identify productive lands; in civil protection, establishing emergency centers, identifying areas prone to floods and landslides due to rain or earthquakes;in institutions related to the care and protection of the environment for the tracking and control of endangered species, etc. Like traditional computer systems, it is necessary to apply a methodology that allows for monitoring and control of the GIS project to be developed.
The study of software engineering methodologies in geographic information systems is justified by the very limited information and application of these methodologies in the development of these projects. From this scarcity of information arises the need to identify methodologies that adjust to the work dynamics of GIS. In general, for IT professionals and given the nature of GIS, it is imperative to use tools that allow them to successfully complete their execution.
The application of GIS to problems that require the use of spatial data, in itself is interesting for state and private institutions and the addition of methodologies allow monitoring to ensure the quality of the processes used in their development and the final product.
The management of the tools provided by software development methodologies gives added value to the GIS project and therefore to the specialists who participate in them. Similarly, they address aspects that allow customers and end users to be sure of the quality of the product. Another point is that these methodologies guarantee that the product offered complies with what was previously agreed upon, following policies and processes of software development standards. Identifying and putting these tools into practice establishes a work structure that organizes and distributes the resources available to carry out the project; also allowing the reuse of parts of the product to be developed in the same project or in future projects.
As a result, the research carried out shows the scarcity of recommendations and documented experiences of the application of methodologies for the management of projects concerning geographic information systems. These have a software component that must be managed in itself as a software project, so its development cycle complies, like the software life cycle, with the basic stages of Requirements, Analysis and Design, Construction or Coding, Testing, Deployment / implementation.
In the same way, the GIS are adjusted to the different methodologies of software engineering, where the RUP methodology can be mentioned, based on the spiral model or agile methodologies such as Scrum. Both present the form of how to carry out project management to guarantee its success, the application of any of them will depend on the characteristics of the project to be achieved and the conditions or restrictions that it presents.
The monitoring and control would reveal the latent risks in the project, as well as; guarantee that the client's requirements are satisfied in a correct and congruent way by the development team, and therefore ensure that the processes carried out guarantee the quality of the product. All this suggests the adaptation of software engineering methodologies in the development of geographic information systems.
