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Building sustainable Installation Geospatial Information and Services (IGI&S) programs: a program management framework of capacity building strategies

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Building Sustainable Installation Geospatial Information and Services (IGI&S)
Programs: A Program Management Framework of Capacity Building Strategies

by
Christina Paganini, GISP

A Thesis Presented to the
Faculty of the USC Graduate School
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science
(Geographic Information Science and Technology)

August 2019
ii

Copyright © 2019 by Christina Paganini
All rights reserved
iii

Table of Contents
List of Figures .................................................................................................................. v
List of Tables ...................................................................................................................vi
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ vii
List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... viii
Abstract ...........................................................................................................................xi
Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
1.1 IGI&S Program Origins and Mission ...................................................................... 3
1.2 Motivation for Framework Development ................................................................. 5
1.2.1 Study Area and Spatial Challenges ................................................................. 6
1.2.2 IGI&S Program Management Challenges ....................................................... 9
1.3 The IGI&S Program Management Framework ..................................................... 11
Chapter 2: Understand Your Business, Know Your Requirements ............................... 14
2.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification ................................................ 14
2.2 Principle Methods and Examples ......................................................................... 17
2.2.1 Data-to-Product Matrix .................................................................................. 17
2.2.2 Stakeholder Tracker ...................................................................................... 21
2.2.3 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis ...................... 23
2.2.4 Strategic and Project Plans ........................................................................... 25
2.3 Analysis and Significance .................................................................................... 26
Chapter 3: Develop a Holistic GIS Infrastructure Lifecycle ............................................ 31
3.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification ................................................ 32
iv

3.2 Principle Methods and Examples ......................................................................... 38
3.2.1 Hardware and Software Inventory and Refresh Schedule ............................ 38
3.2.2 Data Health Assessment and Data Maintenance Schedule .......................... 39
3.3 Analysis and Significance .................................................................................... 44
Chapter 4: Budget-to-Perform and Perform-to-Budget .................................................. 46
4.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification ................................................ 47
4.2 Principle Methods and Examples ......................................................................... 50
4.2.1 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) ................................................................ 50
4.2.2 Budget Development ..................................................................................... 52
4.2.3 Identifying Levels of Service or Performance ................................................ 57
4.2.4 Establishing Metrics and Tracking Performance ........................................... 59
4.3 Analysis and Significance .................................................................................... 61
Chapter 5: Empowering People and Communities of Interest ....................................... 65
5.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification ................................................ 66
5.2 Principle Methods and Examples ......................................................................... 70
5.2.1 Support the Development of a Competent and Motivated Workforce ........... 70
5.2.2 Stakeholder, Leadership, and Customer Engagement .................................. 77
5.3 Analysis and Significance .................................................................................... 80
Chapter 6: Conclusion ................................................................................................... 84
References .................................................................................................................... 89

v

List of Figures
Figure 1 Installations in the MCIWEST AOR ................................................................... 8
Figure 2 The IGI&S Program Management Framework ................................................ 12
Figure 3 Subject Matter Expert Construct ..................................................................... 22

vi

List of Tables
Table 1 Policy Drivers for IGI&S .................................................................................... 18
Table 2 Data-to-Product Matrix ..................................................................................... 20
Table 3 Stakeholder Tracker by Feature Dataset .......................................................... 23
Table 4 SWOT Analysis Topics ..................................................................................... 25
Table 5 Data Health Assessment Evaluation Factors ................................................... 40
Table 6 Sample Data Health Assessment ..................................................................... 41
Table 7 Sample Attribution Review ............................................................................... 41
Table 8 Sample Data Maintenance Schedule ............................................................... 43
Table 9 Yearly Program Objective Work Breakdown Structure ..................................... 51
Table 10 Common OCCs for IGI&S .............................................................................. 53
Table 11 Truncated Budget Ledger Template ............................................................... 54
Table 12 Levels of Service: Real Property Data Creation and Maintenance ................. 58
Table 13 Recommended Parameters for Tracking ........................................................ 60
Table 14 Occupational Series Comparison ................................................................... 71
Table 15 Sample Interview Questions ........................................................................... 74
Table 16 Core Competencies for IGI&S Personnel ....................................................... 75
Table 17 Education and Outreach Methods .................................................................. 78
Table 18 Working Group Charter Section Examples ..................................................... 79
vii

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my GEOFidelis colleagues for inspiring me to write this thesis, and to
Mr. Justin Goering, Geospatial Information Officer, GEOFidelis Program Manager, for
providing invaluable feedback on this work. Additionally, I am thankful for Lieutenant
Colonel Tony Mitchell, MCIWEST Regional Facilities Officer, for continuously
advocating for IGI&S, and the MCIWEST Regional Facilities team for always
challenging me to be a better program manager. I am appreciative of my advisor, Dr.
Steven Fleming, for supporting this topic and providing direction throughout the thesis
process, and of my committee members, Dr. John Wilson and Dr. Jennifer Bernstein,
for their guidance.

viii

List of Abbreviations
ADS Authoritative Data Store
AOR Area of Responsibility
BRAC Base Realignment and Closure
CIP Common Installation Picture
COI Community of Interest
DISDI Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure
DoD Department of Defense
DoDD Department of Defense Directive
DoDI Department of Defense Instruction
EI&E Energy, Installations, and Environment
FASCLASS Fully Automated System for Classification
FDCCI Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative
FIAR Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness
FY Fiscal Year
GISci Geographic Information Science
GIS Geographic Information System
GDM Geospatial Data Model
GPS Global Positioning System
GOCO Government-Owned Contractor-Operated
GOGO Government-Owned Government-Operated
IDP Individual Development Plan
IT Information Technology
ix

IGI&S Installation Geospatial Information and Services
I&E Installations and Environment
MCAGCC Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center
MCAS Marine Corps Air Station
MCB Marine Corps Base
MCIWEST Marine Corps Installations West
MCLB Marine Corps Logistics Base
MCMWTC Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center
MCRD Marine Corps Recruit Depot
NGA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
NIMA National Imagery and Mapping Agency
NSDI National Spatial Data Infrastructure
NSG National System for Geospatial Intelligence
OCC Object Classification Code
OASD Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense
OMB Office of Management and Budget
OPM Office of Personnel Management
PPBE Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution
PMI Program Management Institute
PWO Public Works Officer
RFO Regional Facilities Officer
REST Representational State Transfer
ROI Return on Investment
x

SLA Service-Level Agreement
SDSFIE Spatial Data Structure for Facilities, Infrastructure, and Environment
SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
SME Subject Matter Expert
TECOM Training and Education Command
UFC Unified Facilities Code
URISA Urban and Regional Information Systems Association
USGIF United States Geospatial-Intelligence Foundation
WBS Work Breakdown Structure

xi

Abstract
Prior to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005, military installations used
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in an ad-hoc capacity for a variety of installation
management issues. BRAC, both a fiscal and political issue, required a common set of
digital data and maps to visualize Department of Defense (DoD) installations in a GIS to
support the real property–lifecycle process and associated decision-making central to
the effort. This integration, however, began to provide business benefits in other
installation management areas supported by policies such as the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, and the E-Government Act of 2002. IGI&S
programs have grown to provide geospatial data and tools for a variety of Installations
and Environment (I&E) domains, including, but not limited to, planning, management,
and operations, emergency response and recovery, environmental management,
homeland defense, housing, recreation, and transportation. This research presents
capacity building strategies and techniques to assist in both quantifying and qualifying
IGI&S programs in the face of competing service- and installation-level priorities that
often leads to defunding IGI&S programs. A lack of fiscal discipline in executing service-
validated funding priorities such as IGI&S, in favor of local requirements puts life, health,
and safety at risk as critical installation functions and services require IGI&S geospatial
data to execute their mission. A withdrawal of investment in IGI&S also delays DoD
strategic initiatives meant to improve installation functions and services, contributing to
the decline of installations as projection platforms of military readiness and power during
a time in which joint-force training and interoperability remains critical to US military
superiority in the fight against emerging threats.
1

Chapter 1: Introduction
In “Towards a Theory of GIS Program Management,” Jochen Albrecht articulates that
“little attention has been paid to a systematic approach in support of [Geographic
Information Systems (GIS)] Program Management,” beyond the occasional critique of
“business and organizational aspect[s] of GIS in the 1990s,” (Albrecht 2015, 1). Since
then, several institutions and organizations developed, and have continued to expand
on, capability and competency frameworks for subdisciplines within Geographic
Information Science (GISci) in support of an overall GIS Body of Knowledge. These
frameworks primarily focus on best practices and standards for GIS data, analysis, and
visualization, and supporting the development of those that utilize GIS to address
spatial problems. They do not, however, address the roles, responsibilities, and
challenges facing the people that build and maintain the GIS that supports their
organizational mission.
The Program Management Institute (PMI) defines program management as, “a
group of related projects managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits not
available from managing them individually. Program management is the application of
knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to meet program requirements,” (PMI 2017a, 8).
GIS program management serves as the coordinated administration of related GIS
projects through the application of GIS knowledge, skills, tools and techniques, to meet
organizational objectives and requirements. Only within the last ten years has GIS
program management surfaced as a subfield that requires attention. Many problems
and challenges exist within the GIS program management domain, and while individual
GIS programs are unique, they all require, “GIS Infrastructure (people, hardware,
2

software, and data) + Ability,” (Babinksi 2017, 16). This formula represents GIS
capacity, an organization’s ability to achieve its mission effectively and to sustain itself
over the long-term (Babinski et al. 2017, 15). Capacity building refers to “the process of
developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that
organization and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing
world,” (Babinski et al. 2017, 17). When implemented properly, capacity building
strategies enable GIS program managers to quantify and qualify their program, showing
effectiveness and efficiencies that translate into value. Capacity building strategies that
improve an organization’s GIS infrastructure and ability can result in optimized GIS
Return on Investment (ROI) (Babinski et al. 2017). GIS ROI measures the amount of
return an investment in GIS yields, relative to the cost of the investment, both initial and
ongoing. GIS capability that results in quantifiable cost avoidance or savings makes an
investment in GIS worthwhile.
While existing research discusses capacity building challenges such as GIS
program governance, GIS programmatic and data health, approaches to technical
architecture, stakeholder engagement, cost/benefit analysis, and so forth, sources only
provide generic frameworks meant to appeal to a broad spectrum of domains with GIS
applications. Gaps exist in providing actual applied methodologies or guidance
documentation tailored to different GIS domain applications. This research investigates
Department of Defense (DoD), Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (OASD) for
Energy, Installations, and Environment’s (EI&E), Installation Geospatial Information and
Services (IGI&S) programs, the programs responsible for installation management–
related geospatial data and services. This work will present capacity building strategies
3

to assist in both quantifying and qualifying IGI&S programs to show program value,
optimize resources, and support calculation of ROI.
1.1 IGI&S Program Origins and Mission
Prior to 2005, installations used GIS for a variety of ad-hoc on-installation
management issues, such as base planning and operations, environmental compliance
and resource conservation, and safety and security. These ad-hoc implementations,
however, did not support interoperability among the services through a common data
standard or shared geospatial resources. The initial push for interoperability came
during Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005—the congressionally authorized
process used to reorganize the DoD’s installation structure to more efficiently and
effectively support forces and increase operational readiness (Lachman, Schirmer,
Frelinger, Greenfield, Tseng, and Nichols 2007). While U.S.C.10 establishes the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide geospatial intelligence
services in support of the warfighter worldwide, NGA does not provide the support
needed for on-installation mission requirements and activities. BRAC, both a fiscal and
political issue, required a common set of digital data and maps to visualize Department
of Defense (DoD) installations in a GIS to support the real property–lifecycle process
and associated decision-making central to the effort (US Department of Defense 2009).
This integration began to provide business benefits in other installation management
areas supported by policies such as the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Clinger-
Cohen Act of 1996, and the E-Government Act of 2002 (US Congress 1995, 1996,
2002). Joint Publication 3-34, Joint Engineer Operations, contained the first formal
mention of the IGI&S requirement and capability, as part of a broader integration into
4

engineering operations (US Department of Defense 2007). IGI&S programs have grown
to provide geospatial data and tools for a variety of Installations and Environment (I&E)
domains, including but not limited to planning, management, and operations,
emergency response and recovery, environmental management, homeland defense,
housing, recreation, and transportation.
The Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (OASD), Energy, Installations and
Environment (EI&E) created the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI)
group to support the requirement, with an aim to close gaps formed by a rapid advance
of GIS technology in the installation management mission area that led to ad-hoc data
standards and GIS implementations at individual military installations. DISDI develops
and establishes standards for installation geospatial data—the Spatial Data Standard
for Facilities, Infrastructure, and Environment (SDSFIE). In 2015, DoDI 8130.01
Installation Geospatial Information and Services closed the policy gap by documenting
the capability in application to the management of DoD installations and environment to
support military readiness in regards to facility construction, sustainment, and
modernization (US Department of Defense 2017a). IGI&S programs provide
professional GIS data, analysis, and visualization services, create and maintain real
property GIS data, serve as subject matter experts (SMEs) on geospatial technology,
data standards and compliance, and oversee installations’ geospatial authoritative
datastore (ADS). IGI&S programs continue to evolve and change in the midst of policy
developments, such as the Geospatial Data Act of 2018 and the Open Government
Data Act of 2019, new and emerging requirements, and resource constraints (US
Congress 2018, 2019).
5

1.2 Motivation for Framework Development
According to Huxhold and Levinsohn, a “successful GIS
implementation…depends upon understanding the real world in which [an] organization
operates—how changes to real world features affect the information needed by the
organization and how information systems are used to support the functions that deal
with such changes,” (Huxhold and Levinsohn 1995). Each military service has a
constitutional role codified in US law that comprise training and forward-basing, and
strategic-deployment capabilities. The mission of a service and an installation impacts
the spatial environment that the GIS must capture, as well as the requirements,
priorities, and taskings of its IGI&S program. IGI&S Managers must know the features
common across installations, while understanding the unique requirements and
complexities of their installation’s landscape. While the built environment possesses
similar features across the installation landscape, such as buildings, roads, and utilities,
an installation with a training focus will have a different requirement for the amount of
range and training area and support infrastructure than a logistics base that will require
more repair, maintenance, and storage infrastructure. Installations operate much like
municipalities providing important services to the individuals and families that live and
work on them.
This research presents capacity building strategies and techniques to assist in
both quantifying and qualifying IGI&S programs in the face of competing service- and
installation-level priorities that often leads to defunding IGI&S programs. A lack of fiscal
discipline in executing service-validated funding priorities such as IGI&S, in favor of
local requirements puts life, health, and safety at risk as critical installation functions and
6

services require IGI&S geospatial data to execute their mission. A withdrawal of
investment in IGI&S also delays DoD strategic initiatives meant to improve installation
functions and services, such as 21
st
Century Installations and Airbases, Financial
Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) compliance, and Infrastructure Reset,
exacerbating the problems at the installation level. This contributes to the decline of
installations as projection platforms of military readiness and power during a time in
which joint-force training and interoperability remains critical to US military superiority in
the fight against emerging threats.
1.2.1 Study Area and Spatial Challenges
Marine Corps Forces engage in land, air, and sea missions, creating a diverse
strike-force that can fight a full spectrum of threats and possessing a variety of
installations with different purposes to serve their training and readiness requirements.
Marine Corps Installations West (MCIWEST) Command presides over installations
within its area of responsibility with a variety of mission focuses and diverse locations
and landscapes, supporting all I&E functions. MCIWEST comprises five aligned
installations: Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton, Marine Corps Air Station
(MCAS) Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar, MCAS Yuma, and Marine Corps Logistics
Base (MCLB) Barstow. MCIWEST also supports three non-aligned Teaching and
Education Command (TECOM) installations: Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center
(MCAGCC) Twenty-nine Palms, Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center
(MCMWTC) Bridgeport, and Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego (US
Department of the Navy 2013). While these installations report to TECOM, they engage
7

in a supported/supporting relationship with MCIWEST and are considered part of
MCIWEST’s area of responsibility (AOR) for EI&E functions.
The installations that comprise the AOR possess a diversity of mission
responsibilities, locations, and landscapes. MCB Camp Pendleton, between San Diego
and Orange County, covers a large swath of land from the coast inland allowing for
amphibious warfare training along its shores to infantry training in its inland terrain.
MCAS Miramar, located in central San Diego County, supports aircraft operations and
trains, equips, and deploys air forces for expeditionary missions. MCAS Yuma, located
in the Sonoran Desert, possesses open terrain for air-to-ground weapons training and
military flight operations, and uniquely shares airfield facilities with Yuma International
Airport. MCLB Barstow, located in the Mojave Desert, rebuilds and repairs ground-
combat and combat-support equipment and sits in a core transit corridor for both rail
and vehicle transport. MCAGCC Twenty-nine Palms, located in the Morongo Basin and
Mojave Desert, supports live-fire combined-arms training and readiness of operating
forces. MCMWTC Bridgeport, located in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, exists
to prepare Marines for operations in mountainous, high-altitude, and cold-weather
environments. MCRD San Diego, located in urban downtown San Diego, supports the
initial training of enlisted male recruits and houses both recruiter and drill instructor
schools. Figure 1 Installations in the MCIWEST AOR depicts the geographic location of
these installations.

