A Guide for Your Geospatial Journey: Lessons I Learned from Leading GIS Teams

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create”?Albert Einstein

Building and leading GIS, Geospatial, or GEOINT teams can be challenging at best. As the GIS and IT worlds grow more intertwined and reliant upon each other, the need for highly proficient teams and the leadership required to lead those teams is critical in today’s fast paced technological driven business environments. Add to this the vast void of relevant and useful reference materials on GIS leadership, Geospatial Strategy or how to build a proficient team and it can seem like running up a sandy slope with a fifty-pound pack on your back. Two steps forward, slipping one step back.

A few years ago, as a way to “pay it forward”, I started posting monthly tips on LinkedIn based on my 35 years of GIS experiences building and leading Geospatial/GEOINT teams across the globe in nine different countries. The tips focused on what I had learned through trials and tribulations and the methods I’ve adopted as templates for success. I have been fortunate to have had the opportunities to build from the ground up or redesign and lead teams in the military, academia, and federal service consisting of 5-50 personnel covering mixed skills such as GIS, imagery, remote sensing, 3D model development, etc. Over the course of those 35 years, I could never find enough useful material to quench my intellectual and professional thirst that “showed me the way” per say. This collection of tips and recommendations are derived from lessons learned from setbacks and successes earned from many cuts, scrapes, scars, and bruises along the way. These are things that were successful for me and some I turned into repeatable best practices. My hope is that this may serve as a light in the fog, a map through the forest, and a pathfinding guide that allows your leadership journey to be less of a struggle and more of an informed learning experience. Be forewarned, this is a long read. Let’s get started with the 20 lessons I learned…….

Lesson #1 - Build a GIS “Team of Action” from your team: Recommendation

A team of action is a concept that I have implemented at the last four organizations I have worked for. Think of this as a small team within your team, one that you can laser focus on solving complex or challenging issues. Every worker is not a go-getter, problem solver, or tenaciously reliable, yet they do have potential and we want to mentor all of them. This does not mean they are bad workers. There is something to be said however for harnessing the work ethic and intellectual curiosity of a collective group of individuals that share the same traits. Traits such as:

• ??Work a problem until a solution is developed
• ??Not afraid of investing time. Willing to work something that may take six months of nub work
• ??Intellectually curious. Willing to pull “the thread” on something and follow it down a path
• ??Understand that failure is a temporary setback and part of the process
• ??Maintains high standards on quality of work
• ??Does not stop working on an issue due to obstacles or challenges, works around, under, over or through to achieve results or a solution
• ?Is consistently reliable
• ??Willing to teach others

Now imagine if you could harness the brain power of a group of these like-minded individuals collectively on the same problem set.?I like to think of this as tapping into "the Avengers for GIS". Over time this attracts talent from within and elevates everyone to “pick up their game” a bit. This team should be used sparingly (think calling 911) when trying to work through or solve wicked problems or no-fail tasks. A side benefit to this group is how it starts to transfer knowledge and expertise over time. Not just amongst themselves but throughout the organization. If you are interested in learning more about this method then listen to the audio recording of Napoleon Hill, the author who wrote Think Rich, Grow Rich. That is where I got the idea 20 years ago and it has never failed me. Lastly, this is easier to accomplish if you have a larger team, say 15-20 people versus a smaller team of five. For smaller teams use the same concept that involves the entire team.

Lesson #2 - Build a geospatial mindset into your team: Best Practice

View everything you do through a geospatial prism. A mindset is defined as an established set of values. For many this can be a new approach and perspective when you start taking a business minded approach to GIS. One business-minded aspect that you should take is that your users are customers. It does not matter if you are from the private, government or academic sectors. GIS shops, sections, teams, or organizations provide products and services. I have found that the most successful GIS organizations are those that recognize this and view their end users as customers.?A customer is defined as a party that receives or consumes products (goods and services) and has the ability to choose between different products and suppliers. This generally describes end users of GIS products. Client, consumer, clientele, end user all work, but I prefer to reference them as customers and take a customer centric approach when dealing with them. If you understand this, thus understanding that you must take care of your customers, you start to rethink your entire approach to what your GIS team provides and the standard and manner in which it provides those services and products. No matter where you work, by understanding the value of integrating your GIS capabilities across all business lines of your organization, you then enable and empower users to take advantage of location intelligence that supports better business decision making by fully integrating business intelligence into operations for your customers.

