Leaner and meaner?

This morning's RUGIT session opened with an update from the new chief Executive of JISC Martyn Harrow, and the Chief Executive of JANET Tim Marshall. The Wilson Review concluded that JISC should become leaner and more focused, and that there should be changes to the funding model, moving to a more subscription based approach. A Transition Board has produced a report apparently containing 35 recommendations which should be published next week. These will cover governance, funding, focus and legal issues. One of the major services which JISC funds is our network, JANET, which we all feel passionately about, and there was a lot of discussion about how this might be funded in the future, and it's relationship with whatever legal entity JISC becomes. I think it's fair to say there was a full and frank discussion on the future, with a number of different views expressed. I look forward to seeing the report which hopefully will produce a leaner, meaner JISC with a much clearer focus.

The final session of the morning looked at governance and organisational structure. Representatives from four different universities gave us an overview of how they were organised and governed, and we had a discussion on the relative merits, issues etc of each. It's always fascinated me how many different structures there are across the university system.

All in all a good couple of days, lots of ideas shared, opinions exchanged and contacts made.


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Mobility and governance

Had another phone conversation with a Gartner analyst yesterday about how to support a user population who own an increasing variety of mobile devices, running different operating systems and browsers, who expect to be able to access our services on them, wherever they are. This was in preparation for a talk I'm giving next week at the Eduserve Symposium on The Mobile University . As usual, I'm well prepared and have my talk and slides already prepared (that's just a fantasy...), but not panicing yet as the talk is coming together in my head, and at some point it will find its way out. Hopefully before I stand up and open my mouth. Lots of issues to address, including the level of support we can provide, the different services we can offer, and the different models of providing services, ranging from a very controlled to very hands off. Not to mention security, standards, native apps vs web services.....

I've also been having a series of meetings with senior managers in the University about changes to our governance structure. Governance usually is enough to put me to sleep, but this looks interesting! We're proposing a series of strategic advisory boards, aligned with the service areas in our service catalogue, so we're moving well away from having groups that look at systems, to a much more high level, strategic look at whole services - teaching and learning, research, communication and collaboration for example. So far its been well received, and we hope to bring it in by the summer.

Finally, I spent a very pleasant day today with a newly appointed IT Director from another institution, sharing ideas, experiences and ways of managing our respective departments. It's good to talk as they say, and good to share and network - we can all learn a lot from each other.

Planning

Busy week about to start - two important meetings coming up which require a lot of preparation.

First, next Monday, is my opening discussion as part of the new planning process where I will be meeting the Registrar and members of the planning team to look at both our process and our plans for the next 3 years. Most of the documentation is already completed - we have a process in place stating with our vision, which the department agreed earlier this year at World Cafe style events:

“We will be an innovative and influential department, respected by the University and recognised as a leader in the sector, delivering excellent, customer focused services”

This is underpinned by a number of departmental strategies which inform planning, objective setting and the business processes of the department. Existing strategies are:

• Technology
• Teaching and Learning
• Customer Service
• Communications
• Research – (currently under development)

Objectives for the year are set at department, section and team level, and are communicated and available to the whole department. Individual objectives are set during the annual Staff Review and Development Scheme (SRDS)

New developments are managed by the CiCS Programme Board as part of the departmental programme of projects and outlined in our programme definition document. Other programmes oversee specific University initiatives, including the SAP programme and the University Collaboration Improvement Programme. For Business systems, Application Groups receive all requests for new developments for prioritisation, with individual projects then going to the CiCS Programme Board.

So, I think we've got the planning process sorted out, but we need to ensure that we are aligining with University priorities, and that we have the resources to carry out our plans.

Immediately following that on Tuesday I have a session with our governing body - the University Executive Board - where I get the chance to talk to them about how we are supporting the business needs of the University. We will be looking at current and future developments and what strategic benefits they will achieve.

More on that later, I've got to write the presentation now.... Oh, and I've got a week full of meetings.

Culture eats strategy for lunch every day of the week

So the presentation on IT governance started with the most important quote. Whatever plans, strategies etc we have, it’s culture that will be the deciding factor on whether it happens or not.

The CIO of Guelph University (Ontario, Canada), Mike Ridley took us on a journey of how he had introduced a new IT Decision framework, and how he'd coped with the cultural and people issues that such change brings with it.

Some things I will bring back with me - one is something we have been meaning to do for a long time, which is to engage the IT support staff we have located in our academic departments more. At Guelph they took this disparate group of staff and suggested to them that they should organise themselves, and in return they would be given designated positions on IT committees. So the ITSIG (IT Special Interest Group) was formed, which meets regularly, and is attended by central computing service staff, and has representatives on all IT committees.

Mike's view was that CIOs should spend a lot of time communicating and building relationships- "The way forward is paradoxically not to look ahead, but to look around".

He advocated the use of blogs, twitter etc (I'm OK there then...), so I had a quick look at his blog and thought you might enjoy this article he'd written for the student newsletter.

Our Shared Vision

First Senate meeting of the new session today. As always, the main item of business is the VCs report where he gave a good overview of what's happened in his first year at Sheffield:

• The new University structure is operational
• Faculties are the primary focus for decision making
• A University Executive Board is operational with Faculties represented
• There's openess and transparency about what is being discussed

He also talked about the global situation and how that could affect us:

• The Global financial crisis will have knock on effect
• What's the financial sustainability of HE sector nationally
• Will there/won't there be a change in government, and if so what effect will it have
• Demographic changes will begin to kick in in the next 5 to 10 yrs
• There's an atmosphere of greater competition which will lead to increased selectivity in funding

There was some good discussion about our aspirations as a University, and how we can achieve them particularly in the difficult financial climate. Some very positive vibes about working together and having open debates on the way forward.

