This is a summary of a poster session presented at the 1993 CAUSE Annual Conference 
held in San Diego, California, December 7-10. It is the intellectual property of the 
author(s) and may not be published without permission. Disseminating the material 
otherwise is permitted, provided that the author(s) and the original presentation of the 
paper at CAUSE93 are acknowledged. 


       STRATEGICALLY RESTRUCTURING THE IT ORGANIZATION

C. Edward Mathay
Marquette University


For the past several years, campus IT organizations have 
embraced eagerly the concepts of distributed computing, 
networks, client-server, and reengineering.  We have accepted 
willingly the need to change our service offerings to our 
users/customers to include graphical user interfaces and 
relational data bases.  

At the same time, many of these same IT organizations retain 
the same structure as when they were established to support a 
mainframe environment.  Old divisions along academic and 
administrative computing units do not reflect the needs of 
our customers.  Our users may experience problems determining 
which service unit in such organizations to contact for 
assistance with distributed computing needs and departmental 
local networks. Confusion among the staff over service 
responsibilities is likely.    

The Computer Services Division (CSD) of Marquette University 
found itself in that situation as staff members attempted to 
grapple with the strategies needed to provide IT support in 
the 1990s.  A task force concluded that developing a new  
organizational structure was an important and necessary 
action to enable the division to achieve the other strategies 
identified.  This paper describes the process used to align 
people, positions, and organizational goals.  


FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE

In April of 1990 the director of CSD distributed a memo to 
all staff members asking advice on specific areas of 
potential change.  Enrollment declines resulted in shrinking 
budgets which caused the need for downsizing.  Changes in 
service demands required a review of activities to add, 
expand, decrease, or eliminate.  

Attempting to modify the lineup of service offerings seemed 
to dictate the development of a more effective organizational 
structure.  The memo suggested some possible new positions.  

About half of the staff responded to the questions posed.  
The director followed up with some individuals to clarify and 
expand their responses.  After the CSD management then in 
place reviewed the responses, a summary of the questions and 
replies was shared with all employees.  This summary was 
accompanied by a second solicitation for suggestions and 
ideas from staff.  The twelve people who responded were asked 
to nominate five task force members.  Those with the six 
highest totals of nominations became the task force along 
with the director.  

The CSD in the 1990s Task Force began their work by creating 
a mission statement for the division.  They then performed a 
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis 
for the unit.  Next the task force established goals for the 
remainder of the decade.  Finally, they developed the  
necessary strategies to fulfill those goals.  One of the 
goals stated the need to create a more effective organization 
structure.  

DEVELOPING THE NEW STRUCTURE  

The task force members presented their ideas for a new 
structure in a brainstorming session.  Eventually, they 
synthesized their ideas into a tentative new structure.  They 
submitted the plan to the other staff for reactions and 
suggestions.  The task force incorporated those suggestions 
which appeared feasible.  

After completing the new organization structure, the task 
force attempted to fit existing people into it.  Next they 
determined which were the positions left without a matching 
person, and conversely, the people left without a position.  
Prior permission from the institution's affirmative action 
director allowed for internal advertising of the "vacant" 
positions.  Fortunately, we ended up with no pieces 
left over after reconstructing the unit.  

The revised organization went into effect on July 1, 1992.  
The new management team reviewed the effectiveness of the new 
structure in October and made a minor revision.  A further 
review a year later revealed improved communications and 
cooperation within the unit and with people outside the 
organization.  We have continued to use ad hoc task forces to 
work successfully on issues and projects which involve 
various work units.  Users are better able to obtain the 
desired assistance.  While some areas were identified as 
needing further attention, everyone is satisfied that we are 
in a better position to make continued improvements.  Other 
campus IT organizations should not overlook the  benefits of 
reviewing the effectiveness of their structure and making 
modifications where desirable.  .  


Date Revised: 02/27/94 (bdz)