8

Figure 1 Installations in the MCIWEST AOR
Sources: best available geospatial data compiled
from Esri, US Department of Defense, and US
Geological Survey as of 2019.
9

These differences in missions and environments results in diverse spatial
landscapes, which must be captured in a common data standard to support
interoperability among the services. IGI&S programs work to mitigate these landscape
challenges when collecting, creating, and maintaining geospatial data by finding
commonalities when developing a single authoritative Geospatial Data Model (GDM),
data layer standards, and metadata content guides. Additionally, per DoDI 8130.01
IGI&S possesses standards unique to I&E challenges, but must still align to the National
Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) (Office of the President of the United States 1994)
and the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG) (National Geospatial-
Intelligence Agency 2018). Implementing program management practices can support
these efforts and improve capacity to execute them.
1.2.2 IGI&S Program Management Challenges
Installations face challenges in the form of GIS implementation, resourcing,
professional development, data proponency and stewardship, data creation,
maintenance, management and sharing of geospatial data, quality assurance and
control, and contracting. As a result, IGI&S Managers must work efficiently and
advocate effectively in order to improve the capacity of their program. Unfortunately,
IGI&S Managers often lack training, support, guidance, and/or time to create a
comprehensive IGI&S program management plan. IGI&S Managers come from a
diverse set of backgrounds, disciplines, and experiences, and sometimes receive the
role as a collateral duty. For IGI&S program success, IGI&S Managers require a
program management framework tailored to their line of business to help address
challenges and support capacity building.
10

Existing GIS program management frameworks provide foundational concepts
and recommendations, such as gathering requirements through interviews, focus
groups, and working groups, creating a budget for hardware and software, or assessing
data for quality (Croswell 2009); however, little research exists on the practical
application and outcomes of these techniques in the context of IGI&S programs. IGI&S
reports and presentations focus predominately on the movement towards a unified data
model, data quality and standards, data sharing and interoperability, and DISDI and
service-level policy. Services and their installations occasionally provide insight into
projects at major conferences, such as the Esri International User Conference or the
Esri Federal Users Conference, but none have provided a comprehensive in-depth
analysis of IGI&S program management strategies. An IGI&S program management
framework must align to strategic priorities and organizational goals, and must address
critical questions, such as:
1) What resources does the IGI&S program require to function effectively and
efficiently and why?
2) What value does the IGI&S program provide to an installation?
3) What risk does the installation accept if it chooses to defund IGI&S?
4) How can IGI&S Managers communicate effectively to nontechnical leadership,
especially those leaders making critical decisions about the IGI&S program’s
future, who may lack understanding or consideration for the greater
organizational strategic priorities?

11

The IGI&S Program Management Framework uses foundational concepts from
PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge and Standard for Program
Management, Peter Croswell’s GIS Project Management, and Urban and Regional
Information Systems Association’s (URISA) GIS Leadership Academy. Chapters
covering methods draw from professional and scholarly articles, theses, dissertations,
conference proceedings and interviews with IGI&S community members and GIS
Program Management experts. Analysis and significance of the proposed methods
using IGI&S programs in the MCIWEST AOR will provide demonstrative use cases
where capacity building strategies have been applied to reinforce recommendations.
1.3 The IGI&S Program Management Framework
The IGI&S Program Management Framework serves as a model for IGI&S
programs within the DoD in need of a program management framework to build GIS
program capacity. The framework possesses four key principles: 1) understand your
business, know your requirements; 2) develop a holistic GIS infrastructure lifecycle
management plan; 3) perform-to-budget and budget-to-perform; and 4) empowering
people and communities of interest. Each principle contains several methods for
executing the concept. Figure 2 The IGI&S Program Management Framework depicts
the principles in a cycle and their corresponding methods.
12

Each chapter begins by defining a framework principle and meaning, then
conveys key GIS program and project management background concepts for the
principle, identifying gaps within as it relates to IGI&S. Each chapter then proceeds with
providing the methodology and example implementations of the concept. Each chapter
closes with an analysis of the significance of the principle and outcomes. Chapter 2,
Understand Your Business, Know Your Requirements, explores several methods for
requirements gathering and provides examples to help form a comprehensive view of
the state of an IGI&S program. Chapter 3, Develop a Holistic GIS Infrastructure
Lifecycle Management Plan, addresses how to use requirements to formulate a plan to
• Work Breakdown
Structure
• Budget Template
• Levels of Service
• Performance Tracking
• Interview Framework
• Professional
Development Plan
• Working Group Charter
• Education and Outreach
• Hardware/Software
Refresh Cycle
• Data Health Assessment
• Data Maintenance
Schedule
• Data-to-Product Matrix
• Stakeholder Tracking
• SWOT Analysis
• Strategic and Project
Plans
Understand
Your Business,
Know Your
Requirements
Develop a
Holistic GIS
Infrastructure
Lifecycle
Management
Plan
Perform to
Budget, Budget
to Perform
Empowering
People and
Communities of
Interest
Figure 2 The IGI&S Program Management Framework
13

acquire and maintain vital equipment (hardware and software), as well as data, through
its lifecycle. Chapter 4, Perform to Budget and Budget to Perform, investigates methods
for determining performance metrics and collecting information to drive metrics, as well
as formulating sustainable budgets aligned to levels of risk. Chapter 5, Empowering
People and Communities of Interest, examines professional development of core IGI&S
staff and modes of outreach and education to leadership, stakeholders, and the user
community at large. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes the discussion tying together the
outcomes and their meanings.
14

Chapter 2: Understand Your Business, Know Your Requirements
According to Huxhold and Levinsohn, a “successful GIS
implementation…depends upon understanding the real world in which [an] organization
operates—how changes to real world features affect the information needed by the
organization and how information systems are used to support the functions that deal
with such changes,” (Huxhold and Levinsohn 1995). Each military service has a
constitutional role codified in US law that comprises training and forward-basing, and
strategic-deployment capabilities. The mission of a service and an installation impacts
the spatial environment that the GIS must capture, as well as the requirements,
priorities, and taskings of its IGI&S program. “Understand your business, know your
requirements,” encourages IGI&S Managers to discover the mission of the service and
installation, and the needs and requirements it generates for geospatial data.
2.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification
Croswell provides a foundational overview of GIS program development, and
advocates for the examination of organizational mission and business processes in
order to ensure GIS program alignment to organizational requirements (Croswell 2009).
As PMI notes, programs “operate within the constraints imposed by the organization
through their structure and governance…managers need to understand where
responsibility, accountability, and authority reside in the organization,” (PMI 2017b, 44)
and utilize this information to help in the requirements gathering process. IGI&S
Managers must understand where their program sits within the organizational construct
of an installation in order to have awareness as to how that impacts their program’s
development, including funding streams, stakeholder alignment, and priorities.
15

Installation Commands do not always follow the organizational structure of their higher
headquarters, nor do they consistently align across services, regions, and installations.
The IGI&S mission, however, stems from supporting real property accountability,
outlined in DoD Instruction (DoDI) 4165.14 Real Property Inventory and Forecasting, a
core function of facilities management (US Department of Defense 2017a). As a result,
most IGI&S programs at an installation reside within directorates that manage facilities,
usually as part of a public works department. While business-unit based, IGI&S
programs support a variety of other on-installation management issues outside of
facilities, which can complicate matters, and concerns do exist at various echelon levels
as to the appropriate organizational place for IGI&S with its ever-expanding role.
Croswell recommends aligning GIS data and services to business processes
within the organization, since “GIS programs succeed when they are aligned with an
organization’s mission and business,” (Croswell 2009, 10). Often GIS programs focus
on and advocate for the technology, its functionality, and the broad uses of the
capability. This focus, however, can inhibit an IGI&S program’s success if it does not tie
these elements to business processes within facilities and the broader organization. GIS
should not be thought of as merely an IT function, but rather a system that supports
business processes and applications within an organizational context, and allows for
data fusion across disparate and stove-piped business systems with a geo-locational
aspect. Aligning IGI&S to organizational business drivers—a requirement, program,
service-area, opportunity, or challenge—forms a strategic foundation for IGI&S program
success. IGI&S Managers should look at business processes, including those outside of
the facilities management domain, to understand how the data, products, and services
16

IGI&S provides impacts their organization both programmatically and operationally, and
yields dependencies on the program. IGI&S Managers must follow a method to learn
about the different business processes and capture the requirements for geospatial
information and services.
PMI recommends development of a requirements management plan that
captures how requirements will be gathered, assessed, documented, and managed
(PMI 2017b). PMI formally defines several data gathering techniques—brainstorming,
interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, and surveys—that assist program and project
managers in gathering critical requirements data. Such documentation should catalog
the requirement’s description, business needs, opportunities, goals and objectives,
proponents and stakeholders, and deliverables or outcomes—constructed in a way that
makes them measurable, testable, traceable, complete, consistent and acceptable to
stakeholders. This approach, however, neither takes stock of the current IGI&S program
capacity or data health, and whether or not the GIS program can support these needs,
nor assesses the current status of the programs that IGI&S supports. Croswell
recommends conducting a formal “GIS Situation Assessment”—an appraisal of the
current capacity of the GIS implementation including hardware, software, data,
personnel, funding, and other required capital—and a “GIS Requirements Evaluation”—
a needs assessment that identifies gaps within the GIS program’s implementation and
execution in order to advocate for means to close those gaps (Croswell 2009). Croswell
then recommends writing the findings in a report and provides readers a multi-page
template. All of these approaches, however, would benefit from systematically piecing
parts of them together to form a holistic evaluation of requirements alignment to
17

business processes in the context of the current GIS program. IGI&S Managers must
approach this with caution, however, as creating lengthy, detailed technical reports may
become more of a burden to leadership and potentially go unread. IGI&S Managers
must effectively communicate the core requirements, interdependencies with critical
business processes, and the risks faced when minimally resourced or utilized, and
several strategies exist that can help IGI&S Managers conduct requirements gathering,
business process alignment, and stakeholder and user tracking.
2.2 Principle Methods and Examples
2.2.1 Data-to-Product Matrix
In order to support business requirements and processes within an organization,
IGI&S Managers must have a good understanding of requirement drivers supported by
the geospatial data and the resulting product outputs. IGI&S programs, for example,
create and maintain core real property data required to build a basic map of an
installation and track real property assets on an installation. DoDI 4165.14 states that
DoD systems that relate people or property to any real property attribute, including
geospatial location, must associate the appropriate real property–related unique
identifier to that information based on policy established in OMB Circular A-16 (US
Department of Defense 2017b). Many of the features within the Common Installation
Picture (CIP) data, a minimum set of features and imagery required to make a basic
map of an installation, are real property features that form the foundation of which most
other installation geospatial data depends. Each CIP feature is justified by three to
seven different DoD policies (Turner 2016), and IGI&S programs must prioritize CIP
data completeness and data maintenance as this data supports a variety of domains,
18

including, but not limited to, planning, construction, operations, emergency response
and recovery, environmental management and natural resource preservation, homeland
defense, housing, recreation, and transportation. Table 1 Policy Drivers for IGI&S lists
business policies that require geospatial data to be visible, accessible, understandable,
trusted, and interoperable to support its function. Many of these policies have been
updated to specifically identify “GIS,” as opposed to previously referring to “mapping.”
Table 1 Policy Drivers for IGI&S
Real Property Master Planning
Environmental,
Natural, Cultural
Resources
Ranges and
Training Other
DoDI 4165.14
Real Property
Inventory
Forecasting, 2014

DoDI 4165.70
Real Property
Management,
2005
UFC 2-100-01
Installation Master
Planning, 2012

DoDI 3030.3 Joint
Land Use Study
Program (JLUS),
2004
DoDI 4715.03
Natural Resources
Conservation
Program, 2011

DoDI 4715.16
Cultural Resource
Management,
2008

DoDD 4715.11
Environmental and
Explosives Safety
Management on
Operational
Ranges Within the
United States,
2004

DoDD 4715.12
Environmental and
Explosives Safety
Management on
Operational
Ranges Outside
the United States,
2004

DoD Manual
4715.20 Defense
Environmental
Restoration
Program (DERP)
Manual, 2012
DoDD 3200.15
Sustaining Access
to the Live
Training and Test
Domain, 2013

DoDI 4715.14
Operational Range
Assessments,
2005

DoDD 4715.11
Environmental and
Explosives Safety
Management on
Operational
Ranges Within the
United States,
2004

DoDD 4715.12
Environmental and
Explosives Safety
Management on
Operational
Ranges Outside
the United States,
2004
DoDI 4165.57 Air
Installations
Compatible Use
Zones (AICUZ),
2011

DoDI 6055.17 DoD
Installation
Emergency
Management
Program (IEM),
2009

DoDI 6055.07
Mishap
Notification,
Investigation,
Reporting, and
Record Keeping,
2011
19

IGI&S Managers should create a data-to-product matrix as a means of tracking
and displaying their data and the services, functions, or products their data supports
(Joffe 2015). The IGI&S Manager clearly displays and defines the interdependencies
between data requirements, data proponency, and data quality. A data-to-product
matrix should capture the dataset, feature type, an indicator of the feature type’s quality,
whether or not the feature type is part of the CIP, the data proponent, and all products
the data supports, from enterprise-level business systems to mobile and web GIS
applications. Capturing the proponent organization can guide an IGI&S Manager to the
group of people that own a feature’s content. Proponency links data to the responsible
party or parties, and more specifically, to a funding stream or streams. Denoting the
quality of the data in a simple red, yellow, green color code can help data proponents
understand where they need to target their geospatial collection efforts, or make it clear
to other stakeholders and users where data they have a dependency on needs
investment. Sometimes pressure from other units on a data proponent can drive
investment by that proponent. Table 2 Data-to-Product Matrix provides a truncated
example of a data-to-product matrix.

20

Table 2 Data-to-Product Matrix
Feature
Dataset Feature Type Quality
1
CIP Proponent
Military
Installation
Map
Cantonment
Atlas
Cultural
Resources
ArchaeologicalSite
•
No
Natural
Resources

Real Property Building
•
Yes Public Works X X
Environmental EnviRemeSite
•
Yes
Environmental
Compliance

Natural
Resources
ForestCompartment
•
No
Natural
Resources
X
Military
Operations
MilitaryRange
•
Yes
Range
Operations
X X
Emergency
Services
RoadCenterline
•
No
Security
Services
X X
Real Property Structure
•
Yes Public Works X X
Real Property Wall
•
Yes Public Works X X
Natural
Resources
Wetland
•
Yes
Natural
Resources
X X
Ownership, dependencies, and quality become clearer within the data-to-product
context. To enhance the value of the data-to-product matrix further, IGI&S Managers
can include columns to denote the entity count in a feature, a utility score based on the
number of products the feature type supports, or the number of hours required for data
creation and maintenance of the feature. Binding this information together creates an
optimal picture for the IGI&S team, leaders, stakeholders, and users as to the
investment and integration of the geospatial data and services provided by the IGI&S
program. The example in Table 2 Data-to-Product Matrix may not align directly to any
one particular service or installation’s requirements, but it shows how an IGI&S

1
Where data fidelity and completeness are either high (
•
), medium (
•
), or low (
•
).
21

Manager can begin to quantify and qualify the data in the installation’s geospatial ADS
they oversee, linking data proponency to organizations and highlighting
interdependencies among data and products in support of business needs.
2.2.2 Stakeholder Tracker
Effective requirements gathering requires IGI&S Managers to make an effort to
research and track their stakeholders and user communities. Stakeholders—an
individual, group, or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be
affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project, program, or portfolio (PMI
2017b)—often drive requirements and business processes within an organization. They
support a function other than GIS, such as facilities maintenance, range training and
maintenance, range safety, environmental compliance, or natural resource
management and preservation. All individuals that directly or indirectly use the IGI&S
program should be considered stakeholders—they have a stake in the program in order
to meet a need. Understanding the dynamics of the personnel in an organization can
contribute to unraveling methods to identify and align IGI&S capabilities to business
functions. A stakeholder tracker allows the IGI&S Manager to identify and track all of the
individuals and functional communities involved in the process of data collection,
creation, and maintenance—the content providers—as some features belong to more
than one functional area. For example, while utilities data may seem to fall directly to
the utilities and energy functional areas, utilities also have a real property component to
them as they are tracked in the real property ADS.
Installations possess many Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) working within a
single functional area. SMEs possess knowledge about the functional area, but may not
22

have the experience required to capture and implement relevant geospatial information
about their subject. Two types of SMEs exist—Functional Area SMEs and Data SMEs.
Functional Area SMEs approve access and release of data under their functional
supervision, communicate and coordinate with Data SMEs, and advocate for resourcing
for the collection and maintenance of required content. Data SMEs specify data needs,
accuracy levels, attribution and metadata content, and validate data deliverables.
Overlap can exist between Functional SMEs and Data SMEs—sometimes they may be
the same person, other times they may be different individuals—but usually they exist
within the same organizational unit. Data Editors edit and maintain the feature types
applicable to the functional area, ensuring compliance with SDSFIE and service-level
GDM requirements and standards. Data Editors could be a Functional SME, a Data
SME, an IGI&S staff member, or staff member of the unit. Figure 3 Subject Matter
Expert Construct provides a visual representation of the SME paradigm in the IGI&S
community. As shown, User 1 overlaps as both a Functional SME and a Data SME,
while User 2 overlaps as both a Data SME and a Data Editor. Users 1, 2, and 3, are
also data consumers.

