GIS Manager's Group

If you were not one of the lucky 450+ attendees of the 2024 Esri GIS Manager’s Summit (GISMS) on Sunday, July 14, 2024, during Esri UC, then here’s a heaping dose of FOMO that should convince you to add it to your future Esri International User Conference (UC) agendas.

At the GIS Managers Summit in July, attendees were able to submit questions for our live panel. While we had some great answers, there were dozens of questions we didn’t have time for, so we’re going to answer them here!

Our panelists will be posting, Q&A-style, over the next several weeks, so check back here regularly!

This week, @MatthewLewin1 (Matt Lewin) answered some question addressed to him

At the GIS Managers Summit in July, attendees were able to submit questions for our live panel. While we had some great answers, there were dozens of questions we didn’t have time for, so we’re going to answer them here!

Our panelists will be posting, Q&A-style, over the next several weeks, so check back here regularly!

This week, Jim Pardue answered questions about strategy

At the GIS Managers Summit last week, attendees were able to submit questions for our live panel. While we had some great answers, there were dozens of questions we didn’t have time for, so we’re going to answer them here!

Our panelists will be posting, Q&A-style, over the next several weeks, so check back here regularly!

This week, @Kara_Shindle answered questions about building a proactive team.

The GIS Manager's Summit was back in person for the first time since 2019. Over 200 people participated in the 11th Summit before the International User Conference in San Diego, CA on Sunday, July 9th, 2023. Here are some highlights, photos, the slides, and reasons to add this special event to your future UC calendar.

At the upcoming GIS Managers Summit, ArcGIS users will be sharing from their experience leveraging GIS across their organizations, and @Kara_Shindle will be talking about how your GIS team can take a proactive approach to leveraging GIS in your organization.

The bottom line – Too many GIS teams spend their time responding to urgent needs, and can’t get ahead of the game to be more proactive.  So, Kara uses a four-step approach with her team to get to a more proactive place.

“I have established boundaries that protect us so we can grow as a department, and we now look forward to new projects” – Kara Shindle

Whether you’re preparing for the GIS Managers Summit on June 9th, or preparing to make a shift in how your team operates, you can consider these four steps:

• Defining goals – What measurable objectives can you set for your team, what are the barriers to those objectives and how can you manage or break down those barriers?
• Determine capabilities – What does your team need, what requests are coming in, what can you handle and where does your time actually go?

Kara’s team keeps a dashboard of time spent

• Communicate – Where are the places in your organization where you can communicate success, and where can you receive communications about needs?
• Commit – Staying on the path and trusting the process once you’ve established the first three steps, measuring success and reporting outcomes to key stakeholders

Want to dig into more details?  If you’re in San Diego early for the Esri User Conference, you can join Kara and others at the GIS Managers Summit on June 9th – it's free for registered attendees to Esri's User Conference.  If you can’t make the summit, Kara will be sharing more afterward, in the GIS Managers User Group in Esri Community.  You can also read her ArcNews article detailing more.

Kara is the GIS Director for Franklin County, PA. Kara earned a Geo-Environmental Studies degree & GIS certificate from Shippensburg University in 2010.  She earned both a Geospatial Programming and Web Map Development certificate from PennState and her GIS professional certification in 2021, and is planning to graduate with a Masters in GIS from PennState in the fall of 2023. In her free time, she chases after her 3 year old and likes to sew, garden, and take care of her chickens.

At this year's Esri User Conference, take advantage of opportunities to learn directly from Esri Services experts who specialize in helping GIS leaders gain stakeholder buy-in and drive adoption.

At the upcoming GIS Managers Summit, Jim Pardue will be talking about how many of your peers have successfully developed a strategy to apply GIS to their business needs.  Of all the Esri customers Jim has helped with, to drive a strategy, they all started with three key roles.  The key to these roles is to include people from the beginning, who are not GIS users like you. 

Move from reactive to proactive when managing ArcGIS Enterprise with a tool that provides insight through reporting, visualization, and alerts.