Meeting Details for the February 17, 2006 Meeting    (32EJ)

Minutes    (32EN)

A discussion was opened concerning a draft document that Nancy Tosta and Michael Alford had collaborated on to produce what is now thought of as version 2 of the Geospatial Profile.    (32EO)

As a preface Brenda explained that the main architect issue is that it is hard to get program managers to engage and orient themselves towards the kinds of goals that are in the profile.    (32EP)

Brenda also posited and the group agreed: 1. Geo is done in support of the businesses and in most cases is not the business itself. 2. Reference Models are sound, but a 'layered pyramid' approach might be easier for the geospatial novice to understand and fit into their programs. 3. A broader set of use cases would make it easier for program managers to identify with.    (32EQ)

Michael Alford led the discussion on the revised outline and suggested: - Primary focus is on the business managers. - Secondary focus is on the agency architects to advise them with the update. - Move the existing content having an FEA reference model focus to appendices. - Footnotes were mentioned as useful, but he suggested that other companion documents be considered to target the different audiences. - Sidebars and more uses cases were suggested. - Perhaps appendixes could be added that address specific audiences.    (32ER)

Group comments, for which there is no definite attribution, but there was no dissent: - It needs to keep addressing policy barriers. - It needs to continue to link with the geospatial Lines of Business. - Databases are geoenabled now, so some of the old thinking that prevailed with geo was kept separate by necessity can be changed. - Tools are now distributed and will be more so in the future. - Hardware and bandwidth limitations are disappearing now too.    (32ES)

Brenda reiterated that helping the GIO help the business manager is going to be very important and that all of them at least have a list of their business practices and the more mature have started to decompose them to level 2.    (32ET)

Nancy Tosta supported Brenda's statement that the Chief Architects are trying to get their business managers more engaged. She suggested that use cases for the pilot and the using the pilot as a sidebar would be logical. She believes that we do not want to be 'totally prescriptive', but to give them some idea of the methodological approaches.    (32EU)

The time frame was discussed with the document update finished in the April to June window and the Pilot being run about the same time.    (32EV)

Nancy noted that the geo view is just one of many.    (32EW)

Tim Haithcoat suggested that 'cookbooks' and 'outlines' could be very helpful to the GIOs and architects we are trying to help.    (32EX)

Brenda concurred, noting that the business managers have a hard time articulating their needs so the GIOs can understand and help them -- the Business Managers have a hard time connecting abstract architectures to their specific needs and worlds.    (32EY)

Jeanie Foust observes that one of the reasons this happens has been because geospatial has been isolated.    (32EZ)

Michael Alford notes that the files and security profiles are in essentially the same boat -- everybody does these things, but few can grasp the overall architecture and fit them in rationally.    (32F0)

Nancy Tosta reminds the group that this will be more fruitful if we make it useful in the states too. Perhaps tailored sidebars and use cases can do this for us.    (32F1)

All agree that plain English versus geo speak is needed in the sidebars and use cases.    (32F2)

Brenda Smith will send the currently collected comments on the BRM/TRM/SMR to the FEA folks.    (32F3)

She also wants to match our DRM with the FEA DRM 2.0    (32F4)

Somebody posited that the 'too technical' aspects could be put in attachments in V2, though there was no discussion about what that might mean, it was generally accepted. OMB has been moving to take highly technical things out of the documents.    (32F5)

Nadine Alameh asked where the GIRM which is an FGDC documents fits into this. Brenda notes that at this time it does not explicitly reference the GIRM, but she does see V2 having components of it.    (32F6)

Nadine then suggests that FGDC update the GIRM and it becomes the authoritative source of data and services standards which would remove them from direct inclusion in V2, but leave them connected and referenced.    (32F7)

Attendees    (32F8)