Geospatial Governance

Many organisations are struggling with ‘Geospatial Governance’. This is a complex subject because it involves many aspects of how the operation of GIS capabilities are structured, particularly within medium to large organisations.

What is 'governance'?

One part of the challenge with this topic is that it is that concept of 'governance' is often poorly understood. Within some organisations 'governance' gets confused with 'management' when they are actually different things. Some GIS managers assume that they should be solely responsible for geospatial governance, which might work in very small organisations if there is a clear separation between operational focus and governance focus, but typically it is not advised for most organisations. Sometimes 'governance' is also used to refer to 'quality assurance' where a member of a GIS Team is checking a map or app created by a business team: this is an issue of semantics but it is advisable to make a clear distinction between these terms.

The New Zealand Institute of Directors uses this definition:

“Governance means thinking about strategic issues, rather than the operational day-to-day running of the business.”

The New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment makes these statements:

“Governance is about the time you dedicate to working ‘on’ your business, rather than ‘in’ it. This includes all the checks and balances you put in place to ensure your business runs smoothly, meets its objectives, and stays out of trouble. Governance also means getting expert advice on matters you don’t yet know enough about, plus support when making big decisions.?” https://www.business.govt.nz/business-performance/governance/what-governance-is/

Matthew Lewin from Esri Canada makes this observation:

“Governance is not management. Governance is about setting direction. Management is about executing according to those directions.”

- Matt Lewin https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcuser/governance-for-gis-decisions-and-decision-making/

Responsibilities for Geospatial Governance

To better understand and implement geospatial governance it is useful to have frameworks to work with. The diagram below indicates the framework that we use to aid our clients as the seek to improve their geospatial governance.

It is important to consider the difference between management and governance when looking at the elements of the diagram above:

1) Governance is about setting the strategic direction for each of these elements and the ensuring that there are 'checks and balances' in place to ensure that the direction is being followed. This may involve ensuring that controls are put in place covering these elements, where those controls might be:

• Software controls such as appropriate security, permissions and privileges.
• Formal and firm policies, protocols and defined processes.
• Guidelines: which can be less formal and may have reasonable exceptions.
• Defined roles and responsibilities for staff to carry out specific activities
• Training/skill levels before staff are permitted to carry out different activities

It is important to remember that while the governance function should define what is expected with these items above that does not mean that they need to actually write the policies or define the training levels etc themselves: a governance committee will often delegate the detail to others, but should monitor how well that delegation is being actioned.

2) Management is about implementing the directions that have been set by the governance function. While management often also covers all of the elements outlined in the diagram above it is less about defining what should be done, but instead it is more about putting that direction into practice. The management function should also be reporting on compliance and progress to the governance function. The management function should also be assigning resources to get into the details of what needs to be done.

GIS Management role in Governance

Where some confusion occurs for many organisations is that they do not have a formally defined 'GIS Governance Committee' and instead defer to the GIS Manager to run both governance and management. As indicated in the definitions of governance at the top of this article that can be problematic for the GIS Manager because it is often difficult for one person to separate the responsibilities of governance from the responsibilities of management. Certainly there can be a seat on a geospatial governance committee for the GIS manager, but to ensure that the appropriate distinction is made between governance and management it is advisable to include other leaders on that committee as well.

Using a framework to build up the detail

The High-Level Responsibilities framework above is a useful tool to use a checklist to determine whether your organisation is covering all of those elements well enough. The Eagle Business Consulting team has many tools, templates and best practice resources to aid your organisation with implementing or enhancing 'what sits under all of the diagram boxes'. Please reach out to us if you would like more details.