Summary

The U.S. Forest Service – Geospatial Technology and Applications Center (GTAC) provides support to a wide variety of land and resource management needs across the Agency.  The effort supported many offices including for the Office of Sustainability and Climate, Office of Communication, Office of Tribal Relations, USFS Open Data, and USFS AGOL.

Problem and Solution

GTAC currently supports an Enterprise Data Services (EDS) Team. This team collaborates with Forest Service programs to render authoritative enterprise map and data services. As a result, they inform Forest Service decision making. This collaboration serves the needs of diverse programs and partnerships such as the Office of Sustainability and Climate, the Office of Communications, the Office of Tribal Relations, the Open Data Program, the Forest Service ArcGIS Online Organization, and soon-to-be reporting and visualization initiatives associated with the Great American Outdoors Act. As the number and diversity of EDS programs and projects increases, coordinating and managing these projects becomes challenging. The purpose of this task was to provide project management and coordination. 

As the team developed tools and published new data services, we documented project work, coordinated and facilitated relevant technical meetings. To start, Xentity understood that GTAC anticipated a continued and growing need for project management of geospatial data and service projects supported by the EDS team. First, we provided overall project management in order to coordinate project activities with GTAC and Forest Service GTAC partners. We worked closely with the project delivery team and task stakeholders and leadership to develop a work plan to guide project activities. Using several mechanisms, we ensured projects were professionally managed and delivered and established project controls which play a key role in delivering projects on-time and within budget. We utilized proven Project Management Institute (PMI) IT project management principles and best practices to manage projects. 

Outcome and Benefit

Our efforts helped in moving into Software deliverable lifecycle (SDLC) methods where we could apply an Agile Scrum Delivery Methodology (ADSM) to effectively develop and deliver geospatial applications for GTAC. Also, our project management helped GTAC and EDS better organize their projects and workload. Our efforts ultimately helped aid GTAC through a variety of different projects for the EDS program.