GIS Manager's Group

At the upcoming GIS Managers Summit, ArcGIS users will be sharing from their experience leveraging GIS across their organizations, and @MarnaMcLain will be sharing about Governance in the City of Austin.

Two key principals of approach to governance for City of Austin, are transparency and collaboration – but how do you apply these principles to your GIS, in an organization of over 1500 users?  The answer for Marna is an operating board – a group of stakeholders from levels of the organization, who plan and track GIS initiatives in the organization. 

The Geospatial Information Management Operating Board (GIMOB), as they are called, shares important resources, updates, and governance documentation, and enables ongoing lines of communication, in one central site internal to staff at the City of Austin.

"The operating board meets monthly, tracks initiatives in a digital planner board, and engages in internal chat boards, while providing recommendations for our Enterprise GIS", said McLain.  

You can hear more about this and the other key components of the the City of Austin's GIS, ask questions and share your feedback on governance, at the GIS Managers Summit on June 9th – it's free for registered attendees to Esri's User Conference – we hope to see you there!

Marna McLain is the IT Corporate Manager for Enterprise Geospatial Services at the City of Austin. Originally from the Houston area, she moved to Austin to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Geography from University of Texas and never left. She has over 22 years of experience in the industry, with a background in data editing and maintenance, GIS project management, and application and infrastructure management. She has watched Austin’s use of GIS grow exponentially and is excited to see what comes next.