Draft work plan: Summer 2001
Greg AndersonCharge: This is an Information Systems facilitated working group, composed of cross-organizational staff and working collaboratively with the Administrative Advisory Council II, chaired by Marilyn Smith. This group will begin work in mid-June and will deliver in early October a proposal containing recommendations for improving computing support among the Departments, Labs, and Centers (DLC’s) at MIT. The key questions to be answered by this working group are: How can MIT dramatically improve the depth and consistency of computing support to the DLC’s? How can the Institute best aggregate and marshal computing support resources most effectively and balance the provision of support across locally provided and centrally provided support. What are the roles and relationships between the DLC’s and IS in realizing this new vision?
Goal: To create an improved, consistent, and scaleable computing support environment that will serve the DLC’s effectively and will be affordable for the Institute.
Background: This work is in response to a request from Provost Bob Brown and Executive Vice-President John Curry to propose a scaleable solution to the computing support needs across campus. The genesis for this topic was the identification of computing support as one of the ‘hot buttons’ for the AAC. The focus for this work will be to select a few (3 or 4) sample departments in order to understand their requirements and existing data in depth, and, from that information, analyze and synthesize the group’s recommendations. The recommendations can present options or scenarios.
Workplan:
The workplan below is intended to provide preliminary scope and high-level tasks
for the group. The details and exact timing will be up to the working group to
determine. The key deliverables need to be presented to the Provost and
Executive Vice-President in conjunction with the Institute’s schedule for the
FY2003 budget process.
|
Issue |
Task |
End product |
Timing |
Responsibility |
|
Pre-planning,
team formation, and team launch |
·
Complete work plan/charter and get agreement from AACII and other key
stakeholders. ·
Identify the roles and skills needed for the team, especially the team
Sponsor and team leader. ·
Bring team together, get commitments, insure availability and
participation from home depts. ·
Launch team |
·
Charter and Work plan ·
Project roles defined: sponsor, team leader, team members ·
Team formed ·
Team launched ·
Expectations are set and agreed-upon. ·
Communications/reporting are set. |
June
1 – 15, 2001 |
AACII
and IS - Theresa, and Greg |
|
Initial
scoping of work; what’s in, what’s out? Determine
audience for this work, Selection
of designated Depts.; Initial
data gathering |
·
Complete workplan based
upon this initial scope and charter. ·
Determine the extent of the work; will this work extend beyond Admin.
Requirements in DLC’s and include others, such as Faculty? ·
Determine the characteristics and qualities of the designated depts.;
for example: ·
Has local I/T support; ·
Environment ranges from
uncomplicated to complicated ·
Has arrangement with I/S for ongoing support ·
Others ·
Document and map the current methods/processes used for computing
support in the selected depts. today. ·
Casetracker and other data help inform levels of I/T support required.
|
·
Detailed workplan. Including refined time and resource estimates, and
agreement on scope. ·
Sample depts. selected for in-depth understanding. Agreement reached
with those depts. regarding their work and participation. (candidates:
Physics, Architecture, Humanities). ·
Data gathered on existing environment in selected depts. – use
existing data such as Casetracker and other resources |
Begin
mid-June; complete by mid-July |
Team
in consultation with AACII
and IS |
|
Gather
and analyze historical data on depts.. Establish
standards and benchmarks Correlate
work with ongoing activities such as new equipment deployment |
·
Complete data gathering from various sources on the existing
environments. ·
From data gathered, work with Depts. to clarify and agree upon their
requirements ·
Leverage on-going activities such as new equipment deployment to
establish process, standards, and methods for supporting the Dept.
including the machine
environments for existing staff, new staff, transferring staff, departing
staff. ·
Through external contacts, examine best practices elsewhere – other
universities, etc. |
·
Clear understanding and data on each of the selected depts. ·
Quantification of the problem. ·
Agreement on requirements / standards ·
Identification of key measures ·
Comparative data for benchmarks |
Complete
by Mid-August |
Team
and selected Depts. |
|
Additional
questions/data from DLC’s Sorting
and analysis of data Map
data and analysis against detailed issues |
·
From data gathered, determine what additional questions may exist for
depts. ·
Identify patterns and
themes shown by data and other inputs. ·
Work the analysis against issues gathered (these are the initial
issues identified at the May 3 sub-group initial meeting: ·
Inconsistency: haves / have-nots ·
Just in time support; available for emergencies ·
Skill sets / competencies ·
Training – for I/T computing support staff and for clients / end
users. ·
Resources & funding -
how to get the most bang for the buck ·
Consistent presence for support ·
Knows your environment ·
Predicatable, consistency service ·
Maintenance, preventative measures |
·
Outreach to other depts. ·
Initial key indicators identified ·
Emergence of a few possible options ·
Begin to develop options of
support models, including initial estimates of
resources ·
Begin mapping of possible options against key issues that must be
addressed. |
Complete
by Mid-September |
Team,
selected depts., AACII |
|
Creation
of options, scenarios AACII
decision on preferred options Completion
of support model for preferred options |
·
From data, inputs, and external practices, select the options to
pursue – the MIT filter – how well would these options work for us? ·
Determine costs and staff resources to support the preferred option(s)
and ongoing operations: ·
Staffing: skills ·
Organization: local and central ·
Leverage and scale: providing support that is affordable and
extensible broadly. ·
Process: standards ·
Training and Communications |
·
Support and Business model detailing costs and resources required for
improved DLC computing support ·
Proposed implementation plan including resource requirements for
start-up and for ongoing operations of the preferred support model ·
Implementation plan should consider a phased-in approach – how to
ramp up the model, measure and evaluate the model. |
Complete
by Oct. 1 |
AACII
and team |
|
Present
the plan to Provost and Executive Vice-President |
·
Complete details on preferred plan ·
Determine presentation path: ·
To Provost and EVP ·
All of AACII ·
Broader communication ·
Consider the integration and role of this proposal in light of other
initiatives; e.g. OCW |
·
Presentation to Provost, EVP, and others as determined. |
Oct.