Figure 3 Subject Matter Expert Construct
Data Consumer
Data Editor
Data SME
Functional SME User 1
User 1
User 2
User 1
User 3
User 2
User 2
User 4
User 3
23

As a result of the paradigm, IGI&S Managers should track this Community of Interest
(COI) in some form. Large installations will struggle as there tends to be a larger
quantity of SMEs, and turnover of these individuals can happen quite regularly. An
annual review and revision of the product should occur for this reason. Table 3
Stakeholder Tracker by Feature Dataset provides a truncated model for this effort.
IGI&S Managers may also want to include information such as contact information, last
meeting, or any other pertinent data that may help them administer their community.
Table 3 Stakeholder Tracker by Feature Dataset
Feature
Dataset Feature Type Proponent
Functional
Area SME Data SME Data Editor
Cultural
Resources
ArchaeologicalSite
Natural
Resources
User 1 User 1 User 1
CulturalResourcePotentialArea
Natural
Resources
User 1 User 2 User 2
CulturalRestrictedAccess
Natural
Resources
User 1 User 2 User 3
CulturalSurveyArea
Natural
Resources
User 1 User 2 User 2
When combined with the Data-to-Product Matrix, these two items produce a holistic
picture of the organizations and individuals with a stake in the IGI&S program for
meeting their mission requirements. Additionally, IGI&S Managers can begin to see
data deficiencies and call upon those responsible for content to participate in data
modeling efforts and improve their data quality in the interest of data sharing and
interoperability within the service and the greater DoD.
2.2.3 Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis
A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) matrix serves as a
concise means of presenting program health information. A SWOT analysis identifies
the internal strengths and weaknesses of the program, and the external opportunities
24

and threats or challenges to the program. Both PMI and Croswell advocate for the use
of SWOT matrices in different ways. PMI recommends them as a risk identification data
analysis tool (PMI 2017b), while Croswell recommends them as part of the planning
process for the creation of an overall greater strategic plan (Croswell 2009). IGI&S
Managers, however, should think of them in the context of providing a means for
documenting and communicating their overall program health to leadership. Program
health captures the holistic health of the elements necessary for GIS capacity: GIS
infrastructure, data, people, and ability. Program health information should capture
current data priorities, data status, system capabilities, human and non-human capital,
and financial resources. The SWOT analysis can also highlight opportunities to support
the mission of the command and the business processes of stakeholders, and stress
the risks to these efforts without integration. The SWOT analysis should take into
account the perspectives of the IGI&S team, but also the greater IGI&S COI, including
leadership, stakeholders, and users. Table 4 SWOT Analysis Topics provides
suggested topics for consideration when creating a SWOT analysis matrix that an IGI&S
Manager should continually build upon.

25

Table 4 SWOT Analysis Topics
Strengths Weaknesses
What are the IGI&S program’s current
strengths when it comes to overall program
health?
What are the IGI&S program’s current
weaknesses when it comes to overall
program health?
 GIS capacity
 Data quality
 Data completeness
 Data compliance to standards
 Data sharing
 Level of service
 Staff capabilities
 GIS infrastructure
 Capital
 Program management
 Resourcing
 Coordination
 SME participation and accountability
 User community involvement
 GIS capacity
 Data quality
 Data completeness
 Data compliance to standards
 Data sharing
 Level of service
 Staff capabilities
 GIS infrastructure
 Capital
 Program management
 Resourcing
 Coordination
 SME participation and accountability
 User community involvement
Opportunities Threats
What opportunities exist that can improve
the overall program health and subsequently
benefit the business of the organization?
What threats exist that can impair overall
program health and subsequently hinder the
business of the organization?
 Policy development and implementation
 Business line integration
 Cost sharing partnerships
 Measurable improvements in efficiency
 Cost avoidance
 Financial (real property) accountability
 Advances in technology
 Lack of policy implementation and
adherence
 Lack of funding and resources
 Lack of retention of personnel throughout
the organizations and units
 Slowness of government adaptability to
advances in technology
 Deployment of GIS capabilities,
personnel, and systems outside of IGI&S
 Risk in relation to organizational
strategies heavily dependent on quality
data
SWOT analyses make a clear, concise, and quick means to identify internal and
external challenges to IGI&S mission objectives.
2.2.4 Strategic and Project Plans
Strategic plans should provide a foundation and direction for IGI&S program
development and operations that address an organization’s mission and business
needs. The strategic plan should describe the current situation and organizational
26

context, mission, vision, and values statements, a description of program objectives and
action items, and constraints, feasibility, and approach. Strategic plans often focus on a
three- to five-year timeframe, but IGI&S Managers should consider breaking items down
into near-, short-, and long-term objectives. Presenting sign posts every one, three, and
five years can serve as a means to measure progress and monitor the plan as an
internal control, checking off items when completed and realigning items to new
timeframes if objectives require more time. Many methodologies and templates exist to
create strategic plans, but the content remains most critical to the plan.
Project plans provide a micro-level look at how IGI&S teams will implement
projects in support of the strategic plan. These projects usually possess a greater level
of effort than the routine day-to-day tasks. Project plans should include the purpose of
the project, how it supports the IGI&S strategic plan, the project deliverables, the plan of
action and milestones of project execution, any special needs or costs associated with
project execution, and the risks to project completion and mitigation efforts for identified
risks. Examples of projects could include a feature dataset update or revision effort, a
large-scale data collection effort, the creation of a web mapping application, the creation
of a hard-copy atlas, or standardizing metadata for global DoD‒wide enterprise
discovery and web publishing. Taken together, strategic plans and project plans help
guide an IGI&S Manager and team to execute the mission in alignment with business
drivers.
2.3 Analysis and Significance
Huxhold and Levinsohn note that effective use of information technology
depends on several factors: alignment of business, technology, and organizational
27

strategies; organizational commitment, stakeholder support, and ownership;
competence in design, implementation, and mastery of the technology (Huxhold and
Levinsohn 1995). Understanding the organization, the individuals, and the business
processes, allows IGI&S Managers to begin to form effective program management
strategies to increase GIS capacity. Requirements gathering and business needs
alignment remains critical to the success of any GIS program. By utilizing the methods
proposed, IGI&S Managers can begin work on optimizing their priorities and resources.
The data-to-product matrix prioritizes data requirements based on use and
provides a means for determining data value. MCB Camp Pendleton possesses a large
amount of data because of the size of land it inhabits and the number of features that
exist on its land. The installation produces many products in support of the installation
management mission because of the diversity of activities occurring on its land. As a
result, quantifying and qualifying the volume and the requirement for the data and
products to leadership posed a challenge. By instituting a data-to-product matrix,
leadership became aware of the utility of the CIP data and the need to prioritize it as
critical for update and improvement, resulting in a shift of existing resources to align to
this effort before others (Harris 2018). Furthermore, the data-to-product matrix allows an
IGI&S Manager to target datasets by contract holder. An IGI&S Manager can put out a
data call to identify potential GIS deliverables in contracts, using this information to work
backwards to figure out what datasets feed the products contracted for development.
Often Functional SMEs will accept soft- or hard-copy map products instead of the actual
digital geospatial data itself, allowing the contractor to reduce overhead costs. This
prevents the newly created or updated data from returning to the enterprise. IGI&S
28

Managers can work with the contract holders to improve the scoped language ensuring
GIS data in the right format, model, and schema make it into the enterprise. The
GEOFidelis Program Office intervened in the Infrastructure Reset contract development
process ensuring geospatial data as a deliverable of the effort and not just maps in
support of planning.
Stakeholder identification and tracking, leads to engagement with the COI and
frames dialog in the context of how IGI&S supports their mission, requirements, and
business needs. This often results in discussions on integration between SMEs and the
IGI&S team in attempt to remove barriers and stove-pipes that impact data utility,
sharing, and interoperability. Interdependencies among business processes, geospatial
data, and SMEs becomes visible. With emphasis on data ownership and accountability
for content, IGI&S Managers can broach the topic of IGI&S investment. MCLB
Barstow’s Public Works Department that oversees the IGI&S program joined with the
environmental and natural resources functional office to support a joint investment in an
on-site support contract. The IGI&S Manager oversaw the on-site support within his
branch, creating an ongoing dialog with the environmental and natural resources SMEs,
while ensuring proper project prioritization, planning, and quality of geospatial data. The
dig permitting business processes that involved both offices became streamlined as a
result of the integration, as the IGI&S team compiled digital data and maps for dig
permit approval through a consolidated office, even building an automated solution for
validation and approval through SharePoint. The effort resulted in greater GIS capacity
than in previous years. RAND Corporation’s independent analysis estimates more than
$20 million USMC–wide cost avoidance in monetized labor savings by using digital and
29

analytical processes for dig permitting (Lachman, Schirmer, Frelinger, Greenfield,
Tseng, and Nichols 2007).
By summarizing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of their
program, IGI&S Managers can better understand and explain the health of their
program. Such an effort can help shape the development of strategic plans and project
plans. The Marine Corps GEOFidelis program utilizes Portal for ArcGIS as a means to
provide geospatial data and services in a secure, user-friendly environment. The
movement to Portal for ArcGIS became a strategic initiative in an effort to reduces costs
incurred by custom-coded web mapping solutions, eliminate the reliance on expensive
ArcGIS licenses for mere data viewing, enhance access to geospatial data via web
publishing, and spur SME investment in data and web mapping applications. The
MCIWEST IGI&S Regional Program Manager worked with the Office of Government
and External Affairs to develop a project plan for several web mapping applications for
deployment in Portal, supporting the overall GEOFidelis strategic initiative and the
business requirements of the Office of Government and External Affairs. The project
plan details an effort to develop web-mapping applications using third-party geospatial
data from governmental and non-governmental sources to provide an operational
picture of activities in the region beyond installation fence lines. Such a picture provides
assistance when evaluating locations Marines may conduct training activities,
specifically other Federal lands, evaluating public resources available to Marines and
their families in nearby communities, or determining areas for partnership for
environmental protection or infrastructure development. By sourcing third-party
geospatial data from authoritative sources through publishing third-party
30

Representational State Transfer (REST) endpoints in the Portal environment, data
currency improves for the end-user, and secondary data management and storage
costs decline for the IGI&S program. MCIWEST improved SME coordination and
aligned efforts to the overall GEOFidelis strategic vision.
Understanding the organization, the individuals, and the business processes,
allows IGI&S Managers to begin to form effective program management strategies and
relationships that can translate into increased GIS capacity. Requirements gathering
and business needs alignment remains critical to the success of any GIS program.
Utilizing these techniques will help IGI&S Managers understand their business and
know their requirements.

31

Chapter 3: Develop a Holistic GIS Infrastructure Lifecycle
A holistic GIS infrastructure lifecycle functions as a “cradle-to-grave” strategy for GIS
infrastructure: hardware, software, and data (the people component of GIS
infrastructure discussed in Chapter 5). GIS infrastructure lifecycle management plans
capture current hardware, software, and data that support the IGI&S program’s mission,
and should include plans for initial purchase, maintenance, and future replacement or
renewal. IGI&S Managers may not feel the desire to create a plan because of the
centralized management of hardware and software that so commonly defines DoD IT
infrastructures today; however, GIS infrastructure lifecycle management planning
prepares IGI&S Managers and their programs for a future when assets under the IGI&S
Manager’s purview become outdated or even end-of-life. Local hardware, software, and
data will require replacement, renewal, updates, or maintenance that the IGI&S
Manager should track as part of his or her planning and programming process. By not
including it, the IGI&S Manager places his or her program’s ability to function and meet
mission requirements at risk. Furthermore, IGI&S Managers must understand the risks
that come with system cyber vulnerabilities and interdependencies of application
lifecycles, when looking to implement new technologies. For example, Global
Positioning System (GPS) hardware running on a mobile operating system, linked to
differential correction software that requires a web connection and operates on a
desktop operating system, creates vulnerabilities to the whole network if any one
component possesses vulnerabilities. Quantifying and qualifying the risk if not executed
upon can help leadership understand why the program requires such investment, and
32

without these resources GIS capacity becomes severely constrained to the point of
mission failure.
3.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification
According to the DoD Chief Information Officer, “Historically, DoD’s information
technology (IT) investments have been made to meet the needs of individual projects,
programs, organizations, and facilities. This decentralized approach has resulted in…a
patchwork of capabilities…” (US Department of Defense 2011, 2). This patchwork
approach replicates itself throughout each military service and their commands when it
comes to roles and responsibilities for different aspects of IT: acquisitions, physical
infrastructure, implementation, network and cyber security, end-user support, and so
forth. The outcome often leads to a multitude of entities having an impact on IT
decisions that often impact IGI&S. Croswell articulates that GIS programs must have a
strong working relationship with IT, or that the GIS program itself must control the IT
infrastructure used to support the GIS (Croswell 2009); however, IGI&S control of IT is
rarely the case.
According to the Federal Chief Information Officer in 2010, “the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) launched the Federal Data Center Consolidation
Initiative (FDCCI) to promote the use of green IT by reducing the overall energy and real
estate footprint of government data centers; reduce the cost of data center hardware,
software, and operations; increase the overall IT security posture of the Federal
Government; and shift IT investments to more efficient computing platforms and
technologies,” (Scott 2016, 1). As a result, many IGI&S programs operate from
consolidated data centers, many of which are either Government-Owned, Contractor-
33

Operated (GOCO) or Government-Owned Government-Operated (GOGO) and
contractor-supported, which specifically support the facilities mission and business
lines. These data centers, however, often lack integration within the broader service-
level IT construct creating challenges.
Dave Peters’ work on System Architecture Design Strategies teaches principles
for determining GIS system architecture requirements, yet the author assumes that
those making these decisions have control, or work closely with those with control, of IT
systems, including server configurations and network throughput. System changes can
override settings and software, or hinder network communications, required to conduct
day-to-day GIS operations and often happen without prior notification or coordination
before they take effect. IGI&S programs may suffer as a result of the system
architecture design, network traffic routing, throttling, and other latency inducing
processes, or physical network architecture, such as switches, routers, hubs, and even
cable types that can impact the quality and efficacy of network transmission. Viewing
and editing large sets of geospatial data transmitted through a thin-client architecture
not adequately developed to handle such processes can make working in the GIS
unbearable or even impossible.
The lack of integration also creates challenges when attempting to provide end-
user support. A number of different help desk implementations may exist—a service
may have one or more for general hardware, software, or network issues, and separate
ones for different business-line specific systems, such as GIS. When a problem
intersects these different help desk areas of responsibility, a user faces the challenge of
potentially bouncing back and forth for a resolution. While Service-Level Agreements
34

