Abstract
The California Department of Parks and Recreation manages a system of 281 park units organized into twenty-two park districts. Each park district has a unique set of operational needs, opportunities and challenges that change over time. To address the changes, park district leadership must be able to adapt their knowledge, skills and abilities to achieve California State Parks’ mission. Multiple governmental reports from the Parks Forward Commission and others concluded that California Department of Parks and Recreation struggles to fulfill its mission due to inadequate management systems, insufficient public engagement, and in particular, a narrow leadership pipeline to fill top field leadership positions. In 2015, the Department, under the oversight of the California Natural Resources Agency and Governor’s Office, created a Transformation Team charged with researching significant departmental issues, developing proposals to solve the issues, and, in most instances, implementing solutions to align with the Department’s vision, goals of the Transformation Team, and more broadly, the leadership agenda of California’s government. The District Complexity Tool (DCT) originated as a Transformation Team project to quantifiably differentiate the management complexities between park districts. The information gathered by the tool informs new methodology to support hiring decisions for top field leadership positions. The DCT gathers data across park management functions to determine characteristics that have the most impact on park operations. The DCT helps executive staff and field leaders better understand the complexity of park operations to justify salary increases, the critical knowledge and skills required of park district leaders, and shows how park management complexity changes over time as well as the effects of leadership decisions. The DCT project was developed and implemented with input from the Department’s subject matter experts and includes an overview of sampling methodology, the facilitation of the DCT survey instrument as a proof of concept, and specific data analysis procedures to illustrate characteristics that affect leadership and management decisions in each park district.