UWM IT Review Summary

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UWM IT Review Summary

• Bruce Maas
• Interim CIO
• 8-5-2005

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UWM IT Review Summary

• Letter with link to full report to campus
  released August 1, 2005 from Provost Rita Cheng
• From the original letter to the campus community
  the purpose of the review was to examine the
  alignment of technology services with the
  university mission. To do that, we should
  examine the organization and structure of
  information technology services in the Office of
  Information Technology and Information and Media
  Technologies. Provost John Wanat 7/29/04.
• Determine if IT support is optimally organized
• Examine that Operations are economical, efficient
  and effective to achieve the core mission of the
  unit and campus

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Provost Chengs Cover Letter

• One of the purposeswas to prepare for a search
  for a permanent Chief Information Officer.
• I am asking Interim Director Bruce Maas to begin
  to immediately implement these recommendations.
• I am also asking that there be special efforts
  to address the prevalent themes

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Prevalent Themes

• 1. The pressing need for the campus to
  prioritize proposed major IT projects.
• 2. The need for IMT to meet the campus IT needs
  without continually adding on to, rather than
  replacing, existing structures and skills.
• 3. The need for IMT to carefully balance
  responsibility to meet current campus needs
  while also evaluating and preparing the campus to
  use appropriate emerging technologies. Foresight
  is valuable, but not more valuable than ensuring
  the highest quality of services currently in use.

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Cover Letter Summary

• It is important to stress that while IMT is
  pivotal to UWMs ability to maximize the benefits
  of technology, the entire campus must be unified
  and cooperative in our approach. The core
  service team approach to campus-wide issues has
  been productive and needs to be continued and
  expanded if we are to provide the best
  technological support for research, teaching,
  learning and services. Well-planned coordination
  and support for technology across all campus
  units is imperative in a period of increasing
  budgetary constraints.

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What does this mean to IMT?

• 1. Support for the need for the campus to make
  tough decisions on prioritization. We must make
  tough choices.
• 2. A call for campus cooperation in these
  efforts.
• 3. Suggestions provided by the IT Review
  Committee serve as our road map
• 4. We have support for funding for Server and
  other capital replacement.
• 5. We have support for our project management
  and enterprise approaches to systems.
• 6. Reinforcement of the importance of many of
  the initiatives we had already begun in the 04-05
  fiscal year

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The Nine Bullet Points

• 1. Prioritization of IT Projects and
  Expenditures
• 2. Staff Training and Development
• 3. Governance
• 4. Organizational Structure
• 5. The relationship between centralized and
  decentralized IT
• 6. Customer Service
• 7. Equipment Replacement
• 8. Matching staff assignments to areas of
  greatest need
• 9. Potential for outsourcing of printing
  operations

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Prioritization of IT Projects and Priorities

• CAMPUS needs to articulate its vision and
  priorities
• We collaboratively develop a prioritization
  methodology
• Involve governance, campus administration, and
  UWS
• Leverage the Office of Project Management
• Explore reduction in chargeback services
• Better lines of communication from campus leaders
  to IMT will ensure that IT resources are used
  strategically

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Staff Training and Development

• Develop a training plan including professional
  certifications
• Each staff member needs an annual development
  plan
• Develop a system to redirect and retrain staff as
  campus needs and priorities change
• Assess the need for user awareness and training
  to align with existing and planned technologies
• assess training expenditures and possibly
  reallocate still more funds to this item in order
  to ensure that IMT can meet campus expectations
  for technological expertise

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Governance

• Reevaluate the role of IT governance committees
  and their membership to ensure clarity of
  mission, effectiveness, and broad representation.
• Create greater awareness of the governance
  structure
• Consider a common format and common schedule for
  the planning committees
• Strengthen the UTR network to provide a better
  two way flow of communication
• In practice, the four planning committees have
  never been fully integrated into the IT strategic
  planning process.

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IMT Organization Structure

• both campus constituents and IMT staff
  expressed frustration over the number of layers
  that things have to go through
• Reduce the number of directors, managers and
  units
• Change department names to be understandable to
  the campus
• Negotiate service agreements even where services
  are not fee based
• Reallocate to better support the communication
  function
• In recent years IMT has moved toward a
  project-focused organizational culture. A key
  aspect of this approach to IT management is
  having a relatively flat organizational
  structure.

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Balance of centralized and decentralized IT
Services

• Decisions about whether particular technologies
  should be implemented on an enterprise bases to
  the entire campus (providing economies of
  scale)or at the unit level (addressing unique
  user needs) need to be informed by a campus IT
  prioritization process.
• Address the balance between centralized and
  decentralized deployment of IT services
• Continue core teams and connect them more to the
  IT prioritization process
• Assign more responsibilities (empowerment) to the
  UTR network for IT communication
• as pressures on campus IT budgets increase,
  partnerships with non-IMT technical staff should
  continue to be a priority.

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Customer Service in Help Desk and CCLS

• Customer service in the help desk and campus
  computer labs needs improvement.
• Reorganize STS management structure
• Increase managerial role of full time staff for
  STS staff (outside and in IMT)
• Fine tune recruiting of STS staff
• Assess STS training programs
• Ensure CCLs and departmental labs are part of a
  unified effort to optimize services to students
  (CIO note add kiosks and laptops/prowlnet too)
• Continue ongoing efforts to adopt campus-wide
  standards and supported technologies
• CIO Note These issues are the joint
  responsibility of Client Services and STS. There
  is shared responsibility and accountability in
  this area.

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Equipment Replacement

• Document equipment replacement needs and identify
  replacements that can be deferred. Establish a
  replacement cycle.
• Develop a long-range plan for equipment
  replacement.
• Funding for large scale capital needs must be
  provided by central campus funds for major
  equipment purchase and replacement
• Even if all such needs cannot be met in a given
  budget year, developing a multi-year replacement
  plan to address large-scale capital needs will
  ultimately lead to better decisions

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IT staff need to be matched to areas of greatest
need

• Decisions for retaining services or maintaining
  current levels of service should be based on
  utilization data and campus priority.
• The campus should consider alternatives to the
  existing provision of services when campus demand
  for specialized services is low, seasonal or
  concentrated in only a few users.
• The CIO, in consultation with the campus, should
  initiate conversations about underutilized
  services, including discussion about whether some
  services are more appropriately decentralizedor
  outsourced.

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Printing operations are expensive for the campus

• Continue to explore cost containment strategies
  in printing services
• Periodically review outsourcing strategies
  including the self service copy operation.
• Explore the greater use of multifunction machines
  to print, copy, fax, and scan
• Explore cost savings by moving the copy center to
  the USB
• The committee recommends that Printing Services
  continue to take advantage of over-capacity and
  competitive pricing among four color printers in
  southeastern Wisconsin andnot move forward with
  expensive new major purchases

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Important Concluding Statements

• If something is added, does something else need
  to be removed? Or is the new techology more
  efficient, enabling the campus to do more with
  available resources? If this is not possible,
  how do we allocate or redeploy the resources
  needed to support new systems and services?...
• The CIO, IMT leaders, UTRs, IT-related
  governance groups, and campus leaders need to
  stay abreast of national IT trends in higher
  education, such as an increasing focus on
  security issues, business process reengineering,
  and cost containment strategies
• Taking emerging technologies, national trends, UW
  System IT Initiatives, and campus priorities into
  account, UWM must ensure that technology
  decisions are made wisely.

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Next Steps

• Talking through the report with stakeholders,
  listening, considering
• Creation of a strategy
• Building our response into our IT strategic
  planning effort with guidance from governance
• Execution of the plan
• Asking How are we doing?