(SLAs) can codify functions and performance expectations between an IGI&S program
and a respective help desk, SLA implementation rarely occurs, likely because of
concerns to consistently deliver on agreed upon service and the desire to claim lower
operating costs. Therefore, ROI calculation needs to address workforce productivity, not
exclusive “cost reduction,” but rather monetized labor costs in lost efficiencies.
Procuring and maintaining vital equipment also poses challenges. Changes in IT
acquisition place additional burdens on the Government. The decision to use
congressionally ear-marked procurement funds for IT acquisitions in an effort to curb
cyber vulnerabilities, and the proliferation of IT hardware assets, incurs additional
challenges and obstacles to deploying hardware requirements, and reduces agility in
adopting emerging technologies. This increases workforce costs from lost productivity to
save relatively minor costs in hardware, and setting back acquisition efforts by years in
order to gain approval for a more appropriate congressionally appropriated fund type.
Obtaining equipment such as GPS units, plotters, or large-format scanners can take
months or years for approval to purchase because of convoluted IT procurement
processes and requirements for authorization of purchase. Additional hurdles exist in
gaining approval for use on the network. By the time the approval occurs, the vendor
may no longer support or service the hardware. Workarounds become a normalized
business practice. Many IGI&S programs rely on off-network hardware and software for
data collection and post-processing. Sometimes on-site support contractors provide this
equipment when required by contract, but may take such equipment back when the
contract ends unless explicitly stated for turnover to the Government.
35

While the hardware and software portion of GIS infrastructure possesses process
and coordination complexities, data creation and maintenance present different
challenges to IGI&S capacity and sustainability. Data origins contribute to a shaky data
quality foundation. As mentioned, GIS started becoming formalized during BRAC 2005,
when geospatial data used for disparate projects came together in a collective system.
Most real property data at the time came from the digitization of as-built drawings.
Contractors provide as-built drawings as a means to document the finished condition of
a project as constructed, including all directed changes, as accepted by the client. Most
contractors, however, provide mediocre as-built drawings at best for reasons such as
time, budget, personnel resources, or coordination with sub-contractors (Pettee 2005).
This initially produced low quality foundational real property geospatial data: imprecise
geometry, missing attribution, and incomplete feature type–level and record-level
metadata. Even recently the requirement for “digital data” may be understood as merely
a digital picture, and not the actual geospatial data itself.
Since then, IGI&S programs continue to work on improving data quality and
completeness, using new and less cost prohibitive geospatial technologies and
workflows to document the ever-changing installation spatial environment. Real property
features compose a majority of OASD’s CIP dataset and this foundational data must
meet OASD’s quality and completeness standards. Completeness means all minimum
required attribution populated and in the correct format, completed metadata elements,
no glaring geometric errors (data duplications, features outside of installation
boundaries, etc.; excludes topology rules), and all entities within a feature correspond to
a real property record (either one-to-one, or many-to-one). Many installations, however,
36

struggle to attain the standard. A variety of reasons contribute to this failure, such as
rapid changes to the environment or resource fluctuations. Additionally, changing data
structures and emerging SDSFIE standards for metadata, quality, and portrayal,
outpace the resources required to implement them. These standards, however, provide
a mechanism to quantify data quality in terms of a DoD and industry maturity model,
allowing for the identification of impacts to strategic initiatives relying on quality
geospatial data. Geospatial data missing critical elements in attribution, for example,
that align it to data in other business systems, prevents data fusion and aggregation, a
core GIS competency.
During the past five years, DoD services have made one major version transition
from SDSFIE version 2.0 to 3.0, with some making minor sub-version level transitions
(e.g. 3.1 to 3.2; 3.0.0.1 to 3.0.0.2) as well. Several services have begun to develop their
next version of the SDSFIE 4.0 data model with timelines ranging for implementation in
the coming few years. Each transition to a new model puts pressure on IGI&S
Managers and their teams, requiring significant time to crosswalk and migrate data into
the new database structure, in addition to daily duties. Furthermore, with each version
change, IGI&S programs can introduce new, or propagate existing, errors into their
databases when data, for example, cannot be accommodated in the new schema.
IGI&S Managers and teams may look for alternate places within the database to store
data, creating field type errors, domain violations, or merely incorrect entries, and
highlighting the need for data governance and standards as well as oversight and
quality control. At worse, data elements, such as metadata, can be dropped entirely
from a database. Continued data model changes impact the quality of data that may
37

already have been deemed questionable. While IGI&S Managers work to mitigate these
technical implementation issues, they may also face interpersonal challenges
associated with data management as well.
The lack of collaborative partnerships with SMEs through these changes can
negatively impact data content. Installation SMEs may struggle with implications of data
model changes as they may not understand the purpose for the transition, their
responsibility in the transition, and the effects of such a transition on their content, such
as potential data loss. Formalized education and outreach strategies (discussed in
Chapter 5) can help bring awareness to these issues and foster partnerships to ease
the pain of such transitions. While IGI&S programs serve as gatekeepers and overseers
of an installation’s geospatial ADS, misconceptions between IGI&S program
responsibilities and SME responsibilities can lead SME communities to push the
responsibility to maintain and track non-real property data onto an IGI&S team. IGI&S
and SME turnover can lead to loss of corporate knowledge about data, which can be
especially devastating if the data lacks documentation. While IGI&S Managers cannot
resolve every problem identified herein, implementing a GIS infrastructure lifecycle
strategy can help mitigate some of the impacts of these challenges. Collaborating with
SMEs and formalizing roles and responsibilities with SME buy-in can foster a
constructive partnership, while formalizing site assist visits and workforce exchanges to
share best practices can help diffuse corporate knowledge.
38

3.2 Principle Methods and Examples
3.2.1 Hardware and Software Inventory and Refresh Schedule
Although IGI&S programs tend to utilize centralized data centers that manage
hardware and software for the storage and processing of geospatial data, IGI&S
programs still require on-site hardware and software to successfully meet their mission.
An IGI&S Manager should inventory all hardware and software, as well as any devices
or media used for storing project-related data. On-site hardware may include, for
example, base stations, GPS, GPS accessories, cameras, hard drives, large format
plotters and/or scanners, and off-network “standalone” computers. The IGI&S Manager
should document the make, model, serial number, date of purchase, warranty length,
date of last maintenance, and the date for replacement. The inventory should also
contain any specifications unique to the device, whether the device is on- or off-network,
and the purpose of the device. IGI&S Managers should document software in a similar
fashion. An inventory should also be created for devices, media, or bulk supplies,
documenting their date and content, or plotter ink and cartridges noting the type,
number of items, and expiration date. Tracking this information allows an IGI&S
Manager to manage equipment and supplies that can quickly become inoperable or
insufficient to keep operations running, anticipating needs for ordering and aligning
procurements and purchasing to the funding cycle or phasing plan. Installations can
then use these inventories to coordinate and engage in temporary loans of supplies or
equipment from other installations in order to keep operations running until a time at
which they can reimburse the loan or return the items. Keeping track of this information
39

also remains essential for purposes of base property tracking and oversight of
equipment use, and represents good business practice.
While creating inventories helps IGI&S Managers stay organized and on top of
their capital, they also can provide other benefits to the program at large. If IGI&S
Managers construct these inventories, their higher headquarters can analyze them for
overlapping requirements and streamline procurement and network approval for
hardware and software. Gathering the information from IGI&S programs across a
service’s enterprise can allow for the development of hardware standards. Ensuring all
installations have the same baseline equipment can help when putting maintenance and
servicing contracts into place to keep devices running, and supports interoperability
among installations in case a need to loan equipment arises. Additionally,
commonalities in requirements for software can also lead to consolidated efforts for
network approval, bulk license purchase and management, and streamlined training
requirements.
3.2.2 Data Health Assessment and Data Maintenance Schedule
IGI&S Managers must have a good understanding of the data within their
installation’s geospatial ADS—the quality and completeness of the data. A
comprehensive data health assessment can provide a useful report to describe the
“well-being” of the data within the installation’s geospatial ADS, assessing schema
compliance to the service’s adaptation of SDSFIE, content compliance, geometric
validity, and metadata presence. The IGI&S Manager should begin by introducing
health assessments to evaluate CIP data, utilizing the results as a guide for CIP data
quality improvement. Health assessments can then be conducted for other feature
40

datasets within the geospatial ADS to provide guidance to SMEs as to where their data
content needs improvement, and for developing Performance Work Statements or
project plans to address the gaps.
In order to conduct a CIP health assessment, IGI&S Managers must identify
mandatory CIP feature types for evaluation at their installation. For example, the CIP
feature type Historic District may only occur on specific installations with such a
designated area, and therefore would not be a requirement for evaluation at an
installation where it does not exist. Scores should reflect the number of mandatory
feature types an installation identifies, not whether or not the feature type exists in the
most current data model. Table 5 Data Health Assessment Evaluation Factors
introduces example evaluation factors when conducting a data health assessment.
Table 5 Data Health Assessment Evaluation Factors
Factor Description
Feature Type The feature type evaluated
Feature Count The number features or entities in a feature type
Feature Minimum Attribution All non-nullable attributes within the approved GDM are populated
Feature Completeness Accurate presence of the feature type in comparison with the most
accurate imagery available from an accepted source
Feature Metadata Correctly populated metadata in SDSFIE-M style
Feature Score Percentage of completeness based on the identified factors
Data health assessments should identify the number of entities in a feature type to get
an overall sense of the amount of data the installation’s geospatial ADS stores and
therefore the amount the installation must manage. The assessment should review
attribution to ensure minimum attribution required by the GDM contains valid values
using the correct data type and domain if applicable. The assessment also uses
samples of vector features and compares them to the latest imagery. An IGI&S team
can use a combination of both manual review and geoprocessing tools and techniques
41

to conduct such a review on data. Table 6 Sample Data Health Assessment presents a
truncated example of how a data health assessment might look, while Table 7 Sample
Attribution Review looks at whether or not required attribution contains null values
indicating a lack of content in the field.
Table 6 Sample Data Health Assessment
Feature Type
Entity
Count
Minimum
Attribution
Data
Completeness Metadata
Feature
Score
Access Control Point 270 Fail Pass Fail 33%
Bridge N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Building 825 Fail Pass Fail 33%
Docks and Wharfs 25 Pass Pass Fail 67%
Fence 1,110 Fail Pass Fail 33%
Impact Area 37 Fail Pass Fail 33%
Land Parcel 115 Fail Pass Fail 33%
Military Range 35 Fail Pass Fail 33%
Pavement Section Roadway 1,120 Fail Fail Fail 0%
Total 1/8 feature
types pass
7/8 feature
types pass
0/8 feature
types pass
33.125%
Table 7 Sample Attribution Review
Feature Type Mandatory Attribute
Number of Nulls/
Total Fields Percent Null
Building sdsID 0/825 0%
InstallationCode 0/825 0%
buildingIDPK 825/825 100%
isCUI 0/825 0%
hasEnvironmentalConcern 825/825 100%
operationalStatus 0/825 0%
realPropertyUniqueIdentifier 10/825 1.2%
facilityIDFK 0/825 0%
More sophisticated review techniques can generate reports that identify the specific
errors in field columns, giving the IGI&S Manager information to target correcting the
error. For example, if an installation utilizes the values “1, 2, 3, 4,” as a numbering
convention for primary keys in their database, the values will pass a check that merely
reviews whether fields contain values. As data roll-ups occur from an installation-level
42

geospatial ADS to a service-level geospatial ADS, however, the entry may no longer be
“primary” or unique in nature if other installations happen to utilize the same numbering
scheme. IGI&S teams can customize tasks to review for specific content and content-
types to appear in a field.
For real property features, an additional step of reconciliation between the real
property ADS and the geospatial ADS must occur in order for real property geospatial
data to garner a high completeness score. Each real property record in the real property
ADS should correspond with at least one real property feature in the geospatial ADS;
however, multiple real property features in the geospatial ADS can correspond with a
single real property record in the real property ADS as well. IGI&S Managers can tailor
reports to identify where issues exist between records by joining tables from systems
together on a common attribute—usually the facility asset number. A close working
relationship with real property accountability teams remains critical to ensure the
recording of transactions in both systems of record.
Once an IGI&S Manager completes a data health assessment, he or she can
then start planning the process for update. A step in the update process should include
the creation of a Data Maintenance Schedule. Some data in the installation’s geospatial
ADS requires more frequent updates and validation than others. Updates to data should
ideally happen as changes occur to the environment; however, resource constraints can
make this challenging. While a Data Maintenance Schedule will not prevent the need to
update data as activities occur on base, it will provide the IGI&S Manager with a
schedule used to anticipate upcoming periods during which, at a minimum, data
validation should occur. These schedules can help IGI&S Managers to anticipate when
43

they might require shifts in priorities or resources to support data updates. They can
also provide leadership with an understanding of the requirement for continued or on-
going data maintenance as some may not recognize the constant changes that occur to
the spatial environment. A schedule can prepare SMEs for their involvement in, and
time commitment to, the update process. Feature type specifications include a section
on temporal representations, which identify the minimum frequency for validation,
typically quarterly or annually depending on the feature type. An IGI&S Manager should
review these existing specifications and use them to build their schedule.
Table 8 Sample Data Maintenance Schedule provides an example of a schedule,
which can be used and merged with the SME tracker, if desired, to provide a holistic
reference guide.
Table 8 Sample Data Maintenance Schedule
Feature Type
Validation
Frequency
Last SME
Validation Last Update
Next SME
Validation
Next
Update
Access Control Point Annually 7/30/2018 Unknown 7/30/2019 8/1/2019
Bridge Annually 10/15/2018 10/22/2018 1/15/2019 1/22/2019
Building Quarterly 10/15/2018 10/22/2018 1/15/2019 1/22/2019
Docks and Wharfs Annually 10/15/2018 10/22/2018 1/15/2019 1/22/2019
Fence Annually 10/15/2018 Unknown 1/15/2019 2/15/2019
Impact Area Annually 4/2/2018 5/31/2018 4/2/2019 5/31/2019
Land Parcel Annually 10/15/2018 10/22/2018 1/15/2019 1/22/2019
Military Range Annually 4/2/2018 5/31/2018 4/2/2019 5/31/2019
Pavement Section Roadway Annually Unknown Unknown 10/15/2019 11/15/019
Aerial Imagery (3 inch) Four Years N/A 2016 N/A 2020
The IGI&S Manager should only update the schedule with each refresh cycle. Creating
a schedule supports data maintenance by outlining expectations for refresh activities for
both the IGI&S team, leadership, and SMEs.
44

3.3 Analysis and Significance
GIS infrastructure (hardware, software, and data) remain critical for an IGI&S
program to succeed. Taking an inventory of hardware, software, and data requirements
gives IGI&S Managers a holistic view of major components of GIS capacity. Hardware
and software inventories help installations determine requirements. MCIWEST, for
example, conducted an inventory of all large format plotters to determine commonalities
when searching for a maintenance provider, and managed to facilitate servicing from
the same vendor for installations in the AOR despite their different locations.
Furthermore, MCIWEST worked to provide two standards for GPS equipment for
purchase across the region as replacements for outdated equipment—one mapping
grade, and one survey grade—to accommodate different requirements for data
accuracy. Such efforts have led to streamlining efforts for procurement when one
installation already completed the IT procurement process. An IGI&S Manager should
know what their team currently possesses, and what they will need in the future in order
to sustain operations without disruptions to service.
Creating a data health report can help IGI&S Managers begin to improve their
data. MCIWEST installations received CIP data report cards at the end of Fiscal Year
(FY) 2018 that rated their data against OASD standards. Many installations received
scores lower than 50% completeness, but since that time have begun to make
improvements to their data in attempt to improve scores. The reports showed a variety
of different issues, from missing mandatory attribution to a complete lack of metadata.
The report cards provided installations with the ability to target issues within their CIP
data. MCB Camp Pendleton, MCAS Yuma, MCLB Barstow, and MCAS Miramar have
45

all taken steps to make modest improvements in their scores in the six months since the
report card release. MCB Camp Pendleton has actively been revalidating their CIP data
working on core real property features and reconciling them with the real property
inventory, while also updating required attribution to improve their score. MCAS
Miramar began instituting office hours specifically for revising the CIP data, closing the
office to limit disruptions while working on data editing. Leadership bought into this idea
understanding that without these features, no other data or products could be produced
with reliability. MCLB Barstow and MCAS Yuma drafted metadata as a way to improve
scores dramatically. Without a report card, IGI&S Managers and their teams cannot
prioritize data development and work to make improvements. Additionally, they cannot
effectively communicate to leadership the required data development work. The
MCIWEST report cards showed leadership the need for data improvement to support
the business requirements including critical emergency services, range training and
safety, and other decision-making support activities. Tying the reports to the OASD
standards gives legitimacy to the performance reporting and linking risks to health, life,
and safety, to service-level financial risk with congressional interest, garners the
attention of those in at the highest-level of the DoD.
Creating the GIS infrastructure lifecycle plans helps IGI&S Managers take
account of aspects of their program’s operational requirements. Using these tools as a
means to advocate for the required resources poses the next critical step in capacity
building.

