The mission of the California Natural Resources Agency is "to restore, protect and manage the state's natural, historical and cultural resources." In some ways, those goals are timeless.
But like any government organization, the agency must adapt to an increasing pace of change, particularly from the technology industry.
The traditional style of IT management no longer works, said Tim Garza, the agency's IT director, during a recent Techwire Industry Briefing in Sacramento. So the Resources Agency has come up with a new model that is horizontal rather than vertical, and puts equal measure on operations, engineering, services and innovation.
"The key is balance. We really need to look at how we balance these features. And what we've done at the Resources Agency, we began this model. We began breaking down from being a vertical organization to being more of a horizontal organization that basically takes core competencies and models themselves after service delivery," Garza said.
Garza called it a new style of IT.
"The change and increased demands of our business how do we keep up with that?" How we stay ahead of that? How do we provide outstanding service and still sustain operations? How do we innovate for solutions that not only will provide for today, but will provide for tomorrow?
Garza said the Resources Agency's new style of IT management is what's going to balance those four competing priorities: operations, engineering, services and innovation.
The image (above) explaining the new model is from Garza's slide presentation available here.
Read more about innovation in the summer 2016 issue of Techwire magazine.
