[229] in iswork
Notes from 3/22/2001 ITLT meeting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Allison F. Dolan)
Mon Apr 30 09:29:52 2001
Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010430092814.00b42770@po9.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 09:29:28 -0400
To: iswork@mit.edu
From: "Allison F. Dolan" <adolan@MIT.EDU> (by way of Robert Ferrara <rferrara@mit.edu>)
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Hello,
Please note the first section under Allison's notes regarding IS Work.
Cheers, Bob
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3/22/2001 Meeting Summary - Update on IS Work and Communicating with Customers initiative; some roundtable.
(Vijay absent)
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Bob Ferrara led a discussion of the current state and future plans for IS Work (http://web.mit.edu/is/work), focusing primarily on how to make IS Work more 'real', including populating the 'Activities' section of the repository. Directors each reviewed how they were using the system. There was reaffirmation that the tool was valuable and should be maintained.
It was agreed that ITLT will continue to have primary responsibility for updates to IS Work. Team leaders are still responsible for maintaining Project notebooks and/or other team reference materials. It was noted that some team reference materials, such as web pages, were woefully out of date.
Clean up of the Activities pages in IS Work is expected to be complete by end of April. ITLT plans to have a day-long session to walk through IS Work to further refine, 'prune', augment as appropriate.
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Greg Anderson and Matt Brody led a discussion of the Communicating With Customers initiative. This initiative evolved from the recognition that is critically important for IS to do a better job of communicating, especially the benefits and breadth of IS work. (This is also an issue with IT organizations at other higher ed as well as major companies; Matt provided a handout from Princeton University that explicitly discusses the importance of customer communications.)
The initiative is currently defined to include 3 parallel activities:
- Exploration of personalized web content presentation
- 'Communicating with Customers' competency building for IS staff
- Organizing for improved communication
These 3 items are not everything IS needs to do, but are 3 'foundational' steps we can get address.
The web work is looking at portal concepts (e.g., customizable views based on the kind of IT user a person is). This work is linked with other IS activities, re: portals and web interfaces, and will require a cost/benefit analysis before anything is implemented.
The competency building work is being done in conjunction with Competency Group. Ed Dolan has developed a proposal that will be presented to ITLT in May-ish; if approved, implementation can begin shortly thereafter. (note: 'Communication' is one of the 6 Compensable Factors in the Administrative Staff job classification model.)
Matt is collecting data from IT groups at other universities re: how they are structured to manage effective customer communications, especially 'strategic' communications (vs 'tactical' communications, such as user guides). A more specific proposal (e.g., perhaps a new 'communications specialist' position) will be forthcoming.
[Note: as an outgrowth of this initiative, Jim Bruce has authored an article about IS and the customer satisfaction survey for the widely read Faculty Newsletter.]
Dani distributed a handout 'Dept of Environmental Managment - Setting a Strategic Direction', an example of how one organization communicated information about itself, both current state and desired future state.
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Dani led a learning moment regarding Conflict Resolution, using material from 'The Mediation Process', by Christopher Moore. The model encourages understanding of the type of conflict (eg structural conflict, value conflict, relationship conflict, etc.). The type of techniques used to resolve the conflict will vary based on the situation.
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Roundtable
Bob noted that there were further delays in the Linux ITS product promised by SAP. This will have an impact on HR/Payroll, and may mean diverting folks such as Paul Hill from current work to provide a NT version of ITS. Jim will escalate issue within SAP. Bob also mentioned the plans for SAP info days. [These meetings took place April 24 and April 25.]
Theresa mentioned some discussion items with Lincoln Labs re: 'guiding principles' for data in SAP (e.g., which data are shared). Lincoln is also planning to go live with SAP Plant Maintenance in October.
Jim provided an update on a recent 100Mb/s meeting, which reviewed current status of closets, switches, wiring etc. There may be some areas which need only a little additional work in order to be 'on line'.
Jim distributed copies of the proposed FY02 budget (consistent with the budget parameters from John Curry's office)
Jim distributed a draft of IS' response to an internal financial audit, which had noted several areas were IS was not consistent with MIT practice. Although the audit was done by Profit Center, Angie Milonas (IS Finance Team Leader) prepared a consolidated IS response, as well as working on ways to simplify the process for the future.
Jim shared some comments from a February faculty meeting re: OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative.
Dani led a discussion re: planning for future ITLT agendas, specifically, to develop a more systematic way of reviewing Process and Practices and not missing out on important synergies because info isn't shared in a timely way.
Handouts:
'Building Your Company's Vision', by James Collins and Jerry Porras, HBR, Sept-Oct 1996 - a 'classic' HBR article
'Lessons Learned about Project Teams at MIT', copy of a presentation given by Patricia Brady, Senior Project Director, and Dani Aivazian.