46

Chapter 4: Budget-to-Perform and Perform-to-Budget
The amount of funds provided to an IGI&S program can influence or determine the level
at which the program performs, and the performance of an IGI&S program can influence
or determine the budget it receives. Therefore, developing a sound budget and
measurable performance indicators serve critical roles as capacity building strategies
for sustainable IGI&S programs because they provide justification for the investment
and expenditure, provide transparency and accountability, and help the organization
understand risks.
Croswell notes that, “Traditionally, budgets allocate funds without directly
analyzing their impact on services, focusing on organizational units and historical
patterns of funding,” (Croswell 2009, 119). Budget offices in the Federal Government
often look to previous years’ allocations to make determinations as to the amount a
program receives. Performance based budgeting, a type of budgeting that directly links
money to measurable results, has become more relevant in recent decades in the
Federal Government as budgets become tighter and agencies must do more with less
(Obermeyer 2005). Therefore, IGI&S programs must participate in the budgeting
process to prevent stagnate funding numbers and to provide an understanding of
budget requirements, expected levels of service or performance based on funding, and
risks when funding does not come through, especially as requirements and
dependencies on installation geospatial data increase. An IGI&S program that can
articulate these costs combined with justification and risk stands a better chance of “not
only get[ting] what they want, but…[preempting] internal threats that could diminish
future…opportunities,” (Kloos 2016a, 28).
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4.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification
PMI defines budgets as the process of aggregating the estimated costs of
individual activities or work packages to establish an authorized cost baseline; the
process determines the cost baseline against which performance can be monitored and
controlled (PMI 2017b). PMI recommends the basis for cost estimates—quantitative
assessments of the probable costs required to complete work and contingency
amounts—include documentation of the basis of the estimate, including assumptions,
constraints, potential fluctuations, confidence level of the estimate, and activities that
may influence the estimate. PMI identifies a hierarchical overview of components to
include in a work breakdown structure, however, examples of a collection of methods
and processes to capture and present GIS program projects or tasks and their costs,
including business justifications and risks, levels of services, and performance metrics
should be considered as well.
Croswell articulates the need for GIS managers to be involved in the budget and
funds allocation processes, discusses common development and operational costs for
GIS programs and projects, and suggests funding sources and financing strategies in
the public sector; however, the author’s funding and financial strategies possess
limitations for IGI&S programs (Croswell 2009). While the author’s list of typical cost
elements for GIS development and operations accounts for many activities, the list does
not directly align to Office of Management and Budget Object Classification Codes
(OCCs), “a uniform classification for identifying the transactions of the Federal
Government by the nature of the goods or services purchased,” (US Department of
Defense 2016). Per the DoD Comptroller, “every obligation recorded by the Department
48

of Defense must be coded with an object class. These obligations by object class must
be accumulated and reported to the Treasury on a quarterly basis,” (US Department of
Defense 2016). IGI&S programs must align all budgetary formulations to OCCs and
have limits on funding sources and strategies identified because of the use of taxpayer
dollars to fund operations.
While Croswell emphasizes the use of GIS project management strategies and
risk management (Croswell 2009), and Joffe suggests breaking down application costs,
scheduling costs, data costs, data maintenance costs, startup costs, and ongoing
operating costs (Joffe 2015) in budgetary formulations, most authors tend to focus
heavily on the philosophy and calculation of ROI rather than on the processes or
procedures to gather information necessary to calculate it. Obermeyer focuses on
explaining the difference between tangible and intangible benefits, the difficulties
associated with conducting a value assessment, and considerations and refinements to
the cost-benefit analysis approach (Obermeyer 2005). Kloos’ article focuses on the
importance of getting GIS managers to develop an ROI mindset—thinking in the context
of growing themselves and their programs by putting the effort into measuring their
results (Kloos 2016a). As Kloos articulates, “…you will find yourself needing to justify a
GIS project or a request for funding or respond to a threat to your existing resources…”
(Kloos 2016, 28). Both Croswell and Kloos provide methods or formulas for actually
calculating GIS project ROI, yet skip explaining the formalization of budgeting and cost
estimating processes and examples. Joffe provides a more in-depth analysis of cost
determination; however, the author articulates that discussions with stakeholders can
determine cost factors for data maintenance and metadata creation and maintenance.
49

IGI&S stakeholders, however, often rely on the IGI&S program to provide cost estimate
because of the lack of project management techniques in the programs that own the
requirements. Unfortunately, this results in the IGI&S programs having to substantiate
the value of GIS to the very programs that own the requirements.
Communicating the program’s performance in relation to the funding it receives
allows leadership to understand what they get and what they do not get as a result of
allocated resourcing, and can form the basis for future budget decisions. Only a few
authors have touched on the importance of key performance indicators, but none of
them have sufficiently addressed the process of determining them and by what means
those could be validated or tracked. PMI describes performance as an integrated
scope-schedule-cost plan for the project work against which project execution is
compared to measure and manage performance; however, PMI does not advise on
methods or techniques to measure or track performance, other than collecting reporting
documentation (PMI 2017b). Huxhold and Levinsohn articulate the need for recording
project information using a standard methodology, and recommend a project definition
form to capture information (Huxhold and Levinsohn 1995). Joffe proposes, however,
that, “experienced managers generally know how much time and cost their staff should
expend to conduct a task, and how much time and cost they actually do expend,” (Joffe
2015, 15); yet this should not preclude GIS managers from tracking project information.
For IGI&S programs, time and cost expended can vary depending on whether
installations must solely execute tasks or if they have reach back–support from a
regional- or program-level team for assistance. A variety of methods can support
conducting a true cost analysis and budget formulation process.
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4.2 Principle Methods and Examples
4.2.1 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Defining the tasks for execution helps define and manage the resource
requirements to conduct the work. A WBS outlines the list of tasks or deliverables
executed by the team in a hierarchical manner (PMI 2017b). After the requirements
gathering phase, IGI&S Managers should develop a program objective list, a list that
identifies major objectives of the installation and overall service’s IGI&S program. After
identifying the objectives, an IGI&S Manager should identify the proponent of the
objective, the entity with the requirement, the priority and the progress. IGI&S Managers
should begin to estimate the personnel hours required to execute the tasks initially, and
any personnel hours required for continued and on-going work associated with the
objective in the future. IGI&S Managers should quantify time in hours, and should refer
to historical records, interviews with team members, and professional experience to
determine the initial estimates. The estimate does not require precision at its creation,
but must come close to reflecting reality in order to garner confidence and legitimacy
from leadership and stakeholders. As an IGI&S program develops its metrics capture
process the IGI&S Manager can then refine existing estimates to better reflect the
actual time. Table 9 Yearly Program Objective Work Breakdown Structure provides an
example.

51

Table 9 Yearly Program Objective Work Breakdown Structure
Program Objectives Proponent Priority
Current
Status
Initial
Hours
Maintenance
Hours
Program Management
1.0 Programmatic Documentation IGI&S Medium 50% 80 40
1.1 Work Breakdown Structure IGI&S Medium
1.2 Budget Template IGI&S Medium
1.3 Levels of Service IGI&S Medium
1.4 Performance Tracking IGI&S Medium
2.0 Official Taskers IGI&S High On-going 40
3.0 Procurement Packages IGI&S Low 0% 40 20
3.1 On-site Support Contract IGI&S Medium
3.2 Equipment/Supplies IGI&S Low
4.0 Strategic and Project Plans IGI&S Low 25% 160 80
4.1 Working Group Meetings IGI&S Low
4.2 Community Outreach/Training IGI&S Low
5.0 Standard Operating Procedures IGI&S Medium 0% 160 80
Real Property Data Creation and Maintenance
6.0 Planimetric Data Review IGI&S High 20% 200
7.0 Asset Validation IGI&S High 20% 2,000 1,000
8.0 Real Property Data Quality Assurance IGI&S High 0%
8.1 Geometry Check IGI&S High
8.2 Attribution Check IGI&S High
8.3 Metadata Check IGI&S High
9.0 Data Updates IGI&S High 10% 2,000 1,000
10.0 Real Property Reconciliation RPAO Medium 0% 800 400
Manage Installation Geospatial Data
11.0 SDSFIE Requirements IGI&S Medium 10% 1,000 500
12.0 Non-Real Property Data Quality
Assurance
Varies Medium 0% 1,000 1,000
12.1 Geometry Check Varies Medium
12.2 Attribution Check Varies Medium
12.3 Metadata Check Varies Medium
13.0 Reports to Functional SME Varies Low 0% 80 80
Data, Analysis, and Visualization Services
14.0 Data Requests Varies Medium On-going 160
15.0 Standard Map Products Varies Low 50% 300 80
GIS Platform Technical Support and Administration
16.0 End-user Technical Support IGI&S High On-going 160
17.0 System Management IGI&S High On-going 80
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The WBS remains crucial throughout the IGI&S program lifecycle as it provides a
roadmap for IGI&S Managers and their teams, as well as their leadership that may not
understand what the program or team does on a day-to-day basis. Additionally, it serves
as a tool to communicate to leaders the business lines that rely on the IGI&S program
and the components required for task completion. Leaders can use this information to
reprioritize program objectives, and look to proponents to provide resource support.
Most importantly, the WBS provides an understanding of the amount of labor resources
required to execute tasks and conduct maintenance. DoD leaders often think that once
an IGI&S program completes installation geospatial data creation, the geospatial data
can be considered finished; however, installations experience regular changes to the
spatial environment, such as construction, demolition, natural disasters, environmental
hazards, and natural resource fluctuations. The WBS documents the expected
requirement for maintenance on geospatial data and other program objectives that
possess a lifecycle, allowing DoD leadership and IGI&S Managers the ability to make
better planning and decision-making with regard to program objective labor
requirements and costs through time.
4.2.2 Budget Development
IGI&S Managers must articulate the requirements for their program to function in
order to advocate for resources. A budget template for IGI&S programs should present
more information than merely a list of items for purchase and their cost as often
described in GIS program management literature (Croswell 2009; Joffe 2015). A budget
template for IGI&S programs should include OCCs to categorize and organize the
ledger in alignment with Federal budgetary categories that define how the program
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spends funds. Table 10 Common OCCs for IGI&S provides overarching descriptions of
commonly used OCCs for IGI&S and examples.
Table 10 Common OCCs for IGI&S
OCC Definition and Example
21 Travel and
Transportation of Persons
Obligations for transportation of Government employees or others, their per
diem allowances while in an authorized travel status, and other expenses
incident to travel that are to be paid by the Government either directly or by
reimbursing the traveler. Example: travel to a training course.
22 Transportation of Things
Contractual obligations for the transportation of things, for the care of such
things while in process of being transported, and for other services incident
to the transportation of things. Example: shipping geospatial data on hard
drives.
24 Printing and
reproduction
Obligations for contractual printing and reproduction (including
photocomposition, photography, blueprinting, photostating, and
microfilming), and the related composition and binding operations
performed by the Government Printing Office, other agencies or other units
of the same agency (on a reimbursable basis), and commercial printers or
photographers. Includes all common processes of duplicating obtained on a
contractual or reimbursable basis. Example: printing and binding of official
atlases.
25 Other Services
Obligations for contractual services not otherwise classified. Supplies and
materials furnished by the contractor in connection with such services are
included even though they may be separately itemized on the voucher.
Examples: tuition for training courses; on-site support contract.
26 Supplies and Materials
Obligations for commodities whether acquired by formal contract or other
form of purchase that are: ordinarily consumed or expended within one
year after they are put to use; converted in the process of construction or
manufacture; or used to form a minor part of equipment or fixed property.
Also includes charges for off-the-shelf software purchases of $25,000 or
less. Also includes charges for off-the-shelf software with a useful life of
under 2 years. Other property of little monetary value that does not meet
any of these 3 criteria listed above may also be classified as "Supplies and
materials" at the option of the agency. Examples: general office supplies;
printer paper; printer toner; binding supplies; mounting supplies.
31 Equipment
Obligations for the purchase of personal property of a durable nature; that
is, property that normally may be expected to have a period of service of a
year or more after being put into use without material impairment of its
physical condition. Includes obligations for service in connection with the
initial installation of equipment when performed under contract. Excludes
off-the-shelf software valued at $25,000 or less, and supplies and materials
classified under object class 26.0. Also excludes fixed equipment that is
classified under object class 32.0. This object class may consist of both
equipment that is not capitalized (not set up in property accounts) and
equipment that is capitalized. In determining subclasses for administrative
use, agencies may appropriately maintain such a distinction. Examples:
GPS field equipment; large format plotter and scanner.
Source: adapted from US Office of Management and Budget 2018 and US Department of Defense 2016.
54

The budget template should include the OCC category, the program functions
the item supports, the cost and description of the item, and the risk associated with not
funding. Table 11 Truncated Budget Ledger Template provides a sample from a larger
budget ledger.
Table 11 Truncated Budget Ledger Template
OCC Item/Supporting
Functions
Cost Description Risk
21: Travel and
Transportation
of Persons
Esri International Users Conference Travel
Manage Installation
Geospatial Data
Data, Analysis, and
Visualization
Services
Data creation and
maintenance
$8,000
Travel and
transportation of
two (2)
Government
employees to the
conference
across four (4)
days. Includes
plane, rental car,
hotel, and meals/
incidentals.
Installation will not participate
in annual Esri International
User Conference missing
important event to receive
Esri ArcGIS training,
opportunities for engagement
with Esri experts, and
networking interactions with
other IGI&S programs.
Creates knowledge gap and
limits sharing of best
practices within IGI&S
community.
URISA Leadership Academy Travel

Program
Management
$2,000
Travel and
transportation of
one (1)
Government
employees to the
training across
five (5) days.
Includes plane,
rental car, hotel,
and meals/
incidentals.
Installation Manager will not
receive proper GIS
leadership and management
training. Weakens IGI&S
program oversight at the
installation. Does not support
employee investment or
support achieving
developmental goals.
Annual Asset Management Meeting

Program
Management
Manage Installation
Geospatial Data
Data creation and
maintenance

$500
Travel and
transportation of
four (4)
Government
employees to the
meeting across
three (3) days.
Includes
reimbursement
for POV.
Installation will not participate
in Asset Management
Meeting. Coordination efforts
between higher headquarters
and installation in the asset
management functional area
will be limited. Creates
knowledge gap on
organizational goals, tools
techniques, and processes
only available through this
event.

55

25 (25.1):
Other
Contractual
Services/
Advisory
Assistance
Services
(Training)
ArcGIS 4: Sharing Contents on the Web
Manage Installation
Geospatial Data
Data, Analysis, and
Visualization
Services
Data creation and
maintenance
GIS Platform
Technical Support
and Administration
$3,700
Provides training
for two (2)
Government
employees to
assist with the
implementation
of Portal for
ArcGIS in
support of the
enterprise
transition.
Higher headquarters
incorporating Portal for
ArcGIS into GIS platform.
Required for IGI&S personnel
to become trained on the
system. If not trained,
personnel will not be able to
provide system support to the
wider installation community
using Portal for creation of
web maps or use of web
mapping apps in support of
FIAR, Infrastructure Reset,
planning and construction
projects, utility and energy
saving projects.
Explosive Safety Siting (ESS) Training

Data, Analysis, and
Visualization
Services
Data creation and
maintenance

$2,100
Provide training
for one (1)
Government
employee to
utilize ESS
software.
Explosive Safety Siting
software creates Explosive
Safety Quantity Distance
Arcs utilized in the community
planning, engineering, utility,
and general construction
activities to ensure safe
distance from explosions.
Without data, installations are
at risk for safety violations
when conducting these
activities.
GIS Leadership Academy Registration Fee

Program
Management
$1,800
Provides training
for one (1)
Government
employee, the
IGI&S Manager,
to learn GIS
management and
leadership skills.
Installation Manager will not
receive proper GIS
leadership and management
training. Weakens IGI&S
program oversight at the
installation. Does not support
employee investment or
support achieving
developmental goals.
OCC 25.2
Other
Contractual
Services/
Other
Services from
Non-Federal
Sources
On-site GPS Surveying Crew
Data, Analysis, and
Visualization
Services
Data creation and
maintenance
$360,000
Provides one (1)
year of on-site
GPS surveying
support. On-site
survey crew will
conduct survey
and mapping
grade field
collection in
support of
Common
OASD requirement for
installation CIP data to be at
95% completeness.
Installation requires a field
survey crew to survey CIP
data that could not be
extracted from imagery.
Without resourcing, IGI&S will
fail to be in compliance with
mandatory OASD
requirements, will be unable
56

Installation
Picture (CIP)
data
completeness.
Includes vehicles
and equipment.
to reconcile real property data
in support of FIAR, and will
not be able to create and
maintain other datasets in the
geospatial ADS such as utility
data, range and training data,
or environmental data that
relies on CIP foundational
data. Impacts to other
programs such as E-911 and
Critical Infrastructure
Protection that rely on this
data for their mission
success.
On-site GIS Analysts

Manage Installation
Geospatial Data
Data, Analysis, and
Visualization
Services
Data creation and
maintenance
GIS Platform
Technical Support
and Administration
$330,000
Provides one (1)
year of on-site
GIS analyst
support. On-site
GIS analysts will
conduct data
creation and
maintenance of
CIP data to assist
in improving
completeness
and property
record
reconciliation in
support of FIAR.
OASD requirement for
installation CIP data to be at
95% completeness.
Installation requires GIS
analysts to feature extract
data from imagery, update
attribution and metadata.
Without resourcing, IGI&S will
fail to be in compliance with
mandatory OASD
requirements, will be unable
to reconcile real property data
in support of FIAR, and will
not be able to create and
maintain other datasets in the
geospatial ADS, such as
utility data, range and training
data, or environmental data
that relies on CIP
foundational data. Impacts to
other programs such as E-
911 and Critical Infrastructure
Protection that rely on this
data for their mission
success.

