Your Questions Answered – GIS Program & Team Management

[StevenAustin]

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, @JamesPardue2 (Jim) answered questions about GIS program & team management:

Q:  What advice would you give to a manager without a "manager" title and how to best make the case to promote to such a title within their organization?

A:My advice would be two parts.

The first part addresses a manager not having the title “manager”. While on one hand I understand having a proper title to reflect what one does day to day is important to a lot of people, a title does not necessarily make a GIS leader. What I mean by that is that there are a lot of people out there who do not have a title as a GIS manager but they in fact lead GIS within their organizations very effectively. That being said, how does one make the case to promote the title of GIS manager within their organization? I would suggest that one start with their boss, their manager by making the case to them first. Seek out who you work for and make the case that the organization should have someone who holds that title and that you should be that person. Start with listing the benefits to the organization in regard to having a GIS manager and describe what is the impact of a GIS manager.

Second, research job descriptions, and responsibilities for the role of GIS manager. Reach out to other GIS managers that you know in your network, or better yet, leverage this group in Esri Community and ask for copies of their role and responsibility descriptions. Next, show where you are actively executing the role daily already. GIS managers have a technical function and a leader and managerial function. Justify the position first, then make your case for who should fill it.

Q: Any advice on how to increase a GIS team’s number of allocated staff positions while keeping morale high in the current GIS team when they feel over-worked?

A: To work on morale, small things matter. Schedule an impromptu team lunch or breakfast by ordering pizza or breakfast burritos in the office. Carve out an hour to do this. Bring in bake goods (cake, cookies) to serve to the team as a way of recognizing their hard work. Start or end the day on occasion my recognizing that they are overworked and have an executive state how appreciative the organization is for their hard work. Recognize someone’s efforts monthly. We used to have a pro wrestling belt that sat on someone’s desk for a month until a new person was recognized for hard work.

The best way to increase the team’s number is to track stats on how much work you are doing, the number of customers you are servicing, products (data, maps, apps, etc) you are producing, and the impact that the work is having (think ROI) to the departments you are doing the work for. Another way is to show an increase in a new capability and justify how you require someone to provide that capability full time. Combine them both to bolster your case. Lobby other department leads to support your cause. When you have the support and stats to support your requirement, then create a solid justification. Another method is to train GIS super-users in other departments and utilize them to take on some of the workload within the departments they are from. Lastly, consider a GIS self-service model whereas you provide training and support to analyst in other departments so that they eventually become self sufficient in maintaining their own department data, maps and apps.

Q: What’s one thing you’d recommend to young managers as they enter leadership spaces?

A: Mastering soft skills (really the harder skills) are just as important as technical skills, but don’t get as much love. Things like people skills, resolving conflict, talking with executives, marketing your team/program, winning support, mentoring, leading professional development, leading training, formulating the culture you want are all absolute critical skills to have as a GIS leader. We usually default to the technical mode and focus all of our energy on developing these skills until one day, uh-oh, we are in charge.

GIS leaders don’t magically go to some school and then they are ready to go out and lead. We must grow them from within. That is a long game. If you are a GIS leader, then recognize those within your team/program who have the most potential and mentor and grow them. I think it is in this area most new GIS leaders struggle. My advice is to seek out someone you respect and admire who is successful in a leadership position and learn from them. Find a Yoda, it is the way.

Q: Aside from kicking the door down on the people-leaders of an organization, and not to look like you are being intrusive or appear as being a busy body, how do you ensure you "aren't the last to know"? ...especially when the organization knows GIS is a "thing"?

A: The way I have approached this in the past was two-fold.

First, it is fine to get out and about and meet with executives and leaders to discuss all things geospatial. I encourage this. Just be mindful of their time. Have an elevator pitch at the ready on what is happening with GIS in the Organization. There will be moments when you run into a leader or executive and they ask how things are going. Capitalize on those times with a 5-7 minute GIS update. You could get a “Stop by my office and tell me more about that” moment.

Another suggestion is to find your way to be embedded within key meetings, especially on major projects and initiatives. That way you can always provide the “geospatial perspective”. Talk with key leaders and explain to them how GIS is needs to be considered in the planning process of everything within the organization. The sooner it is injected the greater the ROI.

Q: Any recommendations for augmenting staff when teams are understaffed or having knowledge gap? 

A: A very popular question.

1. Learn to train the trainer. Send one key person to get training on a skill sets and have them come back and train everyone else.
2. Inventory your internal skills and capabilities. Bob is a solid data base person while Jill is strong in python scripting. Have them put together train and train your other team’s members. Grow and propagate your skills across the team, then across the organization.
3. Create GIS liaisons within other departments or use the model Marna McLain is using at the city of Austin, designate SPOCs, GIS Single Points of Contact within departments. Then train them and they can become extensions of your team.
4. Look at developing a GIS self-service model whereas departments take a leading role in developing and maintaining their own GIS data, maps, and apps and become more self-sufficient. This is a long game approach but has major benefits when accomplished. 

Q: How do you keep employees on your team? We only have “analyst” roles within our team. How do you create “growth” within your team of analysts to retain them?

A: This is always one of my favorite questions because I had to address this head on several times in my career.

1. Create additional roles, but that depends on how big your team is. Full disclosure, at one point I managed a very large (25+) GIS team. To address this, I created a data manager role, a python scripting role, an instructor role, etc. I had my team rotate into these positions every year.
2. Another option I utilized, I created roles within certain departments and had my team members rotate in and out of these positions every year as well.
3. The I created a career roadmap that accounted for several years moving into and out of these various roles in order to create a very skilled and diverse team.
4. I also ran monthly professional development sessions that alternated between technical development and leader development. Then I had my analysts lead these sessions.
5. I sent my junior people to conferences as a reward for performance.
6. I taught everyone basic project management skills and would look for opportunities to have my team members lead projects such as a software implementation, creating a new capability such as 3D or imagery, teaching a new skill across the team, or working on messaging and outreach across departments.
7. Things like governance, developing new standards or policies, or tackling tough problems, can be assigned to a working group and one of your GIS analysts can lead that effort.

The key is to work with what you have, get creative, and make it meaningful, challenging and beneficial.