Strategy Development

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) mission is to “Sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of the public”. This mission requires a diverse workforce that encompasses a wide variety of disciplines; each contributing their skills to its diverse and challenging mission. 

The BLM collects, analyzes, and uses data in every aspect of its work, making Information Technology (IT) and agency data vital to accomplishing its mission. To keep pace with the rapidly changing technology landscape and to get the most out of its data, the BLM needed to rethink its data management and IT strategy in 2017. Xentity assisted BLM in developing its IT strategy and facilitating its implementation. The requirements for this project included:

1) Identifying the most significant business opportunities for the mission, while…

2) Transforming the IT organization to an IT Services Model that meets all possible expectations. 

Adopting Best Practices To Create A More Efficient Process

At the time of the project initiation, the BLM’s IT department lacked the ability to communicate the “mission” of the BLM (managing land, improving oil leases, etc.) to the rest of the agency. They wanted to create a strategy to improve IT communication, improve organizational efforts, and deal with a lot of their unaccounted for work. People would get tasks but then lose traction and the ability to execute on a grander scale. They also wanted to figure out how to implement ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure and Library) and agile more effectively.

These areas the BLM struggled in severely impacted their efficiency and output. Work was left unaccounted for. Furthermore, there were hundreds of what are known as “boutique applications” developed by BLM staff. They were trying to solve problems on their own, and consequently creating security challenges. Also, standards and other challenges in trying to track their own data. And on a grand scale, the BLM could not coordinate their data with all of their many national applications.

In response, Xentity developed a process to integrate It and data best practices into the BLM’s programs. This included agile, ITIL and TBM (Technology Business Management). In turn, Xentity was better able to define performance, and not just for IT but also for capital planning governance. For example, in capital planning, they would measure the performance of a major system against x, y and z, when the major system affects much more. We required a new design for service architecture to hit the other objectives/goals. The idea of the BLM’s service architecture was to measure by service, not by system return. Xentity also developed an implementation guidance to assist the BLM in adopting and adapting to these new models.

Something New, But Very Exciting

The communication and acceptance of the new IT and data paradigm has changed the IT department. Also, the BLM is very excited to continue working with the new concepts the IT strategy has provided. This strategy has helped to create a positive change in the BLM IT department’s culture. Also, it created changes in communication for the organization as a whole.