Conquering the Too-Long-To-Do List: City of Lafayette Parks, Recreation & Open Space

With more ground to cover than work hours in the day, the team behind the City of Lafayette Parks, Recreation, and Open Space faces a common challenge of field teams: there's way too much to do, in way too little time.

The question, "What's new?" for example, prompts Interim Superintendent Lexie Sierra-Martinez to pull out her notebook and share an endless list she needs to tackle with her team: issues with a beaver dam flooding an underpass; new restoration projects; an invasive grass takeover; pest management efforts; pollinator habitat projects; and staff changes, all while finalizing a Wildlife Plan that’s been in the making since 2022.

It’s no wonder Lexie’s list is so extensive.  The team at Lafayette Parks, Recreation, and Open Space stewards 1,640 acres of public land on the Front Range, an effort that involves communicating with several parties, and often goes unnoticed by the community.

"Open space is thought of as passive and untouched, but people don't get how much effort goes into making it stay that way” -Lexie Sierra-Martinez

Land managers around the US are the cornerstone of our natural spaces, yet their jobs increase in scope and complexity without increased resources. And while it feels like every industry has adopted technologies to get more done with less, the needs of land managers remain unseen.

Enter Outway, a platform built for the people behind nature. Over the past year, Lexie and her team have become Outway superusers, using the platform to manage field assets, track invasive species, monitor project statuses, map critical wildlife habitats, gather location data for their Wildlife Plan, communicate within their team and beyond, and much more.

Now an indispensable tool in Lafayette’s arsenal, the adoption of Outway has not only made the growing to-do list manageable but has also resulted in:

1. Efficiency Amplified: Outway streamlined Lafayette's internal operations, making the management of assets in the field a breeze by allowing the team to cover more ground effectively and stay synced about what work is taking place.
2. Collaboration Unleashed: Outway facilitated collaboration by providing a centralized tool for communicating field work, office work, breaking down silos, and fostering teamwork among the team.
3. Resource Optimization: Outway's custom features empowered them to optimize resource allocation, enabling Lexie's team to make data-driven decisions on the fly.
4. Greater Impacts: Outway allowed Lexie and the team to bring new, real-time data to their Wildlife Plan, leading to expedited processes, streamlined feedback, and quicker adoption of the plan.

This is just the beginning for Lafayette Parks, Recreation, and Open Space. With a significant team expansion on the horizon, the implementation of a Ranger team, and several personal and professional milestones to boot, the team’s impact empowered by Outway will only increase as new team members make their mark on an already formidable land management agency.

Do you have a too-long to-do list? We’d love to explore whether Outway can help. Set up a meeting here.

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