Strategic Planning Committee

The Strategic Planning Committee guides the development and implementation of a strategic plan to create a Minnesota Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) to support the common needs of Minnesota organizations that use geospatial technology to achieve their business goals. It continues the work of the MSDI Committee, which prepared A Foundation for Coordinated GIS: Minnesota’s Spatial Data Infrastructure, a strategic plan for statewide GIS that was adopted by the Council in June 2004. To learn how to participate in the work of the Strategic Planning Committee or any of its work groups, see www.gis.state.mn.us/MSDI or contact one of the committee chairs.

New:   Drive to Excellence "Enterprise GIS" project

Committee co-chairs

Victoria Reinhardt, Ramsey County, 651-266-8363, victoria.reinhardt@co.ramsey.mn.us
Mike Dolbow, 651-201-6497, mike.dolbow@state.mn.us

Work plan FY09

FY09 Primary Goal: The Strategic Planning Committee’s primary goal for Fiscal Year 2009 is to develop, support, and evaluate detailed governance models for the proposed Minnesota Geographic Information Office (MGIO).

This goal directly supports the Governor’s Council FY09 priority goals of:

  • Creating and adopting a state governance model for GIS.
  • Identifying a permanent and formal replacement of the existing Council in order to support the proposed governance models for the MGIO.

These efforts expand upon the Committee’s primary goal for Fiscal Year 2008: to guide strategic developments in establishing a recognized coordinating entity for state government GIS, recognizing and including the state’s partners and customers. The primary state agency vehicle for this effort remains the Enterprise GIS Drive to Excellence project.

There are three primary components of the Committee’s Work Plan to support this overall goal and the Drive To Excellence project:

Organizational Transformation
This component focuses specifically on creating an organizational capacity for coordination within state government and a framework for governance that includes opportunities for active stakeholder involvement. This organizational transformation effort is addressing the needs for policy direction, prioritization of data and technology investments, standards development, and a principal point of contact for GIS within state government. Recommendations about organization and governance identifying roles, responsibilities and authorities of the MGIO were made in September 2008 and approved by the Governor’s Council. In FY09, the Committee will expand these recommendations in further detail in order to support the Drive to Excellence project. A critical component of the organizational transformation will be the identification of a permanent and formal replacement for the existing Governor’s Council and its role in the governance process.

Functional Transformation
This component concerns operational aspects of GIS within state government, based upon a comprehensive analysis of existing uses of GIS and its potential for enhancing state government operations and services. The analysis, primarily provided by Applied Geographics, serves as the basis for recommending enterprise solutions to technical aspects of GIS services for state government. Opportunities identified include broad Geospatial Coordination, Technical Infrastructure, and Technical Support. These opportunities are identified in an Enterprise GIS Opportunity Assessment.

Community Stakeholder Input
This component involves integrating the above two efforts with outreach and input from the statewide community of GIS stakeholders, including academia, local governments, non-profits, private businesses, and citizens. The Strategic Planning Committee will expand upon efforts begun in 2008 (such as the Non-State GIS stakeholder workshop) by using GIS-LIS Consortium conferences and newsletters, IT Symposium presentations, and outreach to policy groups such as the League of Minnesota Cities and Association of Minnesota Counties.
 

Meeting schedule

Calendar: Check the council's calendar for the date, time and location of the next committee meeting. If none is listed in the next month or two, check directly with the committee chair. All meetings are open to the public and visitors are always welcome.
 

Committee activity reports and meeting minutes

  • Committee activity reports:  See the Committee Reports webpage.
     
  • Committee meeting minutes:  Click on a meeting date to view the minutes for that meeting.
    Scroll through the list for older meeting dates that are not displayed.
     


MSDI work groups

The Strategic Planning Committee accomplishes most of its work through MSDI thematic data work groups and committees of the Minnesota Governor's Council on Geographic Information.

Data Work Groups.  The MSDI work groups contributed to the strategic plan for statewide GIS adopted by the Council in June 2004, A Foundation for Coordinated GIS: Minnesota’s Spatial Data Infrastructure. They are continuing their work to support further development of plan details and their implementation.

Geospatial Architecture Committee.  The Geospatial Architecture Committee (now the Standards Committee) of the Minnesota Governor's Council on Geographic Information has designed a high-level enterprise architecture for statewide GIS that builds upon the recommendations in A Foundation for Coordinated GIS. See publications section below.
 

Publications and links