Information Resources Management

Guests: None

Action Item List:

Reviewed, discussed, and updated.

Meeting Dates – Is There A Better Time?:

Last month, Al sent out a scheduling matrix/form soliciting a better common time for meetings. No apparent day or time of the week seemed to surface as a common thread. The group elected to retain Friday mornings as the best time for the group meeting, but to schedule it every fourth week rather than monthly. This tactic facilitates the attendance of Andrea. David will calculate the dates for our future meetings and circulate them to the group. The group also elected to change the meeting time to 9:00 AM until 11:30 AM. A quorum was present, a vote was taken, and these changes were approved by consensus.

Dangling Deliverables:

Last month, Al sent out a survey that listed all the pending deliverable expectations for the SCG, and asked that the members of the SCG give their opinion on the relative priority of each. Al summarized the results and presented the findings to the group. The attending members agreed to accept this prioritized list, and an SCG lead was assigned to each deliverable to be the focal point for that effort.

Priority	Deliverable/Task	Lead
1	HelpDesk consolidation recommendations	John Gebhard
2	SLA for NITC Enterprise Service Bus	Mike Barrowcliff
3	NWCG Change Management Guidelines	Al Borup
4	NWCG System Transition Plan and Guidelines	Greg Jensen
5	NWCG Project Deliverables Standards	Mike Barrowcliff
6	NWCG Service Level Agreement Template	Erik Torres
7	Continuity of Operations Plan for NWCG apps	Gladys Crabtree
8	Shared Consolidated Services (survey & standards)	John Noneman
9	NWCG System Status Reporting Template	Jon Skeels

It is important to note, that the “lead” is not expected to solely accomplish the task or produce the deliverable, but rather to be a named “focal point” of the effort. Each task currently has, or will have a team of individuals assigned to help accomplish the goal. It is left to the lead’s discretion to coordinate the efforts for furthering the task.

Now that the SCG has developed a prioritized work plan, it needs to be presented to the IRMWT at their May meeting. Erik has volunteered to draft a work plan and forward it to Al for a cover letter. This plan will have a final review by the SCG at the May meeting which occurs the week prior to the IRMWT meeting.

Updates on some of the deliverables:

Priority 1 – HelpDesk consolidation recommendations

Addressed below.

Priority 2 – NWCG Change Management Guidelines

Since Mike has the best link to this endeavor, he has volunteered to lead the task. Other SCG members want to be involved to help assure that interagency concerns and interest are considered. David Potter, Blair Young, and Keith Smith have all volunteered to be a part of this task group.

Priority 3 – NWCG Change Management Guidelines

Currently “stalled-out” because we have a lack of clarity and definition of the roles and responsibilities for our systems – e.g. no one agrees exactly on what the boundaries of responsibility are for a “Managing Partner”. The IRMWT has scheduled several work sessions to address bringing more refinement to the interagency roles & responsibilities. This task will wait until that effort is complete. Al has agreed to be the figurehead “lead” of this effort, but asserted that his schedule precludes him from actively participating in this task at this time. As this effort rekindles, a new task team will need to be formed.

Priority 4 – NWCG System Transition Plan and Guidelines

In a prior meeting, Greg Jensen tentatively indicated that he “might be” willing to lead this task. Since no one else volunteered at this meeting, and Greg was not present, the SCG requests that Greg be the lead. Greg may certainly choose to accept or decline this role. Mike Barrowcliff, David Potter, & Erik Torres have previously agreed to be part of this task team.

Priority 6 – NWCG Service Level Agreement Templates

Erik volunteered to lead this effort, along with Gladys.

Priority 7 - Continuity of Operations Plan for NWCG apps

This task has had a co-lead of Gladys Crabtree and Rick Mills. The SCG wants to avoid having a task with two leads, so we request that Gladys be the primary focal point for this effort.

HelpDesk survey Followup:

John Gebhard & Mike Barrowcliff have been previously tasked with outlining a scheme for further study regarding increasing interoperability between existing help desks. To remove the confusion of a task with dual leads, the SCG requests that John Gebhard be named as the lead. Resultant recommendations will be based on the survey done by the SCG HelpDesk Task Group which was completed in December. The current help desks within our sphere of influence are the NIFC BLM Help Desk, the NIFC FS Help Desk, and the FS Contracted Help Desk. Mike will rekindle the effort to meet with John Gebhard and Gladys Crabtree and to develop some recommendations. These will be circulated to the SCG members for review prior to the May 12th SCG meeting.

Round Robin:

JOHN (NONEMAN) – Training is going on, with more scheduled to happen soon. There will be an After Action Review (post implementation review) of FPA. John will circulate a pointer to this review once it has been placed on their website. John will be meeting with the Executive Oversight Group next week. They will be making FPA recommendations to WFLC.

ANDY – ICBS-R is standing up a prototype at the Rocky Mountain Cache the 1^st week of May. They have scenarios to run, will get feedback, build some comfort with future users, and test wireless capabilities for scanners and readers. Andy says his application is “mission-critical” and has chosen to use the help desk services offered through the existing ROSS contract. Andy is also interested in learning if anyone is doing any COGNOS training that he and his group could participate in.

KEITH – New release of IQS is waiting for ROSS to help with data definitions. Since the last IQS release, there have been nearly 15,000 downloads and he estimates about 5,000 separate implementations of IQS are now being used. Some share a common database, others are stand-alone.

BLAIR – Since George Conley left, the dynamic of IQCS management has changed. He is still struggling with new roles and responsibilities. They are currently working with hardware to improve performance and on the ESB with ROSS, with a deadline of October.

DAVID – He is now the FORS Project Manager. They have identified 11 common elements for fire reporting. The NFAEB (sponsors) now want the project to perform a business analysis to see if there needs to be more elements. First cut at this analysis will be back to NFAEB on the 22^nd of May. He reports a rumor that the E-Gov Disaster Management Task Group may be recommending a much larger scoped end-to-end fire reporting system.

ERIK – Nothing.

ANDREA – FWS has hired a new planner – Becky McMahon. Also, Joette Borzik’s old training position is being advertised (GS 12/13).

MIKE – Briefly discussed a new endeavor from Homeland Security called HSIN – Homeland Security Information Network that is being forced on us from the top down without our input. It will affect our dispatch centers. The FS is proceeding with deploying InciWeb as an interagency prototype for this upcoming fire season. He is still working on developing a common architecture for the applications at NITC, and this will require a new management structure. Right now it is just for FS, but BLM has been kept in the loop and IQCS may be included in the future. Mike is also going to be doing an outreach to fill four positions in his organization within the next 3 months. 2 GS-13’s, 1 GS-12, and 1 GS-11. Stay tuned for the announcements.

AL - Gave very brief update of NWFEA Project status, and noted that the Carol Saras is now supporting the NWFEA Project with 50% of her time.

Next Meeting Date - Friday May 12^th 0900-1130

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	Members:
X	Al Borup – NWCG IRM-PMO (Chair)
X	Mike Barrowcliff – USDA FS (Vice-Chair)
	John Gebhard – BLM
X	Erik Torres for Gladys Crabtree – NPS
X	Andrea Olson – FWS
X	David Potter – BIA
	Rick Mills – DOI Aviation
	Carolyn Chase – Fire Research
X	Keith Smith – NASF
	Jon Skeels - ROSS
X	Blair Young – IQCS
X	John Noneman – FPA
	Dan Keller – FPA/Landfire
	Bruce Jeske - Landfire
	Dorothy Albright – IBA
X	Andy Gray – ICSB-R
	Barbara Ruffner - FireCode