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Lesson #3 - Employee Professional Development 1: Best Practice

When it comes to GIS employee professional development, there are huge benefits to be reaped when you train your GIS employees to be teachers. I do not mean formal teachers as we would think in a school setting, but teachers who will have an eye to recognize teachable moments in all aspects of the workplace or on projects and capitalize on those moments when they arise. Empowering them to train each other takes your internal individual strengths and skillsets and feeds them back into the collective group. Figuring out how to transfer geospatial knowledge, experience and expertise is one of the biggest challenges a GIS team can face but it also allows a GIS organization to reap huge benefits, and it costs nothing. One trick I have often used is to turn the workspace into a live open teaching/learning environment. Have subject matter experts and senior analysts keep their ears to the ground to encourage on the spot lessons and training and the exchange of knowledge. Everyone teaches everyone, and everyone can learn from everyone. Fully utilize all your internal expertise.

Lesson #4 - Employee Professional Development 2: Recommendation

Have a road map on how employees geospatially develop over time, think getting from journeymen, to intermediate, to advanced levels. Over time, how do they expand their knowledge and skillsets and avoid being stuck doing the same thing every day? Do not be afraid to let employees transition to other sections in order to expand their skillsets. An example of this is a geospatial analyst with strong scripting skills that wants to transfer to the IT section to work system design or enterprise administration. I have seen numerous examples where that individual came back to the GIS section with increased capabilities that enhanced the analysts around them. I have also seen examples where the analyst left the organization forever in order to grow and advance in trade craft elsewhere. This is part of the process, do not let it allow you to become risk adverse for fear of losing an employee.

Lesson #5 - Market your team and their capabilities: Best Practice

GIS organizations that proactively engage their customer base with an effective marketing plan tend to garner more funding, growth, and overall success. In any business, a solid, sound and properly executed business plan sets the foundation for future growth and development. In the GIS world, that business plan can be achievable when exercised through a well thought out geospatial strategy. Market what GIS is. Market how web mapping is not just for geospatial people. Show executives how to use GIS. Market how anyone can become a GIS user. Market how GIS solves problems and how GIS makes the company successful? Market how Dashboards can assist in situational awareness, decision making or how ArcGIS Insights or a like technology can assist with new ways to view data and see patterns in business data. Market to individual departments based on their unique needs. Hang up posters and flyers with GIS POCs and examples of GIS capabilities. Disseminate throughout the organization successful internal use cases and case study white papers. Market successful GIS applications and solutions throughout the organization, both vertically and horizontally. Hang geospatial products and maps in the workplace corridors/halls or where employees line up for the cafeteria, breakroom or coffee kiosk as art and conversation pieces.

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Lesson #6 - Establishing a Geospatial Culture: Recommendation

This is essentially a way that you approach establishing your workforce/workplace culture with a geospatial focus. There are a lot of dividends to be reaped when and if you can change your workforce’s mentality or attitude to adopt a group internal code, ethos, or mindset. These may appear to look like company or corporate values. The difference is that these examples are attached to shared messaging among the leaders, they are referenced and stressed while taking advantage of all opportunities and they are not only approached from a business perspective, but a business perspective with constant GIS/Geospatial context and references. This becomes your GIS brand. Your geospatial reputation. When you achieve buy-in on this from your workforce, you then have something golden, self-ownership of a geospatial culture that takes care of itself. I have learned through trials and tribulations that your work culture is like a garden. If you do not define it, work it, water it, and nourish it…..it will define itself through neglect and the adoption of bad habits.