The rest of the agenda fairly uncontentious. A couple of questions about how successful the new on-line registration system had been. We were able to confirm that overall it had been a success, but there had been some departments where there had been problems - presumably the question came from one of those departments. I think we did a good job - the implementation of a new system is rarely without problems, and this had very few overall.

Bring on the benefits

A full day looking at the University Collaboration Improvement Programme today in relation to Benefits Realisation. Re-defined the objectives, and came up with some new benefits, as well a fresh look at some of the business changes that need to take place. Lots of debate about whether the programme is concerned with technology, or collaboration in general - general concensus that it has to be about the exchange of information facilitated by technology. Other enablers are way out of scope, and our group doesn't have the resources to solve them. The next step is to develop a blueprint for what collaboration might look like in the future - a sort of day in the life of.

The three objectives we agreed for the programme are:

• To enable and encourage the university community to communicate and collaborate more effectively
• To promote inclusion, enhancing the sense of community for staff and students
• To enable and encourage collaboration between the university community and external partners

Yesterday I spoke to our new University Executive Board about how they might be more open and transparent in terms of release of Board agendas, minutes and papers, and how Freedom of Information and Data Protection Legislation might impact what is and isn't released. I must say, I'm really glad to see a change in culture with this move towards more transparent governance - it can only be a good thing.

Trust me, I’m a CIO

Gartner HE day at Salford University today - a good day. Always nice to mix with other CIOs and IT Directors and share experiences, issues and best practice. Today's discussions all centred around governance, including demonstrating the value of IT and using benchmarking techniques. The day was in three parts, with a presentation on a topic which then led into a round table discussion.

One of the things we concentrated on was how to interact with the governance structure of your institution, whatever it might be - and there were as many different models as there were Universities represented.

We talked about the importance of happy users, and managing user expectations. Someone suggested that the perfect form of governance is the enlightened dictatorship (I certainly agree with that ). Although even the most enlightened dictator eventually becomes corrupted by profit and power over time....

Complexity is an issue we need to get across - HE is a number of businesses - research, teaching, management, all with different needs, and the different cultures of the different academic disciplines also has to be factored in.

One of the main messages to come out about communicating with the governance structure was the famous KISS model - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Suggestions included

Establish that IT matters - show how pervasive and critical it is, and how much funding it consumes
Do user satisfaction surveys
Benchmark yourself against other institutions
Use risk assessments – show what happens if services are not there
Need to balance project and service portfolios
Project portfolio needs to be managed strategically. New services have ongoing costs. Need therefore to manage that carefully – may not be costs in IT dept.
Talk about services not systems
Talk about performance.
Talk about business outcomes

Finally, be transparent, because transparency builds trust

Senate

Senate meeting yesterday afternoon - 2 major discussion items. First was the on-going process around restructuring. All of the Faculty Pro Vice Chancellors are now in place, and the new University Executive Board (UEB) will take over on 1 August. UEB consists of the Vice Chancellor, 5 Faculty PVCs, the 3 cross-cutting PVCs (Teaching and Learning, Research and Innovation, and External Affairs), the Registrar, Director of Finance, Director of HR and Academic Secretary. More professional service reps than before (still no IS rep though but I'll keep working on it...). We're promised that there will be much more transparency of decision making - no inner cabinets, just a collective responsibility, which is a good thing. There's still a lot of work in progress around the role of the Faculties, including their governance structures, but this seems to be progressing well. I'm in the process of meeting all of the PVCs - I've had 3 very positive discussions so far - about how we might work in partnership with them to provide the most efficient, cost effective service to them, and add value to the support they already receive from their departmental staff.

Second item on the Senate agenda was the capital programme, with details of new buildings on the cards, as well as significant refurbishments. The most significant refurbishment is the Arts Tower. It's over 40 years old, and a Grade II listed building, and in drastic need of a lot of money spending on it! I wonder how many of you realise that it's inspired by the Seagram Building in New York - which has twice as many floors. The building will be gradually emptied over the next few months, (with the exception of the Estates Department who have bravely agreed to move into it during the works), and then the outside cladding will be replaced as well as an internal refurb of some of the floors.

Another two major refurbishments are Western Bank Library, and University House (Student's Union) which will have a significant amount of work done on it to create a variety of new spaces.

I've mentioned the concept of Learning Hub before, but rather tha a new build, we are currently looking at trasforming the Edwardian wing of the old Jessop Hospital into teaching space, including self help space for students for the English Language Teaching Centre and Modern Languages Teaching Centre. They will have to get rid of the dead pigeons first though!

Application Groups

One of the areas we're trying to change at the moment is how we prioritise and allocate resources to new projects as well as enhancements to existing systems and applications. We're just establishing a new set of Application Groups, each chaired by a senior member of staff , and all having representation from academic departments, professional services and students where appropriate. Application groups have existed for some time, but they're getting a radical shake up, with new membership and terms of reference, with a remit to look at strategy for development in their areas. The groups will be:

Student Application Group covering all areas relating to the student systems, including prospective and existing students, and alumni.

Finance Application Group covering all areas relating to the Finance system including its deployment in departments.

Staff and Payroll Application Group, covering all developments relating to Open HR/Payroll, including those relating to academic departments, Personnel Cost Planner and other related HR systems such as staff development

The Portal Application Group covering all developments relating to the portal

Management Application Groups covering all developments relating to Reporting and Management Information

We're also about to start discussion to form a new Application Group to oversee systems relating to the University’s Estate and Facilities where there is a need for them to interface with central systems (including catering, uSport, conferencing, and the Library). One of the things I'm concerned about is the proliferation of systems using their own authentication methods, and not based on our central standards and integration principles. Hopefully this will allow better coordination.