CHS Strategic Review

Review feedback to evaluate how things are going in CHS, both internally and externally, and potential areas of improvement. The hope is to incorporate some of this feedback into our overall strategic direction/plan. This session should help inform us where do the mission pucks are going, and what can CHS do to be there when they arrive.

Background information:
Previously, we hadn't actively engaged users in this manner, and I believe that was a crucial component we were missing. To facilitate gathering feedback, we will be sending forms to users and the internal CHS team.

Goals for this session:

• How should Cloud be advertised to science?
  • Use Case Based vs. Service Based. 
  • Are our service categories doing us any good?
• What new communications strategies should we consider?

Background Information:
There is a lack of IT knowledge in the Science Centers. This needs to be addressed from the user perspective, not the tool to use. It has been a struggle getting science-types into the Cloud.

Discuss the strategy for accommodating other bureaus.

Discuss the strategy for accommodating other bureaus.

Goals for this session:

• Discuss pain points/gaps, including a cost benefit analysis and value statement, of completed work
• Discuss embedded analytics strategy for CHS – How can we centralize and deliver data insights for leadership, customers, ACIO dissemination, bureau, and Congress

Outcome: Define requirements for collecting and delivering service metrics, rule out existing options, and identify potential solutions.
 
Background information:
The metrics Service Management collects for our services is useful, but we've struggled with centralizing and delivering these data in an interactive format viewable by leadership, other CHS teams, and customers.
 
Discuss which metrics will be available to assist in communicating to bureau and Congress the value and successes of ACIO cloud. ACIO in Science Support is viewed as "overhead" at times by bureau and Congress. For us to attain new congressional funding to support cloud we'll need relevant metrics that bureau leaders and appropriation staffers would want to see and track. For example, CSS has this in Greenbook/congressional budget submission. The USGS reached 94.7 percent of the Nation with 3D Elevation Program data available or in
progress. This metric is relevant to bureau priorities and congressional members.

Goals for this session:
•    Determine priorities by team (AI/ML, HPC/HTC, IoT) and as a group of similarly-structured CHS services
•    Identify which big projects to pursue
• Define scope of consulting involvement

Desired outcomes:
•    Team and group priorities
•    Defined scope of consulting support
•    Prioritized projects

Background information:
The AI/ML team has provided long-standing support for many projects, and the HPC/HTC and IoT teams have relatively new teams with growing portfolios. Given this experience, so we'd like to discuss the "depth" of assistance we grant. On the one hand, more general support allows us to guide more projects, but deeper technical support allows for better solutions and architectures. These deeper cases also have sometimes resulted in enhanced capabilities for CHS, in the case where a new technology/architecture was pioneered. We see value in dedicated team member time spent on "deep dive" topics in order to maintain technical fluency, learn or develop new functional systems, increase technical returns for CHS, and ultimately and support and promote a modernized federal workforce. We'd like to meet with the teams and leadership to discuss scenarios where consulting has worked very well and instances where it has not worked well to help shape the direction of CHS's AI/ML, HPC/HTC, and IoT programs. This will also be informed by CHS Leadership and the long-term goals of CHS.

Goals for this session:

• What are the priorities for the rest of this fiscal year? Until the next strategic review?
• What are the 3-year goals for CHS?
• What new offerings are on the horizon?
• What is our strategy for using other Cloud Service Providers?