Forming Partnerships in the Academic Environment

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Forming Partnerships in the Academic Environment

• By
• Don Harris
• Vice Provost and CIO
• Emory University

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Official Disclaimers

• Higher Education is political
• The CIO must operate in this environment
• The reason to form and maintain partnerships is
  often politically motivated
• This presentation has a lot of political
  overtones
• Take what is helpful to you for your situation
  and leave the rest

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What is Partnership?

• An alignment between two organizations that shows
  itself in truly collaborative working
  arrangements
• This is far from the vendor-customer relationship
  many IT units have with their administration or
  faculty

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Reasons to Partner

• Working together on common goals
• Especially those of critical institutional
  importance
• Increased likelihood of funding for projects
• Link projects to academic goals and not IT
• Greater leverage in working with others
• This involves those on campus as well as vendors
• Having someone to watch your back
• Critical to allow your partner to tell you what
  you dont always want to hear, for example what
  others are saying about you

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More Reasons to Partner

• Increasing the ability to deal with problems when
  they occur on a project
• For example, when a vendor doesnt deliver
• When resources arent being brought to a project
  by a campus unit
• When cost overruns are encountered
• Having someone to celebrate with when objectives
  or projects are accomplished
• Joint successes have long lasting positive
  effects on all participants

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Finding Common Ground

• Use your strategic planning process to seek
  partners with common goals and objectives
• Bring others into your planning process
• Identify threads through plans that might lead to
  partnership agreements
• Be sure that what you are identifying has
  institutional support
• Make sure players are identified at several
  levels in both organizations
• Partnership agreements between leaders only is
  not effective

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More Common Ground

• Be sure to identify roles each group will play
  and how decisions will be made in the partnership
  arrangement
• What resources will be deployed by each group?
• How will additional resources be acquired?
• How will impasses between staff be resolved?
• How will funds be deployed for the project?
• How will project progress be measured?
• How and who will give reports to senior
  management?

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A More Political Approach

• Take a systems approach to your campus
• Identify the players and their roles
• Identify the interaction between players
• Seek to better understand the strengths and
  dangers of partnership arrangements
• Align yourself and your organization in a way
  that promotes your goals

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Know Your Potential Partners

• What are their backgrounds?
• What are their interests?
• Who do they partner with?
• What (or who) influences them?
• What are their hot buttons?
• Where are there rifts between players?
• What is their history with your organization?
• What do they think about you?

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Understanding your Partners

• Read what they write
• Listen to their speeches
• Formulate good questions and engage them in
  discussion about their area of interest
• Invite them to present to your staff
• Have your organization engage their organization
  at several levels
• Collaborate with them in presenting or writing

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Seek Understanding of Dynamics

• Is one player stronger than the other?
• What role do you play in each partnership?
• Do partners have different business drivers?
• How does campus governance affect the
  partnership?
• Think about how you want to be identified with
  your partner
• Convenience
• Business necessity
• Common goals
• Long term strategic importance

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• Political Savvy Systematic Approaches to
  Leadership Behind-the-ScenesbyJoel R. DeLuca,
  Ph.D.EBG Publications 1999

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Ways to Strengthen the Partnership

• Conduct joint activities between groups
• Management workshops (e.g., MBTI)
• Training or professional development
• Field trips to institutions with common interests
• Have regular meetings
• To assess work towards partnership goals and
  objectives
• To allow leadership to discuss concerns or new
  opportunities
• To just allow the staff to get to know each other
  better

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More Ways to Strengthen

• Look for ways to interact with partners
• At campus social events like receptions
• At arts programs
• Before or after regular senior staff meetings
• Also seek to better understand your partners
  professional interests
• Attend the conferences they attend
• Interact outside the office on their turf
• Invite them to your IT conferences and introduce
  them to your colleagues

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A Few Pitfalls to Avoid

• Be careful what you say and write
• Remember your partners also have partners
• Be very careful in email which is easily
  forwarded
• Be sure that project reports and budgets are
  reviewed by leadership of both groups
• Dont send out anything official before all
  issues are worked out with your partner

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More Pitfalls

• Be careful that you dont get tagged with any
  bad press your partner receives due to their
  poor management
• Learn how to distance yourself from your partner
  when he or she isnt pulling their share of the
  load
• Protect yourself and your organization from
  financial problems your partner may encounter

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Being Visible as Partners

• Develop joint press releases and stories for
  campus publications
• Also consider joint brochures, web sites,
  articles and even videos
• Feed news items to the campus paper, newsletters,
  alumni magazine, etc.
• Be sure to emphasize that you are addressing
  institutional goals and not your personal agendas

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Celebrate Your Joint Success

• Look for ways to capitalize on the results of
  successful partnerships
• Awards for your staff, conference presentations
• Strive to be seen as an organization with which
  others wish to be associated
• Be prepared to prioritize and say no to some
  requests for partnerships
• Use success to strengthen your organization and
  seek funding for other initiatives

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Think About Partnerships Outside Of Your Own
Institution

• Identify partnerships that might already exist
• Consider how you might partner with another
  institution to support collaborative work
• Hold joint meetings to consider projects and
  exchange opportunities
• Also seek to involve faculty and administrators
  in these discussions
• And dont forget about EDUCAUSE regional
  conferences and other events where you can
  explore partnership opportunities

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Ending a Partnership

• Possible reasons to end a partnership
• When your partner is leaving the institution
• When your partner becomes a liability
• When your goals are no longer mutual
• When your priorities (or resources) shift
• Some ways to bring about an end
• Have partnership linked to annual plan
• Have specific timeframe to review partnership
• Use your regular meetings to redefine goals