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Lesson #7 - Move your team from reactive to proactive: Best Practice

Change your approach from being reactive to end user’s product requests to proactively providing geospatial solutions that solve operational business problem sets. In other words, do not wait to be asked to produce GIS products and solutions. Instead of waiting for people to ask, learn their processes, challenges and what keeps department heads and executives awake at night. Then proactively work solutions that improve their operations. Learn the role of each department or directorate within your company/organization and create custom GIS products, data, graphics, or processes that they can use in answering tough corporate questions or help with managing resources or improving efficiencies. Make the shipping department GIS products that assist in routing, tracking or distribution center analysis. Assist the HR department with employee locator maps or building layout diagrams. Assist the sales department with location and demographic analysis for new sales areas. The list goes on. Learn the problem, create a solution, solve it, or represent it spatially, and then play Santa Clause and deliver the solution. Initial success is currency in the bank, deliver - and they will come again and again.

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Lesson #8 - Create a Community of Practice to market GIS through training: Best Practice

Hold "Lunch and Learn" or "Brown Bag" GIS training sessions.?Often times these sessions are limited in time to 30-45 minutes. Announce topics on a recurring schedule. Follow-up these GIS training sessions with "desk-side" user engagements to better understand workflows and methods. Connect with power users within departments to create an internal GIS network. Create a “one-stop-shop” for all things GIS training (tutorials, videos, how-to’s) on an internal network or web site. Publish a newsletter that discusses GIS training available, new data holdings, tips and tricks, etc. Make a story map for executives to learn how to use them, do the same with dashboards. Have how-to’s on everything available to get new users started (Dashboard, Story Maps, Insights, AGOL, etc. whatever the flavor of GIS tool/application). Start a “Get Started with GIS” or a “The Basics of Business Intelligence” traveling workshop that stops by departments and tries to get on their internal training calendar for 1-2-hour sessions providing the spark for new users. Create a GIS community of practice and lead it.

Lesson #9 - Develop A Geospatial Ethos: Recommendation

When I use the term ethos, think in terms of a creed that your team will perform and live by as it does its business. This is part of instilling collective values, messaging, shared branding and internal GIS culture. Here is an example of a geospatial ethos for a team:

“Our end users are our customers who consume products and services we provide, and we must treat them as we would want to be treated as customers ourselves. Our credibility is our currency in the bank with our customers. When our customers think of us, they must think in terms of integrity, reliability, accuracy, timeliness, selflessness. We are forward-thinking problem solvers. We are intimately aware of our customers’ needs and requirements, and we are always proactively creating products and services that help them succeed. Product or service delivery is not our end state. We ensure our customers are experts in utilizing the GIS solutions we provide and are prepared to advise, assist, and educate as needed. All data that has a location and time/date aspect is geospatial data. We are the organization’s experts in geospatial data. Geospatial data is the blood life that flows through our GIS infrastructure/enterprise. Never forget that bad geospatial data input always equals bad results, products, services, analysis, or output. Data accuracy is always a priority.”

Please feel free to use this in its entirety or portions of it as inspiration for your team.

