The project is one part of the vision of ensuring the ministry’s silviculture data adequately meets current and expected forest management needs.

The mission of the project is to review, define and document the Ministry of Forests’ and forest industry’s current and expected business requirements for corporate silviculture attribute data, to recommend a realistic strategy for the migration of that data to the integrated corporate spatial and attribute database (INCOSADA) format, and to recommend the activities required to understand and address other silviculture information needs, by October 1, 1999.

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The Ministry of Forests is currently facing a number of challenges with respect to the management of silviculture data:

• the ministry has invested significantly in developing, implementing, and supporting the existing silviculture information systems, and has realized significant value from those investments, however some feedback from field staff indicates the on-going costs may be exceeding the benefits being derived;
• the systems applications that deal with silviculture data were initially designed to meet business requirements that pre-dated the Forest Practices Code (FPC). Although subsequent modifications have generally kept pace with business changes, this is a good time to review our data and information needs;
• there are varying opinions on the utility of those applications and the quality of the data they help manage;
• there is a general move away from mainframe computer processing to personal computer, client-server, or central server web-based solutions;
• the ministry’s INCOSADA initiative and the implementation of standardized spatial tools (GeoMedia and ArcInfo) puts greater pressure on having silviculture data ready to meet current and expected business needs;
• there is growing interest from forest industry to cooperate in standardizing digital forest data and in establishing data exchange protocols; and
• proposed further streamlining of the Code will fundamentally change what silviculture data is needed, and how silviculture information is managed.

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The general project objective is to examine current silviculture attribute data to make strategic recommendations on the priorities for data migration and management of existing data, in light of business requirements, infrastructure, and staff and budget availability. The detailed objectives are:

• to examine and document the current (for example reporting, tracking, silviculture prescription (SP) planning) and expected (for example forest development plan (FDP) template, "one plan" concept) strategic business context for silviculture data and information. This will establish who will be using the information, for what purposes, when, why and how;
• to examine and document how the current and expected strategic systems infrastructure capabilities (such as INCOSADA, data service centers, internet, networks, etc.) relate to the business context;
• to correlate, at a high level, the current silviculture-related attribute data requirements (from the major licensee silviculture information system (MLSIS), the integrated silviculture information system (ISIS), the SP application (SilvRx), the contract payment application (PayCert), forest cover files, industry applications and other related sources) with the expected business and technological context;
• to determine gaps and redundancies in existing silviculture data sets required to meet the defined business requirements;
• to review and address Silviculture-Inventory Technical Committee’s (SITC, now the Data Custodian Technical Committee, DCTC) recommendations on future integration of silviculture and inventory data and related business processes;
• to make recommendations on the needs and priorities for conversion or migration of existing data to INCOSADA format, while appropriately retaining the value of the existing information, given the available and required resources;
• to make recommendations on how silviculture information should be deployed, processed and shared in future, given the available and required resources, to sustain the value of silviculture information and to create new value.

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This study will examine the current business requirements for silviculture attribute data, and determine which data elements are most critical for achieving the ministry’s forest resource stewardship mandate. This aspect of the study will be largely independent of the information technology used or planned to support the ministry’s silviculture business processes. The output will answer the question "what are the business needs?".

However, the other major focus of the study is on determining if, when, and how to migrate the current silviculture attribute data into the INCOSADA database format. This aspect must therefore account for the ministry’s information technology infrastructure plans. The output will answer the question "how do we start to meet the current business needs?"

Finally, some consideration will be given to recommending future management of software applications and business processes to support silvicultural aspects of forest management. This aspect of the study is more reliant on understanding our near-future business needs and technology capabilities. The output will answer the question "what are the next steps?".

