[1139] in I/T Delivery
Notes from 4/14 Delivery Council
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Ferrara)
Mon Apr 28 15:22:37 2003
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20030427214809.00b7db10@po9.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 22:43:49 -0400
To: delivery-council@mit.edu
From: Robert Ferrara <rferrara@MIT.EDU>
Cc: khiggins@mit.edu, delivery-mtg@menelaus.local
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Hi all,
Here are the minutes from the 4/14 Delivery Council. Attending: jag, ljr, mca, msnow, rferrara, khiggins, thg, tomt, wdc, thorne. mjv had to leave early.
Updates
- Project PAs: changes (follow up from Ed Dolan) - reviewed with group
- Delivery monthly communication - sent out, feedback to Bob for next month
- Departmental Applications Development - should have announcement out soon
Roundtable
- wdc: working on Athena 9.2, Gnome introduced some complexity to work
- thorne: starting to get OKI 1.0 releases out there; next month on Sourceforge.
- tomt: microsoft server 2003 being tested on new domain; finding new incompatibilities between server 2000 and 2003
- tomt: consultant working on msi; another consultant identified for AFS
- msnow: ILead Topics: what would be helpful? Send ideas to Mark for potential topics
- mca: EH&S in warehouse; training piece being designed; adding info from MIT ID database
- mca: a lot of people want to use Data Warehouse test machine (CAO, TLO)
- mca: who is teaching what data; dean's office requested changes. some depts have more data maintained than registrar (EECS)
- mca: AAUDE class taught at Northwestern IR conference; will teach again in Ohio
- ljr: minuteman ECAT rolling out this week
- mjv: new kerb5 (2nd alpha) out
- jag: COFHE IR conference presentation went well
- khiggins: try to buy what is needed earlier than June khiggins,
- thg: events calendar moving; few more tasks
Performance Appraisals and $
- update on ITLT discussion, philosophy
- opportunity for final "tweaking"
- Bob has the numbers, will share after the meeting, fairly happy with the result
Being Proactive About Change
-how do we prepare ourselves for new leadership, especially in the context of budget pressures?
This was a difficult discussion and it was obvious that people had did not want to engage the question as it was originally framed correctly. Here are the notes from the board
ORIENTATION
- "we're the build it or buy it people"
- we need to build some of our infrastructure
- others (outside MIT) use our infrastructure
- we teach market about extremes of scalability and security
- data administration
- low-cost, high-value, high-vision producer (Athena, X, Kereberos)
- make technologies practical for large-scale enterprise
- OKI
- present technology vision/model & history/philosophy
CHALLENGES IN THE NEXT 2 YEARS
- Windows business plan / value proposition
- Departmental Application Development -- make it work
- Strategic decisions re UNIX Athena
- Integration with FSS
* Core Question: Are we in the development business? What kind?
- effective marketing of services
- help people feel good about their work (currently on overload)
RISKS
- unrealized value -- we need to properly market ourselves
- VP who doesn't talk to customers or people doing work
- move to a "narrowly defined" Service model
OPPORTUNITIES
- models: low-overhead integrator OR developing new services and technologies
- market IS/MIT expertise and inventions to customers and marketplace
- reach old constituencies in new ways (e.g. CAO)
- if work is necessary, get $ for it
ADVOCACY
- need someone with development expertise -- needs to understand costs of building and maintaining systems
- ability to take a strong direction
- knows everyone in the organization
- "we've underfunded everything"
- align resources with work & priorities
- get in & out of businesses explicitly
Next steps:
- bring back to DC
- focus on Core Question
- document all the businesses we're in (sample business write-up --> DC)
4/28 Delivery Council cancelled
Next Meeting: 5/12 (N42-286)
