Strengths and Challenges Managing a GIS Program in a

Decentralized Model… Observations from Region 9 (FS)

Geospatial ’09Healthy Forests, Lands, Earth

April 27 – May 1, 2009Snowbird Conference Center, UT

Presented Tues April 28th by

Mike Martischang, Region 9 GIS Coordinator

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 2

Subtitles to This Presentation that Merit Acknowledgement…

• Everywhere in the Forest Service, both horizontally and vertically, by both design and cultural habit, is decentralized…

• Like most things in this world, our decentralization is a mixed blessing, and…

• In some respects Region 9 (R9) is maybe just a little more decentralized that other places in the FS

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 3

Presentation Outline

• Geographic Topology• Organizational Topology• Decentralization… R9-Style• GIS Management• IM and GIS “Enterprise Management”

Successes in R9• How Has Success Been Achieved?• Questions…• A Contemplation for the Day…

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 4

Geographic Topology of R9

• 15 NFS units, only two of which are contiguous• 20 states (1,037 counties, ~1/3 of US total)• Generally, surface ownership is fragmented and

patchy• Subsurface ownership is largely NOT under FS

jurisdiction, exacerbating the complexities of both resource and information management

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 5

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 6

Organizational Topology of R9• 1 Regional Forester + 2 Deputies (the RFs)

– Since 2004 strong RF support of IM and GIS (as a component of IM)– Director of IM established in 2005; full-time presence on the Regional

Leadership Team (RLT) consolidated/built to a staff of 15• Providing integrated coordination to NRIS, Infra, TIM, FACTS,

Remote Sensing, Geospatial Services, & Mobile Technologies– RF requested creation of an Excellence in Information Management

recognition award to be presented annually

• Appreciation of IM/GIS has been slowly and steadily imparted to the RLT (including Rangers) by RFs and IM Staff

• Appreciation of IM/GIS is steadily growing among RO Resource Management Staff

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 7

Organizational Topology (cont.)

In particular, relative to GIS at the Regional level…• Within the IM Staff there is…

– 1 GIS Coordinator + 1 Geospatial Services Coordinator– 1 GIS Analyst/Technical Specialist– 1 Remote Sensing Specialist– 2 Infra persons, both with GIS Specialist skills

• … and a nascent, growing population of “IM/GIS appreciators and practitioners” among the RO Resource staffs

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 8

Decentralization… R9-Style

• Maximize transference of “resources” to the unit level… i.e., minimize dollars “off-the-top” by the RO (all staffs subject to this “policy”)

• Local line officers know their unit needs and priorities better than others

• There are inherent tendencies toward decentralization, attributable in part to the fact that most units in R9 have very small organizations

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 9

IM and GIS “Enterprise Management” Successes in R9

• Timely response to the Travel Management Rule (i.e., MVUM production)

• Aggressive adoption of FSVegSpatial, with strong Forest support, facilitated by pre-existing Regional standard stand polys and CDS tabular data

• 1/3 of units (5) have all their spatial data operationally stored & maintained in their local SDE instance

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 10

How Has Success Been Achieved?

• “Show me” (Missouri is in R9). “If it works ‘as advertised’ I’ll work toward operational implementation” (e.g. FSVegSpatial, geodatabases in SDE)

• RO IM Staff is leading/guiding unit-level self-paced initiatives toward emerging Enterprise standards and protocols– “Nibbling”, not “chomping”, at progress on many fronts

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 11

Success Achieved… (cont.)

• RO IM Staff monitoring unit interests/needs and facilitating training and technical support to leverage their motivations toward Enterprise solutions

• “Sub-Regional Cooperatives”. With strategic guidance from RO, clusters of 2-4 units pooling talents and resources toward common goals (e.g., SDE, GI)

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 12

Success Achieved… (cont.)

• Many individuals from R9 units participate in various capacities with national application and protocol development and testing efforts

• In the end, IM/GIS successes and progress made in Region 9 could be attributed to leveraging many modest and “self-paced” efforts toward Enterprise goals and protocols by taking full advantage of deep pools of unit initiative

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 13

Questions… ?

Contact:Mike Martischang – GIS CoordinatorUS Forest Service – Eastern Region626 E. Wisconsin AvenueMilwaukee, WI 53202414-297-1384 or mmartischang@fs.fed.us

and…

Tues Apr 28, 2009 Policy & Government 14

A contemplation to leave you with… an “information literacy” evaluation criteria to include on vacancy announcements, conceivably applicable to 75-80% of the 21st Century FS workforce…

“Ability to browse, evaluate quality, edit, use in ad-hoc analysis, and derive reports from: tabular, spatial, and/or text data and information stored in digital form on computers using standard commercial, as well as agency developed, software applications. This ability is considered an essential skill for meeting acceptable performance levels for this job. Describe examples that demonstrate your ability to use enterprise information management systems to manage, evaluate, manipulate, and report from data and information digitally stored on personal computers, servers, or the web.”