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• documenting the ministry’s, agencies’, and major licensee’s business processes that currently use silviculture data/information;
• enumeration of current usage of canned and custom queries/reports;
• consideration of emerging business processes that might use silviculture data;
• documentation of high-level process and/or data flows;
• assessment of the implications of current technology and information systems on silviculture business processes;
• analyze linkages/inter-relationships/integration of silviculture data and applications with other initiatives such as INCOSADA, data service centers, and FDP and landscape unit plan (LUP) templates;
• consideration of current/expected staff, budget, training and other support elements;
• developing and documenting a vision of the ministry’s business needs for silviculture data for the 21^st century;
• production of recommendations for migration of MLSIS, ISIS, and forest cover (FC1) data to INCOSADA format; and
• recommend opportunities for improving current processes and applications.

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• detailed analysis of the utility of existing spatial silviculture data or detailed analysis of future needs for spatial silviculture data;
• analysis of network requirements;
• detailed review or analysis of existing silviculture applications;
• development of new silviculture applications;
• development of detailed data or process models;
• detailed review or analysis of the quality or accuracy of silviculture data; and
• consideration of other data stewardship issues.
  
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The project will be a success when:

• all stakeholders have been given an opportunity to participate;
• all required silviculture business processes are understood and correctly documented;
• rationales for required silviculture attribute data are defined;
• reasonable recommendations are presented for migrating existing silviculture attribute data (especially MLSIS, ISIS and related FC1 data) into INCOSADA format;
• DCTC recommendations have been addressed as required;
• existing ministry project management processes are observed, where possible;
• all issues identified by a peer review of the draft report have been addressed; and
• the final report is accepted by the project sponsor.

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This project is seen as a high priority by Forest Practices Branch (the data custodian of silviculture data), by Information Management Group (IMG) and the partners in the INCOSADA project, and by Operations Division management. The INCOSADA project timeline requires data conversion in the near future; FPB must prioritize and plan for data conversion in full consideration of the business needs and the time, staff, funding and knowledge resources available.

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Key stakeholders include:

• district, region, headquarters staff and executive that manage/administer silviculture information, or make decisions based on silviculture information;
• database administration staff in IMG, responsible for the development and maintenance of data models;
• other resource agencies that use silviculture data to meet mandated obligations; and
• forest industry staff who are required to submit silviculture data.

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The sponsor of this project is Ralph Archibald, Director of Forest Practices Branch. As custodian of silviculture data, the director is responsible for determining, on behalf of the entire ministry, what information and/or applications are important for the ministry to use in a particular subject area. The data custodian is also responsible for validating that the ministry’s business interests are served by the investment in that information and/or application(s). John Ellis, Chief Information Officer, IMG as application custodian of MLSIS/ISIS, and Dave Gilbert, Director, Resources Inventory Branch, as data steward, have also indicated strong support for this initiative.

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A small inter-divisional group will act as the steering committee for this project. The steering committee is not expected to meet regularly; rather they will provide overall strategic direction to the project team, will assist with issue resolution, and may provide additional resources, where required. Specific members include:

Ralph Archibald, FPB, Chair

Jon Vivian, RIB

David Ford, IMG

One or two senior managers from OpsDiv (suggest RSM-IRM, DM, etc.)

Ian Miller, FPB (Chair, Project Team)

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The project manager for this project is Ian Miller, R.P.F., Senior Harvest Practices Forester with Forest Practices Branch. The project manager will be assigned to this project on a 90% basis, to allow a few other priority projects to proceed concurrently.

To achieve the objective in the time allotted, the core project team will be limited to about eight members. Team members are expected to regularly participate in team meetings, conference calls etc., and are expected to devote a substantial amount of time to the project until its completion. Various collaborators are also expected to work with the team to help complete certain tasks or activities, and are expected to be available for shorter periods. Input will be sought from a wide range of internal and external client groups.