57

On-site GIS Project Manager

Program
Management
Data Management
Data, Analysis, and
Visualization
Services
Data creation and
maintenance
GIS Platform
Technical Support
and Administration
$180,000
Provides one (1)
year of GIS
Project
Management
Support. On-site
project manager
will support and
oversee work of
on-site GPS field
survey crew and
GIS analysts. Will
create project
plan, conduct
quality
assurance, and
ensure best
practices and
efficient
processes and
procedures are in
place to maintain
scope, schedule,
and cost.
OASD requirement for
installation CIP data to be at
95% completeness.
Installation requires a GIS
Project Manager to manage
and oversee CIP data clean-
up project. Without
resourcing this requirement,
IGI&S will fail to be in
compliance with mandatory
OASD requirements, will be
unable to reconcile real
property data in support of
FIAR, and will not be able to
create and maintain other
datasets in the geospatial
ADS, such as utility data,
range and training data, or
environmental data that relies
on CIP foundational data.
Impacts to other programs
such as E-911 and Critical
Infrastructure Protection that
rely on this data for their
mission success.
Military leaders’ preference for risk and their perception of risk are central to decision-
making (Knighton 2004). Capturing these elements can help military leaders make
better decisions about how they choose to resource the IGI&S program. Such an
example demonstrates ownership and responsibility for the program, fosters
transparency about funding needs and expenditures, and communicates threats to
other mission areas from a lack of funding the identified requirement.
4.2.3 Identifying Levels of Service or Performance
Utilizing the project list identified in the WBS, IGI&S Managers can further
quantify and qualify risk by assessing their levels of service or performance in relation to
their resourcing. An identification of the expected level of service or performance, based
on the resourcing provided, can show decision-makers the losses they will incur from
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funding cuts. Table 12 Levels of Service: Real Property Data Creation and Maintenance
provides a sample assessment of the levels of service for one IGI&S function when only
a percentage of the full requirement is funded.
Table 12 Levels of Service: Real Property Data Creation and Maintenance
Program Objectives
Service
Level
Risk
90-100% of the Requirement
6.0 Planimetric Data Review Standard Assumes low risk
7.0 Asset Validation Standard Assumes low risk
8.0 Real Property Data Quality Assurance Standard Assumes low risk
8.1 Geometry Check Standard Assumes low risk
8.2 Attribution Check Standard Assumes low risk
8.3 Metadata Check Standard Assumes low risk
9.0 Data Updates Standard Assumes low risk
10.0 Real Property Reconciliation Standard Assumes low risk
80-90% of the Requirement
6.0 Planimetric Data Review Standard Assumes low risk
7.0 Asset Validation Standard Assumes low risk
8.0 Real Property Data Quality Assurance Standard Assumes low risk
8.1 Geometry Check Standard Assumes low risk
8.2 Attribution Check Standard Assumes low risk
8.3 Metadata Check Standard Assumes low risk
9.0 Data Updates Limited
Risk increase as data updates take longer to
get into the ADS; makes data less reliable for
projects and decision-making, impedes
project performance
10.0 Real Property Reconciliation Limited
Risk increase as reconciliation with Real
Property database of record does not occur in
a timely manner, lowering service’s financial
audit score/results
70-80% of the Requirement
6.0 Planimetric Data Review Standard Assumes low risk
7.0 Asset Validation Limited
Risk increase as data updates take longer to
get into the ADS; makes data less reliable for
projects and decision-making, impedes
project performance
8.0 Real Property Data Quality Assurance Standard Assumes low risk
8.1 Geometry Check Standard Assumes low risk
8.2 Attribution Check Standard Assumes low risk
8.3 Metadata Check Standard Assumes low risk
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Program Objectives
Service
Level
Risk
9.0 Data Updates Limited
Risk increase as data updates take longer to
get into the ADS; makes data less reliable for
projects and decision-making, impedes
project performance
10.0 Real Property Reconciliation None
Assumes high level of risk as reconciliation
with Real Property database of record does
not occur, severely lowering service’s
financial audit score/results
The items in the table can be truncated to cover primary tasks, eliminating the subtasks,
and can be built out further with additional cuts to funding of the requirement. Levels of
service identifies what a leader will lose and the resulting impacts when cutting funding
to a requirement. Military leaders’ preference for risk and their perception of risk are
central to decision-making (Knighton 2004). By clearly identifying the program
objectives that cannot be met when leaders cut resources, IGI&S Managers can
potentially preempt threats to their program (Kloos 2016a).
4.2.4 Establishing Metrics and Tracking Performance
Metrics, measures of an identified quality or characteristic of a system or
process, supply information to IGI&S Managers, their team, and leaders, about how a
program performs. Since IGI&S programs provide a variety of services—professional
data, analysis, and visualization services, creation and maintenance of real property
geospatial data, oversight of the technical GIS platform, support to end-users, and
program management—IGI&S Managers should track a variety of metrics that capture
information about program performance. IGI&S programs should track the type of work,
the customers generating the requests, and the level of effort required for internal and
external projects at a minimum. Knowing the program’s customers, and the time their
projects require, paints a tangible picture for leadership to understand how the IGI&S
60

program serves their installation community. For examples of metric parameters and
their descriptions, refer to Table 13 Recommended Parameters for Tracking. No matter
the method of tracking, a common set of metric parameters will provide meaningful data
for analysis and these metric parameters should serve the service’s IGI&S enterprise,
not just a specific installation.
Table 13 Recommended Parameters for Tracking
Parameters Description
Unique Project Identification Number
Unique identification number for the project; recommend
using this number to link electronic project records and
project deliverables to the service request
Project Title Descriptive project title
Project Status An indicator of the status of the request
Customer Information Customer name and contact information
Customer Organization Organization a customer supports
Government Sponsor Information Government Sponsor’s name and contact information
Government Sponsor Organization Organization of the Government Sponsor
Type of Request Service category of the request
Project Description Description of the project
Contract/Project Number Associated contract or project number
Assigned To Name of staff member(s) assigned to project
Due Date Date of requested completion
Date Opened Date of initial request
Date Complete Date of actual completion
FY and Quarter FY and quarter
Hours Number of labor hours
Project Comments Comments as project progresses
Several authors identify methods to track performance—from the hard-copy project
definition form advocated by Huxhold and Levinsohn (1995) to the spreadsheet ledger
or project management software recommended by Croswell (2009). If not already
provided by the service, IGI&S programs should look for an out-of-the-box solution for
work tracking with nominal costs, and should avoid creating a system that becomes
inflexible to changing requirements, obsolete, or exponentially expensive. The best
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approach will depend on the IGI&S program’s needs and the ease of implementation
and use.
4.3 Analysis and Significance
Cost-benefit evaluation and ROI remain central to the discussion of GIS program
management because of the need for GIS managers to show the value in investment of
GIS programs. Utilizing the strategies discussed above supports IGI&S Managers’
ability to identify the costs of their program and the benefits it provides, as well as
conducting project-based ROI calculations. These methods support the capture of ROI
by establishing the baseline costs for various activities that can then be used to
measure against the return from the activities’ outcomes; for example, found real
property that translates into plant replacement value (PPV) and results in an increase in
sustainment dollars for an installation. This allows IGI&S Managers to effectively
determine their program’s contribution based on real evidence.
Most installations in the MCIWEST AOR created WBS to identify major tasks,
hours associated with those tasks, and the cost of conducting those tasks. Several
MCIWEST installations received significant increases in programmed funding during the
Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process, a process that
produces plans from Services and Defense Agencies for the Office of Secretary of
Defense detailing the allocation of funds to programs. MCB Camp Pendleton received a
75% increase in FY19 programmed funding over the FY14 amount. Other installations
in the MCIWEST AOR saw modest improvements in their programmed figures as well.
MCAGCC Twentynine Palms did not use this methodology prior to 2017, and as a result
grossly underestimated their requirement (Goering 2017); but, once the IGI&S Manager
62

adopted the methodology, their program received an increase in local funding. By
identifying the work in a WBS and using the information to generate a budget ledger
template, the GEOFidelis Program Manager used the information to form justifications
for increased funding during the PPBE process. Furthermore, linking funding requests
to strategic goals of the organization built on substantiated and defendable amounts
also supported increased funding during the process, as the PPBE process tests
program managers to defend their funding requests. The WBS and historic information
increases the confidence of members of the PPBE; failure to adequately defend the
numbers encourages increased scrutiny and risk-taking in budgeting decisions.
MCB Camp Pendleton created a work tracking site using Microsoft SharePoint
out-of-the-box, a Marine Corps enterprise-provided tool for knowledge management and
collaboration. The IGI&S Manager created a list of metric parameters, their definitions,
and built a collaborative site for his team to track their work. The IGI&S Manager then
utilized SharePoint to generate metrics reports, including pivot tables and graphs, to
display important information about his program each FY. The IGI&S Manager showed
that between 2009 and 2012, MCB Camp Pendleton discovered $80 million worth of
sustainment dollars not accounted for by the installation through the use of geospatial
data development and analysis techniques, with the IGI&S program costing a mere
fraction of the missing sustainment dollars uncovered (Harris 2018). The IGI&S
Manager utilized the results in a variety of presentations on his program that led to
gains in funding locally shortly after its implementation, as well as through the
enterprise-level performance and funding processes several years later (Harris 2018).
Furthermore, the IGI&S Manager could then also determine a per feature data
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maintenance cost. The GEOFidelis Program Office utilized this data to calculate ROI for
cost avoidance in data sharing across multiple systems that consume the GIS data,
extrapolated against the number of adds and deletes in year-to-year CIP submissions
as part of internal controls reporting.
The Marine Corps GEOFidelis Program Office went on to adopt a version of his
methodology creating a centralized SharePoint site for all installations to log their work,
allowing for performance tracking at the service-level by enabling enterprise-wide pulls
of performance metrics. The change resulted in the ability for the GEOFidelis Program
Office to get consistent information across the enterprise for reporting at the highest
leadership levels, improving the quality of the program defense and justification for
increases in funding during the PPBE process. Articulating clear funding requirements,
and the various expected levels of service, give leaders options during times of healthy
and unhealthy funding levels.
Creating visual representations showing performance help communicate the
achievements and deficiencies, and allow for prioritization of effort and streamlining of
business operations to optimize performance. The MCLB Barstow IGI&S Manager
struggled to effectively communicate to his leadership his need for on-site support
contractors, the work they produced, and the level of funding required to support their
efforts (Wiley 2018). By providing his Public Works Officer (PWO) a WBS in conjunction
with a level of service and budget breakout, he could effectively articulate his
requirement. MCLB Barstow’s IGI&S Manager reflected “I wish I had these documents a
year ago when my PWO asked me to explain my program and my requirements,” (Wiley
64

2018). The IGI&S Manager felt well prepared to defend his requirements, and promoted
confidence and trust with his leadership as a result.
IGI&S Managers still, however, face challenges when using the proposed
methods. For example, leadership disinterest, organizational mismanagement, and
extreme budget limitations, can all impact the effectiveness of the recommended
strategies. IGI&S Managers, however, should not let these factors impede their efforts
to develop and maintain these tools for their program. IGI&S Managers must continue to
devise and document the work breakdown and the costs and personnel required to
execute it because it impacts the IGI&S program credibility during the PPBE process.
Funding levels, leadership, and organizational structure change as a result of changes
to an administration, economy booms and busts, and defense posture from emerging
threats. By having these methods in place prior to these types of changes, IGI&S
Managers can make the case to sustain and grow their programs in light of change,
while showing competency, responsibility, and leadership. Investments that show good
stewardship of taxpayer dollars and foster transparency with the public matter. IGI&S
Managers can then work to form effective relationships with leaders and stakeholders
using the documented outcomes from these methods.

65

Chapter 5: Empowering People and Communities of Interest
DiMarco and Lister note, “The major problems of our work are not so much technical as
sociological in nature. Most managers are willing to concede the idea they’ve got more
people worries than technical worries,” (Croswell 2009, 98). Whether GIS professionals,
practitioners, or end-users, people play a role throughout the entire IGI&S program
lifecycle, whether directly or indirectly, actively or passively. IGI&S Managers must
engage with their internal team, enforcing standards, ensuring professional tradecraft,
and providing performance leadership and guidance, while also outreaching to business
units, stakeholders, and end-users to ensure effective diffusion of the GIS capability and
advocation for capacity.
Depending on funding ability, IGI&S Managers may find themselves as a team of
one or a team of many. Some IGI&S teams consist of Federal Government civilian staff,
whereas others rely on project-oriented contracted support. Larger, more dynamic
installations, may use both sources to meet program objectives and tasks. Different
command structures may encourage reach back to a higher-level echelon, such as a
regional- or program-level office. No matter the circumstances, IGI&S Managers should
become versed in team creation and building, professional development strategies, and
performance management; hiring, developing, maintaining, and retaining talent serves
as an investment in the program and the program’s ability to meet its mission. An
investment in people, a critical factor in the GIS capacity equation, supports strong
IGI&S program health and capacity building.
The IGI&S Manager plays a vital role as a leader and influencer internally in his
or her business unit and also externally to stakeholders and end-users as well. The
66

ability to communicate and form strong relationships will impact the diffusion of the
IGI&S program throughout the organization. The greater the investment of individuals
into the use of the IGI&S capability, coupled with positive outcomes, the more likely
those individuals will feel empowered to advocate for program sustainability. Individuals
and their organizational units, however, can weaken IGI&S program support if the
opposite occurs. Such experiences can result in damage to the program as extreme as
the development of “cottage GIS” implementations, when organizational units attempt to
develop their own GIS capabilities to avoid using the IGI&S enterprise system (Harris
2018). Such actions lead to organizational inefficiencies, such as duplication of effort,
cost, time, system technology, data, and maintenance, as well as potential security risks
(Reeve and Petch 1999). IGI&S Managers must therefore actively work to create the
right professional environment for their program to thrive through individual engagement
and organizational outreach to support the program’s diffusion.
5.1 Foundational Background and Gap Identification
People, a key parameter of the GIS capacity equation, remain critical to the
sustainability and growth of IGI&S programs. Building program capacity involves hiring,
training, and maintaining personnel with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to carry out
mission requirements; yet, unique challenges exist when it comes to Federal human
resource’s processes, procedures, and standards as it relates to IGI&S programs. The
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sets categories and standards for occupational
series, a job classification for Federal Government civilian employees that identifies
basic knowledge, skills, abilities, and qualifications within the identified field. For
example, the 1300 Physical Sciences category, maintains job classification standards
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for positions such as the 1315 Hydrology series, 1320 Chemistry series, and 1370
Cartography series. Each individual agency maintains a position description that
provides details regarding the specific job duties and qualifications as they align to the
series and the agency’s requirements. IGI&S personnel do not have a standardized job
series because of the lack of an OPM occupational series from which to draw
standards. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics identifies GIS occupations, as do many
other professional organizations such as Urban Regional Information Systems
Association (URISA) and the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF),
OPM does not identify a GIS occupational series (Goering 2017). GIS, with an
emphasis on remote sensing and digital cartography, blends several OPM occupational
series, and only came into existence as an independent occupation in the Federal
Government approximately 15 years ago as exemplified by the creation of NGA in 2003
from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) (Goering 2017). Most
commonly agencies classify GIS positions as 0150 Geographer, 1370 Cartographer, or
1371 Cartographer Technician; however, agencies also use the 0802 Engineering
Technician series, 2210 IT Specialist series, or even the catch-all 0343 Management
and Program Analysis series. The general job descriptions and qualifications
requirements for each of these series can impact the knowledge, skills, and abilities that
individuals bring to the IGI&S program. An IGI&S Manager should become familiar with
any position descriptions for civilian personnel on their team, including his or her own,
and should actively encourage the review, and if necessary, the rewriting and
reclassification of positions to align to current requirements. A lack of resources exists
to draw from for the creation or update of position descriptions. The US Army Fully
68

