Priorities for 2009/10

People management processes and practices at LINZ are fundamentally sound. Our priorities in the area of capability therefore reflect what is most important for LINZ as we ensure we deliver on our outcomes, by both building on our reputation in our current areas of activity and undertaking our leadership role in the land information market.

Information technology - systems & underpinning architecture

The focus of our information technology capability work is on those areas where the needs of the business are changing, reducing the risk of single points of failure, and continuing maintenance of critical systems, maturing them where appropriate.

Initiatives are underway to ensure our information technology staff have the skills sets to respond to changing needs and support LINZ’s outcomes. This will help ensure our information technology standards and processes are able to support LINZ requirements for new delivery channels, applications or integration needs.

We are establishing succession planning, which aims to reduce the dependency on some core staff. Critical infrastructure is also being investigated for where single points of failure occur and work initiated where appropriate to mitigate these.

Over the last three years LINZ has invested heavily in technology to support the move towards an electronic lodgement environment. This means LINZ needs to ensure ongoing support and maintenance of the technology infrastructure to meet expectations for stability and reliability, as well as currency, of the technology deployed. LINZ’s capability focus includes ensuring these demands are met, as well as building LINZ’s capability to ensure technology aligns with the organisation’s needs, utilising, where suitable, industry best practice frameworks.

Continuing to build relationship management capability

Success in achieving our outcomes requires the technical skills we have built up over the years, and leveraging off those skills to identify and develop a better understanding of land information markets. We provide a responsive service when users request our data, as well as expertise and assistance in understanding how that data can be used. Our focus will now emphasise a more proactive style by applying that expertise to build greater awareness in both the public and private sectors about the potential uses of LINZ’s data to assist them in achieving their own objectives. This will require a shift to a more collaborative approach to achieve our outcomes.

Over the past four years, we have put a lot of effort into analysing our customer needs and building our marketing capabilities in the provision of our core services. To anticipate the emerging business needs of our customers and shape preferences in the land information market, we will now need to make connections among key industry players and identify potential business opportunities. To do this effectively, LINZ will develop our capability to work in relatively complex business environments, and improve our scanning abilities and analysis, and communication skills. Our recruitment, training and performance management practices will continue to include the importance of relationship management, as well as ensuring we continue to retain and develop the technical knowledge and skills that provide the basis for our increased work in land information markets.

LINZ will also continue to review and update its relationship management framework. This will allow LINZ to consider a wider range of potential customers and target marketing and communications to their specific needs.

Knowledge management

Information, by definition, is a key LINZ asset. Capturing, organising, refreshing, sharing and leveraging information relevant to the performance of business activities and to expert decision-making, is practical business knowledge management.

Implementation of enterprise knowledge management is progressive, as it involves changing culture, perceptions and processes. LINZ will continue to operationalise its knowledge management strategies, focusing on knowledge retention, knowledge sharing and embedding knowledge in processes and systems. An example of this practice is LINZ’s structured learning programme for new property rights analysts in the survey and titles areas. In the long term, the aim is to achieve willing and proactive engagement by staff in sustainable knowledge management practices.

Monitoring & evaluation capability

We need to build on our current practices for reviewing and reporting our performance. This will form part of a strategic intelligence system that supports our governance structures and ensures we have access to information that is timely and meaningful. Our objective is to develop a framework that enables us to respond to our environment and ensure we have a range of evaluation tools to measure our performance.

We will continue to work on the development of performance measures that better reflect what we do and how that contributes to the achievement of our outcomes. Our focus will include reviewing our outcome and output measures, how we collect and use customer satisfaction research, and what specific programme evaluation may be required to assess our effectiveness.

LINZ also wants to ensure we align our internal work to meet any future strategic demands and projects need to demonstrate their contribution to the achievement of our outcome areas. The framework will therefore include identifying research and evaluation requirements to enable robust trend and issue identification and evaluation to occur.

To ensure LINZ regularly and systematically collects information about its external operating environment, now and looking ahead, we intend to build our environmental scanning and stakeholder engagement skills across the organisation. This will help to inform our planning and strategic direction, our selection of priorities, and our organisational capability requirements.

Development goals for the state sector

LINZ has an ongoing commitment to the goals for the state sector. We will continue to support them through the priorities outlined above and our other areas of focus, such as our involvement on interagency committees, the development and promulgation of good employer policies, human resource practices, and our information technology strategies.