The project team includes:

• Ian Miller, Chair, project management, business/systems integration
• Mei-Ching Tsoi, data custodian, MLSIS/ISIS reporting
• Paul Rehsler, silviculture surveys, forest cover, process integration
• John Gallimore, application custodian
• Jeremey Janzen, data and database administration
• Dave Maitland, regional user representative
• Erik Piikkila, district user representative
• Fred Waterer, district user representative

Collaborators include:

• FPB staff, especially from Silviculture Practices and Forest Development Sections
• Research Branch
• Resources Inventory Branch
• Timber Supply Branch
• Resource Tenures and Engineering Branch
• Compliance and Enforcement Branch
• Information Management Group staff and INCOSADA project team
• Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks staff (business and systems specialists)
• Industry foresters

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• The project team is organized in a "matrix" model, where all team members will remain part of their current organizational units, but will also be assigned to the project team.
• Team members will take technical and administrative direction from their current supervisors, and functional direction, relative to the project, from the project manager.
• The project manager will report progress or issues directly to the project steering committee.
• Team members will relay information between their constituents and the other project team members.
• The project sponsor will report on the project to ministry committees and executive, assisted by the project manager as required.

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• the project team will take direction from the project steering committee and will take advice, through the project sponsor, from the IM/IT advisory team and the Data Custodian Council;
• the project team will seek advice from IMG and/or RIB experts in project management, systems analysis and data/database administration;
• the project team will ensure appropriate consultation and coordination with the FDP and LUP templates initiatives;
• the project team will consider technical direction and advice from the INCOSADA and DSC steering committees and/or project teams, and will provide direction to those project teams about future directions for silviculture data management; and
• the project team will consider and address recommendations from the Data Custodian Technical Committee.

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A detailed project plan will be developed once the project team has formed and determined the detailed work flow and other aspects of the project plan.. The overall project management functions, and the major project deliverables and/or milestones, are listed below:

• Scope management: Scope will be controlled by clearly documenting and communicating the expected scope of the project to all participants. Requests for scope expansion will be reviewed by the project team for consensus-based decisions. Any contentious scope issues will be referred to the project steering committee for resolution.
• Time management: Time management for the entire project will be done using Gaant chart methodology. Individual team members will be responsible for their own time management.
• Cost management: Since there is no specific project budget, cost management is limited to normal travel approvals.
• Document management: All project documents will be stored digitally in a project repository that is accessible to all project team members and collaborators. In addition, documents for external release, such as the project charter, project plan, progress updates etc. will be posted on the FPB web site.

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The report is expected to document:

• current and expected business requirements for silviculture data;
• information systems infrastructure overview;
• role of current silviculture data and applications in meeting forest management information needs (strengths and weaknesses);
• gaps and redundancies in current data;
• the custodian’s recognition of the DCTC recommendations;
• recommendations on how to proceed with migrating existing silviculture data; and
• recommendations on future activities to meet the needs of all silviculture information users.

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There is no budget allocated to this project; all work will be done by in-house staff using existing resources. Staff travel will be the responsibility of the respective team member’s business unit.

• There is some experience within business areas such as FPB at providing data custodian services and conducting reviews of operational systems. The project team will need input from knowledgeable FPB and IMG staff to address certain information gaps; this advice must be available in a timely manner.
• The project is expected to deliver direction on how to migrate existing silviculture data into the INCOSADA-designed database. However, the emphasis is on ensuring current and future silviculture business requirements are well-defined to justify and plan any future systems developments or enhancements. Technical issues surrounding data migration will follow once the business requirements are identified and endorsed by the project sponsor(s).
• Members of the INCOSADA project team must be available to provide a clear understanding of how silviculture data is expected to be handled, and must be prepared to work with this project team to develop workable recommendations.
• The project’s objectives and scope need to be clearly communicated to prevent inflation of stakeholder’s expectations.
• Many stakeholders have divergent views on the current and future role of MLSIS and ISIS; these need to be explored in depth to identify both "positions" and the underlying interests.
• It is critical that all types of users (managers and staff) participate in this study; careful scheduling will be required during the summer holiday period of July-August.
• There is great complexity and many unresolved issues with the current business processes and applications, not all of which are well understood or documented. It is important for the project team to provide documentation and resolution wherever possible.

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Ralph Archibald

Project Sponsor (on behalf of the project steering committee)

Ian Miller

Project Manager (on behalf of the project team)

For more information on this project, please contact Ian Miller, Forest Practices Branch, by phone at 250-387-8398 or by email at ian.miller@gems5.gov.bc.ca

This page was posted on July 5, 1999

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