Lesson #10 - Train, Train, Train: Best Practice

Being out front, in the lead, or at the tip takes work, consistent hard work. Just as a world class athlete must constantly train and work hard to stay at the top of their game so do world class GIS organizations. When you are not producing or creating you are training and improving. Become comfortable with constant self-assessing by looking for opportunities to improve not only performance but improving capabilities, processes, methodologies, and increased efficiency. Become comfortable with being uncomfortable, always pushing the extents of your spatial comfort zone. Train to change your thinking. Historically GIS professionals and organizations have viewed their tradecraft as reactively providing products to fulfill customer requests. Transition to viewing what you do as proactively solving complex spatial problems utilizing GIS that provides geospatial solutions. Dare to break the “GIS is map making” or “dots on a map” mold. Build a learning organization that moves from map aware, to spatial analysis, then onto predictive analysis. Don’t just answer the where. Answer the what, where, how and why of spatial problem solving utilizing a multi-source, activity based analytic approach. Assess what skills you need to complete 80% of what you routinely get asked to do. Develop a plan to get everyone proficient at those skills. Everyone is required to perform those skills flawlessly. Take a risk on only having a few people capable of the other 20%, try to mitigate that risk some. Those 80% skills must include what your team cannot fail at. Once proficiency is achieved, then you can focus on the other 20% or new capabilities. You cannot train on everything all the time, so we must have some mechanism to prioritize our time and funds into training. Training ourselves with existing expertise is always the preferred method. It also builds teamwork and improves bonding. Use free expertise elsewhere. If you work for a city, leverage expertise from the county GIS team. If you work in a county, leverage GIS expertise from the state GIS team.

Lesson #11 - Our geospatial workforce is our greatest asset: Best Practice

Investment in the GIS workforce is an investment in the future of the organization. Take care of the workforce and they will take care of the mission. There is a direct correlation between the amount of time invested into developing people and the amount of success a GIS organization experiences. Training is one aspect of the GIS workforce professional development process. Training is often focused at the individual level and often leaves team development overlooked. Team development equates to increases in geospatial capabilities and capacity. A good GIS professional development program breeds inspiring GIS leaders for your organization’s future. This is referred to as “growing your own” leaders. These future leaders are part of the workforce development process that selects and hires the right kind of people, who are mentored by the right managers, who are provided guidance from current GIS leaders. Start planting GIS seeds to grow geospatial trees for the future.

Lesson #12 - It’s about the people - Workforce development: Best Practice

A big part of successfully leading a GIS/Geospatial organization, department or team is to ensure you are addressing the full spectrum of workforce development. Workforce development is a vital key ingredient in developing a mature and advanced team. It means investing time and resources in your most important asset, your people. It means you have a governance process in place to address the development and maturation of an individual from first hire to leading their own team. Ensure your geospatial workforce development plan addresses:

• Hiring & selection
• Onboarding process
• Mentoring program
• Training plan
• Professional development
• Talent management
• Leader development
• Team development
• Skill gap & capability analysis
• Workplace culture

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Lesson #13 - 7 Traits of Highly Effective GIS Leaders: Recommendation

Stephen Covey is notably known for his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." Covey's book address powerful lessons in personal change by exploring principles and psychology trends focused on self-improvement, influence, and collaboration. This lesson will explore the same principles as established by Covey, but through a geospatial lens.?Listed are the 7 Habits Highly Effective GIS Leaders that I have learned and passed down too many future GIS leaders:

• They have a vision, a plan, and a road map to achieve their goals - they have a geospatial strategy, have implemented it, and they are continuously evaluating and adjusting it along the journey.
• They understand it is about the people, the Workforce - their largest investment. Therefor they invest by training and properly resourcing the GIS staff.
• They define their workspace/organization’s culture – they do not let it define itself.
• They are innovative and adaptive - they are building the train while it’s rolling down the tracks.
• They understand that data is the blood that flows within the GIS enterprise - it is critical to credibility ……. and credibility is currency.
• They integrate geospatial capabilities across the entire business enterprise – they know how to go from a single skill to a collection of skills, people and technology that delivers new capabilities. They focus on building “capabilities”. Capabilities that solve the organization’s, the business, or higher headquarters challenges.
• They are constantly improving their foxhole (fighting position) – self assess - self eval, adjust, improvise, improve, and move on, repeat as required (often, it’s a cycle)

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Lesson #14 - Maximizing your GIS Return on Investment: Best Practice

Is your team providing geospatial solutions across the following business patterns: data management, planning, analysis, field mobility (forward deployed), operational support, situational awareness, and customer engagement? Personally, I would add workforce development to this list. Do you have a geospatial strategy that provides a roadmap for the future? Have you assessed integrating GIS into all your organization’s business systems? Have you taken advantage of the full spectrum of spatial analysis uncovering trends and patterns? Have you transformed the perception of how GIS is normally thought of; that it is a problem solving and solution providing business multiplier and not just about making maps and pretty graphics?

