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We Can Get There From Here
We have no doubt that we can transcend this crisis in information technology support. The question is, are our IT organizations willing to do the work required? Here is some of what we must do.
Educate campus constituencies
This really is a process of helping our institutions collectively discover and learn how to manage information technologies. When we are in the trenches with the pushing and shoving and finger-pointing, it is not always easy to see the process in that light. As leaders we must search for and identify every opportunity to be educators and to make sure that the lesson of our experiences is as clear as it can be. If faculty and students complain that they cannot get their work done because the dial-in lines are always busy, we need to be sure they understand how many lines we have, how much each line costs per year, how their own behaviors contribute to the problem, and how a change in their behavior can help fix it. They now want continuous, Ethernet-like connections from their homes, which would ultimately require almost one incoming line per person. People are capable of learning and accepting new economic models and/or constraints on behavior if they understand the underlying issues and are involved in the processes of deciding on the regulations.
Engage users in decisions that affect them
If we have done our jobs in educating the institution, we ought to be able to use the collaborative process that our institutions know well to create the standards and rules necessary to support our functioning together as a community.
Thomas Jefferson said:
I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. Letter to William C. Jarvis, 1820
There may have been a time when computers were so mysterious to ordinary people that customers were willing to let the experts decide the important issues. Those days are gone. Our only option is to educate and collaborate.
Redefine roles toward a federal model
At many institutions, the central IT organizations and their users collude in perpetuating the view that the central organization is responsible for most technology, service, and support, even in the face of facts to the contrary. Departmental support mechanisms have developed in most institutions without a clear definition of how they articulate (or not) with the central support function. Under these conditions we often see many people doing the same jobs, stepping on toes in the process, while important jobs go undone. We suggest that an institutional dialog about these roles be undertaken with the goal of improved efficiency and effectiveness. All parties need to be a part of this dialog, with upper-level administration lending official status to the solution proposed.
It may be helpful to frame these discussions about changing roles in political and economic terms, as the development of an information economy based upon the model of federalism.8 In this model, the central IT organization retains a role similar to the federal government, but encourages and supports a quasi-open market economy in information services. The central role in this model does not include providing all IT services and support or dictating to individuals or departments what they can or cannot do. It focuses instead on influencing the actions of distributed units through policies and standards necessary to the smooth functioning of the whole, operating some key functions critical to all (such as institutional data management), and providing a basic technical infrastructure that supports the departmental and individual applications. Beyond these "reserved powers," the federal model leaves great freedom for departments to exploit technology in ways that maximize their own effectiveness.
Create effective distributed support models
We must experiment with new organizational models to find ones that provide a sufficient level of decentralization without destroying the fabric upon which we can build an integrated environment. This will be easier to do in institutions that still have a relatively centralized structure. Some possible approaches include:
There are many possible approaches, but all involve significant changes to the current roles and self-image of our central IT staff and to the approach and mindsets of staff currently in distributed support activities.
Another challenge of setting up an effective distributed support system is ensuring the ownership by department managers of technology support responsibilities. Even if we have done a good job of educating constituencies at our institutions, some individuals at the departmental level may resist taking responsibility for managing their unit's IT environment, either because they think it is the job of central IT or because they lack resources to do so.
Mentor individual staff
Enlisting the enthusiastic participation of some traditional technologists on our campuses in the personal transformation required for the new support model can be a significant challenge. Our current organizations still have plenty of people who "grew up" with an earlier paradigm and really like how it was then. This reluctance to change applies to technical staff at both the central and departmental levels.
In addition to attitudes toward change, there are in many cases serious limitations to the skill sets of these support providers. Training can recast skill sets if the trainee is willing to learn and grow. Training is needed not only to develop new technical skills that are more appropriate to the distributed technologies of today, but also to develop communication and diplomacy skills and the systems-level viewpoint needed to be maximally effective in the future roles for our organizations. We continue to need the very best technical experts we can find, but that alone will not guarantee success in the new context.
Reorientation of our central staff should occur along two lines. The most technical roles in the future should be oriented to designing for robustness and manageability. Less technical roles need to focus on designing institutional processes, structures, tools, and incentives to accomplish certain user behavioral outcomes. Both groups need good communication skills and diplomacy. The reorientation of departmental support people should include their new roles as partners with the central group, with the responsibility and authority that implies. We have found no formal training aimed at these transformations. This leaves personal mentoring- a very slow process.
Recruit and replace, if necessary
There are institutions for which the need to transform the information technology support function is so urgent that the process of motivating and mentoring referred to above cannot produce results in time. There are some individuals who just will not engage the new model. If the organization is growing and can add new skills and attitudes that way, change by addition is a possibility. If not, our only option may be to replace some existing staff with new people who are more adaptable. Sometimes it is only necessary to do this a few times. The savvy new staff can help with the accelerated mentoring process. Outsourcing the functions that have the highest priority for change is a variant of this strategy.
Endnote:
8Robert W. Zmud, Andrew C. Boynton, and Gerry C. Jacobs, "The Information Economy: A New Perspective for Effective Information Systems Management," Data Base 18 (1): 17-23.
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