The Minnesota Geographic Information Office: MnGEO

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The MinnesotaGeographic Information
OfficeMnGEO

• Summary of the
• Drive to Excellence
• GIS Functional Transformation Project
• Prepared by Applied Geographics, Inc.
• June, 2009

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Overview

• The process that was followed
• The business drivers for transformation
• What was recommended
• What happens now?
• Risks
• Success factors

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Overview of the GIS Functional Transformation
Project

• Open and transparent process
• No surprises
• Lots of opportunity to provide input
• Information gathering
• Workshops
• Interviews with 17 state agencies
• Strategizing and recommendation development
• State government workshop to refine preliminary
  recommendations
• Supplemental information gathering
• Cost to government survey
• Prioritization survey
• Oversight and guidance from Drive To Excellence
  Steering Committee

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Business Drivers for GIS TransformationAs with
all things D2E, its about silos to enterprise

• Minnesota Drive to Excellence Transformation
  Roadmap SummaryFrom Deloitte March, 2005

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Common problems many states face

• GIS governance has grown up incrementally and
  organically not necessarily strategically
• How to achieve coordination?
• Agency to agency
• State government to other levels of government
• Whos job is it? Its not a part-time job.
• Acknowledging that many departments have
  successful enterprise systems
• Departmental programs can be larger and better
  funded than the state GIS office
• Respecting departmental autonomy and expertise
  without creating hardened silos
• Investing in new enterprise technologies
• Without being redundant

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High level business case for the MGIO

• Enterprise approach
• New adopters Lowers barriers for entry
• Avoids costs for new investment
• Specialized adopters Provides communal
  infrastructure to tap into
• Controls growth of costs
• Mature adopters Leverages their investments
  across the enterprise
• Extends benefits of existing investments
• Creation of Shared Service Centers

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The Cost of GIS to GovernmentProvides a baseline
for cost savings estimation

• GIS cost to government
• Conservatively12,564,000 /yr
• 10 efficiency would yield gt1M/yr. savings
• Controlling growth of costs
• Future avoided costs
• Have not seen this completed for any other state
• Thank you for your help!

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Opportunities Benefits

• Reducing the Cost of GIS
• Improved coordination
• Reduced duplication of effort
• More efficient data storage/management
• More effective software licensing
• Shared web applications and services
• Coordinated data acquisition, collection and
  compilation
• Common data distribution portal
• Communal strategic investments in data/technology

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Whats required to get there?

• Identified specific activities for the MGIO to
  pursue
• Collaborative approach respectful of agency
  involvement in developing technical architecture
• Accesses departmental expertise to deliver shared
  services

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Recommended Implementation Strategy

• Principles
• The MGIO is about facilitation and coordination,
  not production
• Leverage existing infrastructure and
  collaborative spirit of MN GIS stakeholders
• Incremental, phased approach
• Budgets will remain tight for the foreseeable
  future
• Priorities

Rank Program Element Priority Points (of 100)
1 Leadership, Outreach Communication 18.33
2 Data Coordination 15.80
3 Web Services 14.00
4 Data Services 13.20
5 Technology Coordination 12.07
6 Training 9.27
7 Technical Guidance 8.87
8 Project Consulting 8.47
TOTAL Points 100.00
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Staffing Requirements for a Successful MGIO

• High-level identification of teams
• Rough numbers of staff across activities
• Provides baseline that was modeled in budget
  scenarios

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How ambitious is this?What other states are doing
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Implementation Budget

• Recommended funding

Num Item Amount FTE
1 Base budget (existing LMIC appropriation) 804,000 6
2 New operating budget to fully staff the MGIO 800,000 10
3 New operating budget 200,000  
4 New data development and maintenance funding 1,250,000  
Sub-tot TOTAL Annual Appropriation 3,054,000 16
       
5 OTHER revenue (based on 2009 estimates) 700,000  

• 3 Additional Lower Cost Scenarios
• 650k operating increase 1M for data 2.54M
  annual 11 FTE
• 400k operating increase 250k for data 1.45M
  annual 9 FTE
• 350k operating increase 0 for data 1.15M
  annual 9 FTE
• Warning against a no new funding scenario
• Real transformation will be much more difficult
  without some new resources

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Risks Implementation Barriers

• Missing the unique timing of the Drive to
  Excellence initiative
• Loss of executive support for the proposed
  transformation
• Agency GIS programs need direction to follow this
  path
• Loss of agency GIS program support for the
  proposed transformation
• MGIO needs to continue transparency and active
  outreach to agencies
• Perceptions of insufficient transformation
• Inadequate funding
• Insufficient support for cross agency activities
• Inadequate performance of shared services and
  resources

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Success factors

• This is a well considered plan
• The state has done its homework
• There is senior executive support
• Through the D2E Cabinet
• The MN State Government GIS Community is
  committed and collaborative
• And continues to grow
• New technologies support this vision

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Summary Conclusion

• A large cross section of GIS practitioners from
  across the state, have invested time and energy
  in this process with the belief that this type of
  GIS transformation will address existing problems
  and help restore Minnesota to national GIS
  leadership. Expectations are high. The path
  forward has been identified. It is now time to
  move forward.