Start tracking your metrics. It starts by knowing what services and products you provide and how long it takes to create them. Have in place a method that tracks all requests you receive whether it is for products, services, data or creating apps. When you get a request in to create a shaded relief map over an image layer with grids, know how long that takes and record who the requestor was, what department it came from, what was it in support of, how long it took to make and what support skills were required (data munging, conditioning, writing a script, workflow or methodology used, number of people and hours, data needed, dependencies, and unique skills). If you do this with everything, over the course of a year you can analyze to determine a lot of useful information. What are your most requested products or services, who are your biggest requestors, who on your team is doing most of the heavy lifting, where are the bottle necks and skill gaps, where are you at risk and vulnerable, i.e., single points of failure, and where you need to invest more in training. You can also then use the same information to show ROI on investments in new workflows, technologies, or capabilities over time such as saved production time or man hours or even reduced steps in processes or processing. This can then be translated into dollar amounts over time as well. You can also then illustrate increased adoption and usage of GIS across the organization through self-service, freeing up the team to focus more on the business and less on users. The benefit of enabling and empowering. Fully leveraging your GIS technology and capabilities as an enterprise business system will provide a geographic advantage to the organization. That advantage can and will be measured in doing things faster, cheaper, safer, more efficient, smarter, etc. Lastly, learn to articulate the value the GIS team and that GIS technology brings to the organization and individual departments. Message that value over and over until stakeholders understand it and they message it themselves.

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Lesson #15 - Technical expertise vs Domain expertise, develop both: Recommendation

One of the challenges within workforce development is how to go about encouraging and tracking continuous improvement of personnel. Enacting a process that encourages everyone to keep learning while keeping metrics on how and what they are learning not only encourages pride in this area but collectively keeps everyone trying to expand their knowledge base. Normally this is accomplished through a two-tiered process of self-assessment and evaluation by internal subject matter or technical experts.

• Technical Expertise is performing at the advanced level of your tradecraft. There is breadth and depth to this. In the GIS world I would break out breadth into sub-categories such as geospatial analysis, imagery analysis, remote sensing, 3D visualization, data management, scripting & tool development, teaching/instructing, etc. This is an example of an attempt to holistically capture all areas of GIS skills subjectively required to make one an expert over time when mastered to a level of established standards. I would define depth as mastering one of more aspects of a specific sub-category mentioned previously. Consider a mechanic. You have mechanics who have expertise across all kinds of automobiles, such as 4x4 trucks, European or Asian cars, and even motorcycles. A broad expertise across all types of vehicles. Then you have mechanics who may be the premier experts on certain cars like Fords, and ultimately a mile deep in transmissions or electrical systems. Focus on determining and developing the technical expertise required within your organization or team.
• Domain Expertise is a subject-matter expert (SME) or a person who is an authority in an area or field. An example is someone who understands GIS use and its implementation across the Defense/Intel areas, in the public safety, education, or utility fields as well. Another example is someone who has worked GIS in field operations conducting field work, has instructed in academia, worked software development and perhaps the sales side of the business as well. A third example is someone who works in a state level emergency operations center as a GIS analyst but has also has experience serving first responders and disaster response, so they know the workflows, methods, and requirements of those on the ground. They speak the language and have authentic “street cred” with those on the ground. They know what to deliver, when to deliver it, how it is to be used int the field and don’t have to wait for a request to come in, they are proactive based on their domain knowledge, technical expertise and experience.

In all three examples strong technical abilities combined with experience and robust domain expertise provides a more rounded mastery of the skills sets. Having a way to track the development of both over time goes a long way in identifying both collective and individual strengths and gaps. Having the ability to realistically assess workforce strengths and gaps allows you to target them effectively through an efficient training plan and not waste time or resources.