Automated System for Classification (FASCLASS) Library represents the best available
library for existing position descriptions that an IGI&S Manager can use for reference.
Creating and classifying generic position descriptions for an IGI&S Manager and an
IGI&S Analyst for use by installations would benefit the enterprise. Position descriptions
not only serve an important role in the hiring of personnel, but also in setting
performance standards and objectives.
Position descriptions drive performance objectives and can help with the framing
of Professional Development Plans, also known as Individual Performance Plans
(IDPs). IGI&S personnel may report to non-GIS professionals, however, that may lack
knowledge to help develop performance objectives for them that align position
requirements, program requirements, and grade-level expectations. Additionally, non-
GIS professionals in supervisory positions may lack the time or consideration for
familiarizing themselves with these criteria, or worse, not enforcing accountability
against performance objectives and standards at all. Similarly, these issues can impact
professional development planning as GIS combines knowledge from multiple
competencies, such as information technology, cartography, photogrammetry, and
geodesy that many non-GIS professionals may find abstract. IGI&S Managers may
need to take an active role in educating non-GIS supervisory personnel and
participating in the development and implementation of performance criteria. A standard
set of performance objectives and sample IDPs for both IGI&S Managers and team
members could assist those with such challenges.
In addition to the formalities of position descriptions, performance objectives, and
IDPs, IGI&S Managers must also monitor team dynamics and morale. GIS program
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success has been characterized by long-term continuity of staff supported by clearly
defined career paths and management opportunities, staff autonomy in regards to user
relations and task completion, involvement with current technologies that provide
challenges, and clearly defined roles within the unit and the organization as a whole
(Huxhold and Levinsohn 1995). Croswell maintains that “GIS managers must
understand the preferences and motivations of their staff…with which they interact and
must adapt their practices to respond to these motivations,” (Croswell 2009, 103).
Individuals who become supervisors, managers, or team leads often do not receive
education or training in soft-skills, such as communication, conflict resolution, difficult
conversations, and feedback, and must develop and hone them on the job. Additionally,
creating positive energy can seem incredibly challenging if the work environment
becomes toxic, hostile, or subject to negative organizational politics or a floundering
program.
Stakeholders and end-users also play an important role as their acceptance of
the technology, the data, and the program paradigm can impact the success of the
program. As Budic articulates, “individual perceptions, experiences, attitudes and
communication behaviors take precedence over organizational and technical factors in
decisions about whether to use or not to use GIS technology,” (Budic 1993, 55). This
can also impact whether or not stakeholders or end-users accept their responsibilities in
the IGI&S paradigm when it comes to funding the creation and maintenance of content
in their functional area. When grouped together as part of a business unit, such
perceptions can fuel organizational politics, the processes and behaviors of human
interactions relating to power and authority. People inherently partake in organizational
70

politics and navigating such situations demands exceptional savvy. Burks and Convery
both articulate in their research respectively that creating a GIS “champion” serves as
an important steering agent to a program’s success and such an individual can play an
important role in navigating these issues (Burks 2009; Convery 2008). To mitigate and
overcome these challenges, IGI&S Managers must develop skills and implement
methods that empower people in a positive and constructive way.
5.2 Principle Methods and Examples
5.2.1 Support the Development of a Competent and Motivated Workforce
5.2.1.1 Position Descriptions
Creating a team with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to meet IGI&S
program requirements involves research, and navigating the human resources
documentation can seem daunting because of the number of standards and regulations
imposed by OPM. The IGI&S Manager should make every effort to work with his or her
leadership to review the position descriptions for appropriate series classification and
assigned duties for all IGI&S Federal Government civilian personnel. Hiring authorities
should classify positions for IGI&S personnel as either 1370 or 1371 series, or
alternatively the 0150 series. Table 14 Occupational Series Comparison compares the
0150 and 1370 series. OPM considers both series “professional” series, which require
“knowledge in a field of science or learning characteristically acquired through education
or training equivalent to a bachelor’s or higher degree with major study pertinent to the
specialized field,” and “the exercise of discretion, judgement, and personal responsibility
for the application of an organized body of knowledge that is constantly studied to make
71

new discoveries and interpretations, and to improve data, materials, and methods,” (US
Office of Personnel Management 2009, 9).
Table 14 Occupational Series Comparison
Source GS-0150 Geographer GS-1370 Cartographer
OPM Handbook of
Occupational
Groups and
Families
This series covers positions the duties
of which involve professional work in
the field of geography, including the
compilation, synthesis, analysis,
interpretation, and presentation of
information regarding the location,
distribution, and interrelationships of,
and processes of, change affecting
such natural and human phenomena
as the physical features of the earth,
climate, plant and animal life, and
human settlements and institutions.
The series includes positions requiring
the application of professional
knowledge and skills in mapping and
related sciences, and relevant
mathematics and statistics to plan,
design, research, develop, construct,
evaluate and modify mapping and
charting systems, products, and
technology.
OPM [Job Family]
Position
Classification
Standard for
Professional Work
Taxonomic and descriptive work
involves the assembly and
presentation of information concerning
the location, nomenclature, and
distribution of phenomena, including
the differences that exist among
things that seem to be alike. This
information is used for geographic
categorization and designation, for
producing maps, charts, and
gazetteers, for standardizing
geographic nomenclature, and for
determining and comparing the
distribution of phenomena. Analytic
and interpretive work goes beyond
scientific observation, collation and
reporting of facts. It attempts to
understand the relationships existing
among various phenomena, to
ascertain the significance of the
location and distribution of things, and
to understand and determine the
reasons for geographic change.
Develops and monitor the production
of geographic information systems
and hardcopy map generation for a
staff unit. Works on inter- and intra-
agency committees to develop and/or
revise geospatial data. Revises
agency cartographic standards and
specifications. Provides staff advisory,
consulting, and reviewing services.
Applies standard cartographic
practices to new situations and solves
novel or obscure problems. Exercises
initiative and originality in the solution
of cartographic problems. Serves as a
technical authority on all aspects of
cartography.
Sample Duties Collect and analyze spatial data, plan
and develop geographic information
and projects to facilitate scientific
analysis, and enhance
communications of results through
reports and maps.
Performing data reconciliation
between GIS (systems) and
organizational or other data storage
systems.
Performing geospatial analysis to
identify inconsistent information.
Design and produce maps using
geographic information systems,
incorporating satellite data, aerial
reconnaissance, and field surveys to
produce datasets used by both
scientists and everyday people.
Use of Computer Aided Design and
Drafting (CAD) and Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) software in
developing maps.
Review engineering documents and
drawings, such as design
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Source GS-0150 Geographer GS-1370 Cartographer
memoranda, construction plans and
specs, determine real restate and
location requirements for projects.
Perform boundary determination, real
estate mapping procedures and land
area calculations.
Serve as a technical point of contact
for cartographic and GIS interests.
Source: adapted from US Office of Personnel Management 1963, 1997, 2009, 2018.
Professional series differ from “technical” or technician series, where work “involves
extensive practical knowledge, gained through experience and/or specific training less
than that represented by college graduation,” and “technical employees carry out tasks,
methods, procedures, and/or computations that are laid out either in published or oral
instructions and covered by established precedents or guidelines.” (US Office of
Personnel Management 2009, 10). These distinctions, for example, differentiate the
1370 Cartographer and 1371 Cartographic Technician series.
By ensuring the position description accurately reflects the roles and
responsibilities of the position, the supervisor creates clarity for the employee regarding
the employee’s duties and fosters trust and transparency regarding the expectations of
the person in the position. Furthermore, having an accurate position description can
help supervisors ensure they hire the right person for the job, and can easily use the
descriptions to assist in formulating performance objectives when the time comes.
5.2.1.2 Resumés and Interviews
Resumés should discuss experience through work history and education, while
noting technical proficiencies in software and hardware, professional memberships, and
recent awards. Potential interviewees should include a short introductory paragraph
summarizing themselves and/or objectives in prose, and use bullet notation for all other
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sections. Resumés should be free of typos and grammatical errors, well-organized, and
consistently formatted. Acceptable resumés for civilian positions can span multiple
pages, but should stick to outlining the responsibilities and activities of the current and
previous positions, the impacts of the individual during the position tenure, such as his
or her achievements not merely his or her duties, and the relevant educational
accomplishments and applicable coursework. Additionally, IGI&S Managers should
ensure no gaps exist in the timeline of the resumé, and if so, seek clarification. IGI&S
Managers should also assess other relevant documentation including cover letters and
transcripts, but a resumé outlining activities and accomplishments in a challenge-
context-action-result method should hold the most weight in a decision for an interview.
Prior to an interview, consider requesting the interviewees provide a portfolio, map
sample, and/or writing sample for the interview.
Interview panels should possess at least three individuals: the supervisor, an
IGI&S SME, and any other additional leadership and/or human resources team
member. Encouraging an IGI&S Manager or team member to assist in or observe
during the panel also serves as a good experience for him or her to see how interviews
work as part of a developmental experience. All interviews should include an
introduction of the personnel on the panel, a description of the position, job duties, and
performance expectations, followed by an opportunity for the interviewee to ask any
initial questions. The panel should ask a series of pre-determined questions with each
panel member taking a turn. Interview questions should possess a mix of questions on
technical competencies and interpersonal skills tailored to the requirements of the
position. Table 15 Sample Interview Questions provides some example interview
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questions and the objectives of the question. Panel members should have a consensus
as to the types of answers they expect for each question.
Table 15 Sample Interview Questions
Question Objective
You are given two projects at the same time.
Each project individually takes two hours to
complete; however, both projects are due three
hours from the time they were received. What do
you do?
Tests an individual’s ability for problem-solving,
delegation and/or teamwork, communication, and
time management.
You missed an important deadline and a
customer is unhappy. How do you rectify the
situation?
Tests an individual’s ability for communication and
customer service.
GIS technology evolves quickly. How do you
maintain your GIS proficiency?
Tests an individual’s ability for professional
development and self-activation.
What are some strategies you employ when you
run into a problem in GIS that you do not know
how to resolve?
Tests an individual’s ability for problem-solving.
Describe a recent GIS project. What types of
data, analysis, and/or visualization tools and
techniques did you use?
Tests an individual’s proficiency.
You’re asked to create a map, but the data does
not exist or possesses severe deficiencies. What
do you do?
Tests an individual’s ability for problem-solving,
research, SME interaction, communication, and
customer service.
Describe some of the different projects and the
geoprocessing tools you’ve used in them.
Tests an individual’s proficiency.
Describe a positive team experience and a
negative team experience. Why was one positive
and the other negative? Looking back what
would you do to improve the negative situation
given what you know now?
Tests an individual’s ability to work with others,
communication, ownership, self-reflection, and
identification of lessons learned.
All interviewees will be given the same interview introduction and questions, and
the panel should not ask any additional questions outside of those agreed upon. Panel
members should make notes during the interviews for reference during the selection
process, as a means to document qualifications and qualities displayed by interviewees’
answers for selection justification, and for protection in case of accusations of unfair
selection.
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5.2.1.3 Career Road Maps and Professional Development Plans
Developing a career road map can assist IGI&S Managers and IGI&S Analysts
see a pathway to maintaining professional competencies and advancing in their career
either internal or external to the organization. A career road map can include
competencies expected at different GIS proficiency levels, such as novice,
developmental, or full performance, as well as competency-based training opportunities
for different proficiency levels. Additionally, the career road map may identify
descriptions of, and qualifications required for the progression through, an occupational
series’ different grade levels. Table 16 Core Competencies highlights aptitudes for
IGI&S personnel. These criteria form the foundational competencies required by
personnel working in IGI&S and should serve as a guideline for developing position
descriptions, performance standards and objectives, and IDPs.
Table 16 Core Competencies for IGI&S Personnel
Competencies Description
Conceptual Geospatial
Foundations
Understands and applies principles of geography and spatial thinking to
solve real world problems and phenomena.
Geospatial Data
Management and
Manipulation
Ability to model the earth with basic understanding and use of geoids,
ellipsoids, and spheres, coordinate systems, map projections, and datums.
Create, maintain, and render data through multiple means, and use the
appropriate geospatial representation of geographic features and
documentation through metadata. Understanding of differences between
raster and vector representations, and accuracy, precision, and resolution.
Data and Database
Design
Understanding of relational database modeling systems (RDBMS) and
principles, including normalization and query. Ability to conduct database
modeling, both logical and physical.
Analytical Methods Use of simple and complex geoprocessing tools. Ability to document
analysis processes and methodologies, and provide confidence level
based on data quality.
Cartography and
Visualization
Understanding of basic cartographic principles in relation to projections,
scale, generalization, aggregation, design, layout, color theory,
typography, symbology, and labeling principles.
Organizational Awareness Understands organizational mission and vision, and the role of the
program in the organization. Knowledge of different business lines and
their geospatial requirements.
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Competencies Description
Communication Provides concise, accurate, relevant, and timely information to others
orally and in writing. Demonstrates active listening skills.
Project Management Plans and manages discrete, technical projects, including budget,
controls, risk, and time, in alignment with project management principles.
Program Management Plans and manages strategic aspects of a program, such as budget,
personnel, and contracting, using program management principles and
techniques. Monitors and evaluates program initiatives.
Leadership Demonstrates a high level of initiative, effort, and commitment towards
achieving results. Coaches, mentors, and guides others to maximize
potential of skills. Promotes team morale, productivity, and goals.
Effectively influences individuals at all levels.
Self-Management and
Planning
Works with minimal supervision, is motivated to achieve, and
demonstrates responsible behavior. Organizes work and manages
priorities efficiently.
Problem Solving Identifies issues, proposes courses of action, and supports or
demonstrates decision-making authority.
Teamwork Facilitates cooperation and trust to foster a positive team dynamic.
Coalition Building Promotes cross-organizational integration through outreach and
education. Leverages opportunities for collaboration, consensus building,
and productive negotiation. Effectively influences individuals at all levels.
Source: adapted from US Department of Defense 2014.
Identifying competencies and competency-based training at the novice, developmental,
and full performance skill levels helps guide employees to training opportunities, solidify
requirements for career advancement, and documents expectations of qualifications
and performance within that skill level. The career road map also supports the creation
of performance objectives and standards, as well as IDPs.
IDPs serve as a means for helping employees set out their desired professional
development goals and aspirations. The IDP differs from performance objectives set in
a performance review cycle because the IDP outlines short-, mid-, and long-term
professional goals and career activities for the individual, whereas performance
objectives stipulate the performance outcomes expected of the individual during a
specified rating period. Performance objectives should be “SMART”: specific,
measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound, whereas IDPs may be more
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conceptual and flexible. IDPs represent an opportunity to help mentor employees
towards their overall developmental and professional goals. IDPs, for example, could
include rotational assignments, job shadowing, or on-site assisted training. Formalizing
a mentoring program that focuses on highly-motivated, high-performing employees
serves as one of the best efforts an IGI&S program can make to generate ROI.
5.2.2 Stakeholder, Leadership, and Customer Engagement
5.2.2.1 Education and Outreach
An IGI&S Manager should make an effort to conduct user education and
outreach internal to their directorate and department, as well as to external stakeholders
and SMEs. Stakeholder education and outreach promotes the IGI&S capability and
works “to obtain maximum participation by multiple business lines, establish data
integration, and standards for use, and derive benefits to the mission from use of
geospatial information,” (Phillips 2016). Educating users on the data and tools available,
and their roles and responsibilities with data content, can lead to stakeholders and
SMEs programming for the requirement through their own funding lines and
engagement aimed at improving data quality respectively. Utilizing the SME and user
tracking methods, discussed earlier, facilitates the outreach effort, while continued
engagement by the IGI&S team provides information to keep the documents up-to-date
when organizational or personnel changes occur. IGI&S Managers can utilize a variety
of methods to educate and outreach to users, and should identify some methods to help
them see their vision through. Table 17 Education and Outreach Methods provides
suggested methods for education and outreach.