1 - 15 |
AACII
and team |
|
What
is the program implementation plan? |
·
In conjunction with program leader and sponsors, develop detailed
implementation plan – either as pilot, phase-in approach and looking to
broader implementation. |
·
Implementation plan addressing success factors -
Results -
Improved productivity in DLC’s -
Reduced calls to help desk -
Better management of desktop environments -
Improved training and preparedness for end users -
Reporting data – monitoring and evaluation -
Relationships (initial and ongoing) -
Local I/T approach -
Central I/T support (IS and others) -
Leverage of existing groups -
Reporting relationships -
Ongoing process improvement structure -
Process -
Linkages with other programs -
Policy implications for MIT -
Clear, consistent process -
Communications process is clear and ongoing. |
Will
be determined by the presentation to the Provost and EVP. |
|
Implementation approach:
The implementation approach is to understand and build from existing data and relationships; collaboratively determine how we want to move forward, and to implement a new support model in a phased approach so that we can determine and insure success as the work moves forward.
Policy issues: Are there any policy issues related to this work? If so, this work should begin immediately; in general policy issues should be raised to the AACII and IS sponsors; it should not be the responsibility of the team to resolve policy. Rather, the team should be responsible for identifying policy issues and implications as it conducts its work.
Broader participation and contribution: Through the AACII and its broad representation, we will be able to draw upon the expertise and perspective across campus and elsewhere to design and deliver this new environment.
Appendix: Minutes of the meeting with Theresa Regan, Marilyn Smith, and Greg Anderson on May 18, 2001:
Computing Support Working Group
Marilyn Smith, Chair, AACII, Theresa Regan, Director, Office Computing Practice, Greg Anderson, Director, I/T Support Process
The Goal: create a proposal on behalf of the AACII to be presented to Bob Brown and John Curry regarding DLC computing support. The Provost and Executive Vice-President have stated that they would carefully consider a proposal for computing support that looked across a variety of units and groups.
Timeframe: We would like to present a proposal in October to coincide with the budget submission process.
Scope of the work: DLC's need local computing support. This proposal would focus on the definition of the need - quantity, standards, skills, nature of the work, source of the problems, etc. in order to build a proposal. Training is outside the scope of this work.
Issues to be addressed are (taken from the first meeting minutes April27, with some additions):
- Inconsistency / haves - have nots
- Resources & funding - how to get the right bang for the buck
- Providing the right support for the staff in the DLC's:
- when staff arrive
- when staff move
- when staff transfer
- when staff leave
- For the desktops in these areas, the movement of staff (arrival, transfer, termination) requires certain processes and activities to support those actions.
· Just in time delivery of support combined with preventative maintenance
- skill sets/competencies
- Are there standards for support and definitions of simple-to-complicated environments.
- Consistent individuals for support in each location to provide predictability
- know your work environment
- does maintenance, preventive measures
- Available for emergencies
· Quantify - who has what; who has support, what kind, is it good/bad
- How to prove that computing support is absolutely essential
- HW/SW, what tools do people need - beyond desktops in DLC's includes business applications-local servers
We believe that a project from now until the end of September could focus on:
- Selecting a sample of representative depts. for study (we can't/shouldn't study all depts, rather choose a few that represent certain dept. models; local support, no support, DCS SLA, etc.)
- Gather available historical data about the computing support environment and activities in those selected depts. Outcome: a baseline profile of the existing environments.
- Compose questions and talk with the depts. to determine current levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction, future needs. etc. Outcome: new data to use to compare the delta between where they are now and where they want to be in the future.
- From these conversations, gather the data, organize and analyze. Outcome: aggregated, quantified and qualified data across the different models.
- Make recommendations based on the findings. Organize and present the findings to the AACII. Outcome: agreement on the recommendations and combined endorsement for presentation
Next steps: a workplan that would provide greater detail and assignments to this work. Who: Greg (with Theresa and possibly Rob).
Proposed team: Marilyn Smith, Liz Cooper, Theresa Regan, Amy Francis, Marybeth Costa, Lisa Magnano-Bleheen, Rob Smyser , Kyle Pope, Hans Dietrich, Greg Anderson..