Once I was questioned by my leadership why I wanted to bring in a new hire into my GIS team who had no GIS skills. The person in question had skills in "R" and MATLAB, had interned at a prestigious agency, and had a proven track record in a skill set my team did not have and that was very difficult to teach. My answer to my leadership team was that I had a team of running backs and receivers. I needed a field goal kicker with back-up quarterback abilities. I could teach this person GIS skills and it would be worth the time investment on my end. Getting this person to teach his skills to my team and being able to proliferate those skill sets across my team, was invaluable in the long run and delivered to me new capabilities not possible before.

Lesson #16 - View your tradecraft as a profession: Recommendation

Professionals in professions work and function in a certain way. They write their papers to a standard, they have requirements to document workflows and processes, they have governance, they maintain standards, they attend seminars for growth, contribute to idea sharing, thought leadership and collaboration, they utilize peer review in testing and publications. Treat your GIS profession the same way. Make your teams function as if they were a profession. Require rigid testing on new ideas. Allow R&D to become part of your processes. Enforce white papers on new concepts, workflows, processes, and GIS tool development. Enforce a high standard on authoritative data and content. Employ governance throughout. Start a geospatial professional development program in your organization that includes mentoring and sponsoring. Start a program to educate your leaders and workforce. Learn to teach and learn from within. Turn your workspace into an open learning environment. Reach out to me if you want to learn how I did this successfully as a case study. ?

Lesson #17 - Mentor, mentor, grow your own future geospatial leaders: Best Practice

Mentoring must be a foundational part of your GIS team/program. The passing of knowledge through generations has been vital to human existence. GIS leaders are hard to find. We have no widespread schools that focus on this in a way that it creates large numbers of future leaders or prepares young leaders as potential future leaders. At least not part of an institutionalized structured system in academia. GIS leaders then must be mentored, nurtured, guided, and grown, by…….. existing GIS leaders. GIS leaders must make it part of their duties and responsibilities to identify potential GIS leaders and then provide them with a learning environment to grow in. Provide them with lessons learned, tips, recommendations, and best practices learned. Provide them with guidance and insight. Provide them challenging opportunities to grow and ask questions. Provide them with a network. Provide them a lifeline to stay connected with even after they move on and leave from under your wing. Make mentoring them a lifetime activity, a trusted relationship built over time. See my article here on the mentor and mentee relationship.

“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”?Rabindranath Tagore

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Lesson #18 - Build geospatial capabilities. Best Practice

What is a geospatial capability? Let’s start with what is a capability. At its most simplistic, I view a capability as a tool in a toolbox. Now, view your GIS team as a toolbox, a collection of tools. Each tool (capability) has a function just like a hammer, wrench, screwdriver, etc. For GIS think spatial analytics, utility networking, python scripting, 3D model generation, data management, cartography, imagery analysis or interpretation, remote sensing, ArcGIS portal administration, etc.

A geospatial capability is a collective group of individual tasks, processes, tools, performance standards, knowledge & experience, that are aligned in support of the organization’s mission and vision. The capability to conduct defense on a football team is a team capability that is essential to the team being able to defeat its opponent. An Army infantry unit’s capability to conduct an attack is essential to it winning a battle. A GIS Team’s ability to create an effective map is a cartographic capability that is essential.

To put it another way, Esri Canada’s Matthew Lewin states that, “in practice, capabilites are a combination of competencies, processes, tools and governance. The combination here is key. It’s one thing to have good people and great technology, but another to manage in a way that drives sustained value. Capabilites are the intersection of skills and knowledge, applications and data, workflows and activities, and control and oversight.” You can read more about Matt’s perspective on GIS as a capability here. I like to break capabilites into four categories: individual, leader, team and organizational. The power comes in developing GIS team capabilites that benefit the entire organization. The first step is to determine what are the geospatial capabilites that are required to support your organization’s core mission.