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Table 17 Education and Outreach Methods
Education and Outreach Methods Description
Classroom/One-on-One Training Provides in-person hands-on training and interaction
E-Learning/Computer-based Training Provides an alternate method to in-person training in
cases where in-person training is not an option
Tri-Folds Provides relevant facts about IGI&S, capabilities, services,
contact information
Fact Sheets Provides relevant facts about IGI&S, capabilities, or
integration with a business line
Public Displays Provides an opportunity to target potential uses unaware
of IGI&S capabilities and services
Brown Bags/Functional Area Roadshows Provides focused informational and discussion sessions
for users and stakeholders
Intranet sites Provides tools for sharing important information, data, and
tools electronically
E-Mail Lists Provides a means for communicating and interacting with
users and stakeholders
Trial and error may be required in order to gauge effectiveness of each method in the
local organization. IGI&S Managers should try a blended approach to education and
outreach and not overly rely on one particular method. Over use of any one method can
cause a saturation effect and lead recipients to ignore or resent the effort, such as an
overreliance on e-mail that can lead to individuals deleting the messages without
reading them first, especially if the e-mail contains lengthy prose. IGI&S Managers
should embrace the use of in-person meetings as necessary—putting a name to a face
can help build connections with people and encourage positive rapport.
5.2.2.2 Working Groups
Working Groups serve as a mechanism for in-person, interdisciplinary
coordination amongst the various directorates and departments. IGI&S Managers may
wish to establish a Working Group to serve executive-level leadership at the executive-
level, and/or to create one at the working-level for Functional and Data SMEs. IGI&S
Managers should draft a charter that serves as a formal guidance document for the
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Working Group. Table 18 Working Group Charter Section Examples provides examples
of sections to include in a charter and the objective of the section.
Table 18 Working Group Charter Section Examples
Section Objective
Purpose Establishes the purpose of the working group: “…to advise, promote, and
sustain the business use of geospatial data, technology, and services in
support of an integrated approach to Geographic Information System use in
decision-making in support of mission requirements.”
Background Describes the background that led to the formation of the group: “Geospatial
information is critical to provide effective Installation management…”
Scope and Function Identifies the type of work and breadth of the group: “forum for Directorates
and departments to identify geospatial information, service requirements and
resources, promote fiscal management and resource advocacy, manage and
coordinate geospatial data lifecycle requisites…”
Meetings Captures the meeting facilitator, the frequency of meetings, and the capture
and coordination of meeting minutes and documentation, “…will facilitate
quarterly meetings...Detailed minutes of each meeting shall be kept and shall
contain a record of attendees, a complete and accurate description of matters
discussed…”
Roles and
Responsibilities
Includes membership, meeting inputs and outputs: “Membership will
include…Members of the Working Group are responsible for
inputs...coordination with respective Directorate/departmental
SMEs…providing data ownership and stewardship over their functional
area…and outputs…prioritized projects…formalized and implemented
policy...reviewed and validated resource management activities…”
Authority The authority for establishing the Working Group, “…the Chief of Staff
authorizes the establishment of the Working Group…”
Source: adapted from US Department of Defense 2018.
Capturing the members present during a meeting, the directorate or department they
represent, and their position within their organization, provides IGI&S Managers with
critical information in case they need to follow-up after the discussion. Furthermore,
depending on the audience of the working group, whether executive- or working-level,
knowing the position of the person present helps determine the amount of authority and
influence that individual carries within their organization. The IGI&S Manager should
take notes or request a person from their team or department provide notetaking
support in order to capture all items discussed and any action items or due-outs for the
next meeting and the person or persons responsible for the due-out.
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5.3 Analysis and Significance
Empowerment strategies in support of internal IGI&S team dynamics proved
fruitful for several installations. MCAS Miramar’s longtime IGI&S Manager recently
retired creating a vacancy. MCAS Miramar’s Public Works Department made an active
and engaged effort to form an integrative and collaborative resumé review, interview,
and hiring process that included key personnel, such as the PWO, the Asset
Management Branch Head that oversees the IGI&S program, and the MCIWEST IGI&S
Regional Program Manager. Together the group reviewed resumés against IGI&S core
competencies and selected interviewees. The MCIWEST IGI&S Regional Program
Manager contributed a variety of technical and supervisory questions, while the PWO
and Asset Management Branch Head contributed leadership and values-driven
questions. The interview process led the panel to make an offer to an interviewee that
displayed an outstanding breadth of technical knowledge and leadership qualities in the
IGI&S field. The hiring panel also successfully secured a bonus for the offeree—
something unprecedented previously for IGI&S personnel in the region—by taking a
collaborative approach to writing the justification document.
Through the evaluation of standardized IGI&S core competencies for
performance objectives, MCB Camp Pendleton Public Works Department leadership
recognized the position descriptions for IGI&S team members required re-alignment
with a more appropriate series. In collaboration with the MCIWEST IGI&S Regional
Program Manager, the GIS and Support Branch head rewrote and reclassified position
descriptions for IGI&S Analysts and the IGI&S Manager, to align with the Cartographic
Technician and Cartographer series respectively, and to better reflect the current job
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duties. By realigning series and updating job duties, the supervisor created
transparency in the performance objective creation and evaluation process, and defined
clear roles and expectations for personnel. Reeves and Petch argue that such
empowerment “allow[s] some workers to take fuller, and more independent, control of
their working environment,” (Reeves and Petch 1999, 173). The realignment also
benefited the personnel, by aligning them to the GEOFidelis Career Road Map
providing them with a tool to support the development of their IDP.
A variety of outreach, education, and training efforts supported successes
internally to IGI&S teams and externally to other functional areas, and inspired a senior
leader to become a GIS champion in the organization and encourage executive-level
engagement with the program. The MCIWEST IGI&S Regional Program Manager
provides support to IGI&S Managers in the MCIWEST AOR, including professional
development. New IGI&S Managers come to MCIWEST-MCB Camp Pendleton for one
week of hands-on training with the MCIWEST IGI&S Regional Program Manager to
learn program management tools and techniques. Additionally, the MCIWEST IGI&S
Regional Program Manager advocates for continued education and training through
activities such as attendance at the URISA GIS Leadership Academy and the annual
Esri International Users Conference. Participation in asset management team
roadshows and events, supervisory training events, and PWO summits facilitates
engagement by the MCIWEST IGI&S Regional Program Manager with IGI&S Managers
and their leadership. Such engagement leads to understanding a person’s expectations
of empowerment, allowing for alignment to those expectations. The efforts established
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trust within Facilities leadership throughout the MCIWEST AOR and earned a champion
for the IGI&S program in the Regional Facilities Officer (RFO).
The RFO serves as a promoter of the IGI&S capability to executive-level
leadership, facilitates coordination across all levels, assists in the implementation of
policy to support data quality improvement, and advocates for funding. These efforts led
to the founding of the MCIWEST Geospatial Working Group and creation of a formal
charter signed by the MCIWEST Chief of Staff. The Working Group supported the
development of a regional policy letter signed by the MCIWEST Commanding General
regarding installation geospatial data coordination, validation, lifecycle management,
and storage. The policy letter directs the housing of SDSFIE–domain installation
geospatial data in the installation’s geospatial ADS throughout the MCIWEST AOR, a
first step in eliminating organizational stove-pipes to data sharing throughout the
enterprise. The policy letter also serves as a directive IGI&S Managers and Functional
SMEs can turn to when arguing for resources to support the creation and maintenance
of data. Such outcomes encourage stakeholders and functional SMEs to invest in their
data. The MCB Camp Pendleton IGI&S Manager worked with the Operations, Training
and Plans Directorate to improve the fidelity of their military operations features as a
method of outreach. The success led to further investment in those features at MCAS
Yuma, MCAGCC Twentynine Palms, and MCMWTC Bridgeport.
The strategies outlined herein do not encompass every possible means of
facilitating empowerment of people and the organization as a whole. In fact, these
strategies may not always yield successful outcomes, especially in the face of
challenges such as organizational politics, personal agendas, relationships, and
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backdoor deals—these instances happen. IGI&S Managers must strive to set an
example of professionalism within their unit, organization, and program, no matter the
challenge that working with people presents. Creating a “reputational shield,” through
demonstrative performance and customer service can protect an IGI&S Manager
against negative situations he or she may encounter. IGI&S Managers have the latitude
to get creative and experiment to discover what works best within their particular team,
unit, or organization.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion
Competing service- and installation-level priorities often lead to defunding IGI&S
programs. A lack of fiscal discipline in executing service-validated funding priorities such
as IGI&S, in favor of local requirements puts life, health, and safety at risk as critical
installation functions and services require IGI&S geospatial data to execute their
mission. A withdrawal of investment in IGI&S also delays DoD strategic initiatives meant
to improve installation functions and services, such as 21
st
Century Installations and
Airbases, Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) compliance, and
Infrastructure Reset, exacerbating the problems at the installation level. This contributes
to the decline of installations as projection platforms of military readiness and power
during a time in which joint-force training and interoperability remains critical to US
military superiority in the fight against emerging threats. Providing a tailored IGI&S
program framework that supports sustainability and capacity building can lead to the
successful implementation of DoD strategic initiatives reliant on accurate and timely
installation geospatial information. The IGI&S Program Management Framework serves
as a model for IGI&S programs within the DoD for increasing GIS program sustainability
and capacity.
IGI&S Managers must, “understand their business, and know their requirements,”
discovering the mission of their service and installation, the needs and requirements it
generates for geospatial data, and institutional priorities and requirements the
geospatial data supports. The mission of a service and an installation impacts the
spatial environment that the GIS must capture, as well as the requirements, priorities,
and taskings of its IGI&S program. Requirements gathering and business needs
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alignment remains critical to the success of any GIS program. Understanding the
organization, the individuals, and the business processes, allows IGI&S Managers to
begin to form effective program management strategies and relationships that can
translate into increased GIS capacity. To effectively gather and synthesize this
information into actionable opportunities, IGI&S Managers should implement a data-to-
product matrix to capture how the GIS data translates into products that support
different mission functions and a stakeholder tracker to track stakeholders’
responsibilities and accountability for geospatial data creation and maintenance in their
functional area. Additionally, IGI&S Managers should create a SWOT analysis to
evaluate and pinpoint issues that impact strategic and project planning, and use the
analysis to help develop effective strategic and project plans that yield impactful results.
Once IGI&S Managers develop their knowledge, they can then begin to capture their
own requirements in a GIS infrastructure lifecycle management plan in order to execute
functional mission needs.
GIS infrastructure lifecycle management plans capture current hardware,
software, and data statuses and on-going needs. Local hardware, software, and data
will require replacement, renewal, updates, or maintenance through time. The IGI&S
Manager should capture hardware and software inventories and create a refresh cycle
in order to ensure the program maintains operational capabilities. A data health
assessment provides a holistic evaluation of the GIS data, targeting places for
improvement, while a data maintenance schedule documents the ongoing lifecycle of
data maintenance. Creating GIS infrastructure lifecycle plans helps IGI&S Managers
take account of their operational requirements and interdependencies. The IGI&S
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Managers place their program at risk by not capturing this information for submission
into the planning and programming process that determines the amount of funding a
program receives. GIS infrastructure lifecycle plans support the development of budget
proposals and the measuring of program performance levels by capturing current
capabilities and needs within the IGI&S program.
The amount of funds provided to an IGI&S program impacts the level at which
the program performs, and the performance of an IGI&S program can impact the budget
it receives. Developing a sound budget and measurable performance indicators serve
critical roles as capacity building strategies for sustainable IGI&S programs because
they provide justification for the investment and expenditure, provide transparency and
accountability of the requirements and costs, and help the organization understand risks
to the program and dependent programs if not resourced appropriately. IGI&S programs
must participate in the budgeting process to prevent stagnate funding numbers and to
provide an understanding of budget requirements to their leadership that often may
underestimate the program’s needs or value it provides. Through the development of a
WBS, IGI&S Managers can effectively show the responsibilities, tasks and projects that
consume their time, and can translate that into cost. This supports the capture of ROI by
establishing the baseline costs for various activities that can then be used as a measure
against revenues generated by outcomes; for example, found real property that results
in an increase in sustainment dollars for an installation. Additionally, creating metrics to
track the level of performance can help quantify and qualify the requirements and
dependencies on IGI&S. Quantifying and qualifying the risk if not executed upon can
help leadership understand why the program requires such investment. IGI&S
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Managers can use the “budget-to-perform, and perform-to-budget” outcomes to make
the case to sustain and grow their programs and can use this information when working
to form effective relationships with leaders and stakeholders, and can help drive
increased opportunities for personnel development.
The IGI&S Manager plays a vital role as a leader and influencer internally in his
or her business unit and also externally to stakeholders and end-users. IGI&S
Managers must engage with their internal team to support the development and
retention of a competent and motivated workforce by developing appropriate position
descriptions, hiring individuals that align to the required core competencies, and support
professional development through evaluation and ongoing training. Identifying and
engaging the COI through continued education and outreach methods can yield strong
relationships that will impact the diffusion of the IGI&S capability throughout the
organization. The greater the investment of individuals into the use of the IGI&S
capability, coupled with positive outcomes, the more likely those individuals will feel
empowered to advocate for program sustainability, and potentially lead to a GIS
champion in the organization. IGI&S Managers must therefore actively work to create
the right professional environment for their program to thrive through individual
engagement and organizational outreach.
The IGI&S Program Management Framework contributed to successes at
installations in the MCIWEST AOR despite ongoing programmatic challenges in the
region; but the framework’s success ultimately depends on the IGI&S Manager and the
IGI&S COI. In summary, IGI&S Managers can 1) encourage the use of GIS as a system
that supports business processes and applications with an organizational context that
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allows for data fusion across disparate and stove-piped business systems with a geo-
locational aspect; 2) tie data quality reports to standards, and link risks to health, life,
and safety to service-level financial risk of interest to Congress to garner attention at the
highest levels of the DoD; 3) track and document all tasks and projects, and use
outcomes to develop budgets with legitimacy—built on substantiated and defendable
amounts—that support strategic goals of the greater organization; and 4) encourage
formal on-site training exchanges, site assist visits, and mentoring to improve
professional development and tradecraft. The ability, commitment, dedication, and
resolve of the IGI&S Managers throughout the MCIWEST AOR to own their program
and implement these strategies made the framework effective. With diffusion of the
framework and its methods, other IGI&S programs can hopefully experience similar
successes that ultimately support DoD strategic initiatives, enabling installations to
support joint-force training and interoperability, serve as projection platforms of military
readiness and power, and sustain US military superiority in the fight against emerging
threats.

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract Prior to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 2005, military installations used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in an ad-hoc capacity for a variety of installation management issues. BRAC, both a fiscal and political issue, required a common set of digital data and maps to visualize Department of Defense (DoD) installations in a GIS to support the real property–lifecycle process and associated decision-making central to the effort. This integration, however, began to provide business benefits in other installation management areas supported by policies such as the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, and the E-Government Act of 2002. IGI&S programs have grown to provide geospatial data and tools for a variety of Installations and Environment (I&E) domains, including, but not limited to, planning, management, and operations, emergency response and recovery, environmental management, homeland defense, housing, recreation, and transportation. This research presents capacity building strategies and techniques to assist in both quantifying and qualifying IGI&S programs in the face of competing service- and installation-level priorities that often leads to defunding IGI&S programs. A lack of fiscal discipline in executing service-validated funding priorities such as IGI&S, in favor of local requirements puts life, health, and safety at risk as critical installation functions and services require IGI&S geospatial data to execute their mission. A withdrawal of investment in IGI&S also delays DoD strategic initiatives meant to improve installation functions and services, contributing to the decline of installations as projection platforms of military readiness and power during a time in which joint-force training and interoperability remains critical to US military superiority in the fight against emerging threats.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Paganini, Christina (author)

Core Title Building sustainable Installation Geospatial Information and Services (IGI&S) programs: a program management framework of capacity building strategies

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Science

Degree Program Geographic Information Science and Technology

Publication Date 06/27/2019

Defense Date 04/17/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Department of Defense,DOD,GIS,IGI,Installation Geospatial Information and Services,OAI-PMH Harvest,United States Marine Corps,USMC

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Fleming, Steven (committee chair), Bernstein, Jennifer (committee member), Wilson, John (committee member)

Creator Email cpags01@gmail.com,paganini@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-178414

Unique identifier UC11660653

Identifier etd-PaganiniCh-7515.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-178414 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-PaganiniCh-7515.pdf

Dmrecord 178414

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Paganini, Christina

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA