NWS Headquarters 1STOP Initiative

NOAA’s Virtual Laboratory (VLab) is a collaborative environment to convey ideas and work on projects with team members who are geographically remote from one another. The majority of VLab communities are designed to share information and collaborate on specific projects. This presentation describes a new VLab Community developed to provide a one stop (1STOP) resource for employees.

In the NWS Office of Science and Technology Integration, we identified a need for a centralized location for communications, documents, forms, policies, guidance, opportunities, references, resources and just about everything a NWS employee or manager would need to perform their job efficiently and effectively. In the summer of 2016 a tiger team was established to brainstorm and develop a one-stop platform solution. Out of their creativity came the 1STOP (Science and Technology Operations and Procedures) community within VLab. The 1STOP community takes this virtual environment to a whole new level. This presentation will demonstrate these new capabilities and share how 1STOP has increased productivity for NWS staff and managers alike, while serving as a novel “landing page” within VLab from where other initiatives/communities may be born.

Harnessing the power of VLab, 1STOP has grown in membership from 10 during conception, 70 after the launch to now over 200 NWS employees utilizing the site. In progress expansion of the community will extend membership to more than 700 NWS headquarters employees (with all other NOAA Silver Spring employees (another 1500) joining in 2018). NWS Office Directors agree this is a much needed resource within our agency -- a one stop shop for all employees (including restricted sections for managers/supervisors) that enables notable increases in productivity and consistency.