Lesson #19 - Run your team like a business. Recommendation

Run your GIS team/program like a small business. If you don’t have a budget, figure out how to get one, and in the meantime, track expenses like a small business. You need to do this so you can justify requesting more and it’s easier when you have historical figures to point back to as a baseline. Instill a customer service mentality in what you provide. I talked a little about this in lesson #2, viewing your users as customers, and lesson #14 about tracking return on investment and value.

I once ran a GIS team where I had a customer service desk built at the front of our office and had a couch placed on the other side with access to a host of GIS magazines. A person would come to the desk and request GIS services. One of our team members would then take their request and “interview” them focusing on the problem they were trying to solve. A standard customer request form was used to capture all the details and requirements. Above the wall was a huge whiteboard where all of the requests that my GIS team were working on showing the requestor, what was requested, who was working on it, its status, percent completed, and date of estimation to be completed. This was so a requester could pop in and see where their request was in the que. We also have a large table built with chairs around it where we could sit in groups or bring a requester back to discuss larger more complex requests. I kept a catalog on that table of our most requested maps, apps, products, etc. complete with estimated times to complete and the required data needed to complete. This was very helpful to help with customers visualizing what end products would look like. I also maintained a map file cabinet that held the hard copy products we would consistently get asked for repeatedly so that we could immediately satisfy a request quickly. Once a request was fulfilled and completed I had customers fill out a survey and I had a customer suggestion box where they could submit ideas to improve service. For me, this was a business approach to how I ran that team. A year later we won an award in the organization for the level of support we provided.

Lesson #20 - Make your team indispensable. Best Practice

Repeat after me: "Integrate GIS into department planning cycles, which leads to integrating GIS into department operations." When you are integrated into operations, you become indispensable. If you are indispensable, the departments will fight to keep you. You no longer must justify your existence or purpose. Rinse and repeat. Over and over. Repeat after me. "Integrate GIS into………."

This process has consistently proven to be successful for me. Each business unit in your organization does some type of planning, whether it’s quarterly, annually or for each project they work on. I have found that when I can get them to integrate GIS into their planning processes and cycles, they eventually will migrate to integrating GIS into their day-to-day workflows and operations. In other words, they became dependent on GIS to be successful. They also became a champion for GIS and in some cases those who led those business units/departments became executive sponsors for GIS. You must grow GIS champions and executive sponsors throughout your organization for GIS to flourish and for your GIS program to expand in the long-term. When this happens, GIS becomes indispensable.

In summary, I hope these insights into the practices that have fueled my successful career at leading GIS teams and managing GIS programs provide some use for you on your own geospatial journey. It is also my hope that this will instill in you the desire to start creating and maintaining your own list of tips, recommendations, and best practices to pass along to the next generation of GIS leaders. It is through this sharing of knowledge on how to be successful that we avoid making the same mistakes, which pushes us to make new mistakes, which creates resiliency and sustainability and the ability to adapt for our profession over time. My last job in the US Army was to advise GIS soldiers on their career progression. I would often talk to them in groups throughout the year on the things to do and not do to be successful in their careers. I would always start the conversation out in the same way every single time:

Imagine if you will you are standing at the edge of a large dark jungle or forest to start a long and difficult journey. Suddenly I emerge out of it, dirty, tired, clothes torn, sweaty, but excited. I walk up to you and hand you a map and say, “I just completed the journey, and I marked every hazard, pitfall, which fork in the roads to take, what places to avoid, and where you can find shelter and allies to be successful. What would your reply be? Thank me and use it? Say no thank you and go through on your own repeating the same mistakes? Or take the map, put it in your pocket, and never use it? Never passing it on to anyone else or improving it.”

What would you do? What will you do with your geospatial knowledge moving forward?

"The hardest part is changing the culture - the way people are used to working and behaving."?

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