Date: Fri, 25 Oct 96 15:56:16 EDT From: dania@MIT.EDU (Daniela Aivazian) To: itlt-notes@MIT.EDU, ilead@MIT.EDU Subject: ITLT Vision Statements 10/21/96 - Pt 2 PART II OF ITLT VISION STATEMENTS FROM PLANNING SESSION 10/21/96 ________________________________________________________________________ Vision for I/T Discovery Process Discovery is an IT work process that accomplishes its goals through projects. As a collaborative process, Discovery work is determined by the project partnership. Although it is difficult to predict specific Discovery efforts in July 1998, we can use these characteristics to describe the quality of the Discovery Process for Fiscal Year 1999: RESPONSIVE: to the Institute, to MIT units, to higher ed ANTICIPATORY: pro-active efforts on behalf of MIT ENERGETIC: work is accomplished professionally, collaboratively, and quickly MEASURABLE: success will be measured by customer satisfaction and IT efficiency UNDERSTANDABLE: MIT units will know and understand the IT organization and the role of Discovery ACCESSIBLE: Discovery services will be available all MIT units. INFLUENTIAL: The Discovery Process for approaching and engaging new IT work will provide a productive influence for all new IT efforts, including those which take place outside of IS. FLEXIBLE: Discovery will develop and apply a variety of productive approaches to new IT work and will select the most appropriate approach for the work at hand. In order to realize this vision for Discovery, the following success factors are needed: ALIGNMENT: with MIT strategies and priorities, customer priorities, IT priorities INFRASTRUCTURE: IT technology infrastructure, IS organizational infrastructure, MIT organizational infrastructure (ReEngineering needs to be internalized at MIT) OUTREACH: IT structure and goals need to be presented and reinforced at every opportunity INTERDEPENDENCY: Every aspect of the IT organization needs to be successful in order for any one component of the structure to succeed ********************* "BIG ISSUES" for Discovery: Drivers of IS Change - ReEngineering comes to fruition: New services, new ways of doing business, new organizational structures, new IT permutations, new expectations, greater reliance upon IS for more extensive services - Increased rate of IT change: New IT capabilities from the commercial sector, greater demand from MIT customers, demand for scalable yet tailored services Impacts of Drivers - Territory: Organizational boundaries will become more permeable, but old paradigms of MIT power - control of information - will not change easily to new paradigms of sharing information. We must continue to work on inter- and intra-organizational trust issues. - Demand: More MIT units will look to IS for leadership, knowledge, and partnerships to cope with increased rate of IT change. IS will be asked to represent MIT more broadly in IT in higher education IS Capabilities and Assets - Staff: IS staff are knowledgeable and passionate; they want MIT to succeed - Connections: IS is well connected with all spheres of MIT - internally and externally. Greg Anderson ________________________________________________________________________ Vision for I/T Delivery Process This is a formatted, organized list of the ideas developed at the 10/11 Delivery Project Leaders meeting in W91. In addition, Mike Barker's notes have been plagiarized extensively, particularly in the Operational section. (I wasn't aware of these questions [drivers, impacts, and capabilities] in time to discuss them with other Delivery people, so these particular answers are just my own observations.) Basic (achievable much earlier) - All projects "on the radar" in a widely visible project database - Project notebooks standard, updates managed by project leaders - IS/resources database, maintained by Competency Groups, also widely visible - Predictable forums and sources of additional help for Delivery Leaders Operational - Strong integration influence, including "checklist" (e.g., warehouse, roles) - Core project techniques established, including: Planning and estimating techniques Standard peer reviews Project tracking system, with early warning ability - Better calibration of organizational "capacity" - Pilot of recommended methodology in process Organizational - Process-oriented style firmly established - People comfortable with multiple projects, fluid movement between projects and processes - Opportunities and skill requirements very visible - Small number of research projects supported (e.g. web interfaces, object-oriented prototyping) Project-Related - Several successful completion and transfers to Service and Support - Athena source trees fully functional - Strong IT partnerships to all non-IS staffed projects - Good links to Reengineering initiatives Skills (for Competency Group consideration) - ABAP and SAP skills in MIT community, less Contractor dependency - More business analyst, system integration, project management talent - Deeper Powerbuilder, Oracle, and Release Engineering skills - Maintain leading edge security and web capabilities ********************* I. DRIVERS Product Marketplace - Change coming faster - Web increasing in importance - Wintel desktop dominance - Apple base erosion - Object-oriented solutions maturing People Marketplace - Salaries, opportunities increasing - New skills needed MIT Marketplace - Rising user sophistication and capabilities - Still many legacy systems - Reengineering requirements continue - Aging of Athena - Employment terms changing II. IMPACTS - Desktop mix changing - Support more difficult since IT environment is broader and more diverse - Retention of good stuff and skill mix in house more challenging - More dependance on packaged solutions - Rising user expections - Morale and motivation require more attention III. CAPABILITIES - Many capable IS and IT staff people - Many strong user/IT partnerships - Untapped talents throughout MIT community - MIT desirable partner for many third parties - Leadership aware of problems, committed - Full understanding and benefits of new organization still coming Robert V. Ferrara ________________________________________________________________________ Visions for I/T Service Process I had a dream that by June 30, 1998: - The I/T transformation is complete and that all work is being done in the new style (includes ALL I/T on campus) - The services that we provide are world class and best practice. - That our customers regard us as partners and gladly pay the fees required. They are routinely sending compliments to the VP and higher. - That our staff is well trained, well motivated, has a very high morale and low turnover (turnover <10%, open positions <5%.) People are not normally working more than 40 hours and have time to explore and enhance their skills. - That we have completed our upgrade of MITnet and are using it for both video and audio both on campus and off campus. - That efforts like SAP, SIS, TQF, data warehouse (including financials) are all implemented and working smoothly. - That we are working together so that movement of a project through the various processes is seemless and without delays. - That the administration is supporting us with the tools we need (space, quick decisions, additional money and headcount when justified.) - That access to our services is truly ubiquitous (including from all conference rooms and classrooms.) - That the correct infrastructure has been provided, both I/T and physical. ******************* I also had a nightmare that on June 30, 1998: - That non-IS I/T areas are still operating in stovepipes. - That the level of service has declined by trying to do more with less. - That our customers are unhappy. They are routinely sending complaints to the VP and higher. They refuse to pay their fees. - That the staff is demoralized. The best people have left and those that remain are working 50-60 hours just to stay even. They don't have time to improve their skills or to try new things. Turnover is >20% and we have 30-50 positions open at any one time. - Because of crises, we have not completed the upgrade of the network. More departments are doing their own thing; adding work and problems to the present staff. - New applications are being bogged down for lack of coordination and adherence to standards. They are buggy and ugly. - People do not have time to coordinate between processes so we have built a new set of stovepipes. - Administration has not changed. Decisions still take months instead of days. More space, people, and dollars are out of the question regardless of the justification. - We have not had the time to investigate wireless networking or other means to wire classrooms and conference rooms. People still don't want to pay for a network drop. - We still don't have the infrastructures in place. There is no distributed file system for the PCs and Macs. There is no coordination on networked printers. We still don't have proper telephone/network closets to be able to provide the services. The problem is that depending on how I feel, I see either scenario as equally possible. We need to work to avoid the later as we work to implement the former. ******************** I. Drivers of Change - Higher demand for experienced I/T professionals ($$) - Need for greater network capacity, reliability, ubiquity, mobility - Increased private ownership of computers - role of clusters - Restructuring of the Telephone businesses (AT&T, NYNEX, TCG, etc.) - Reengineering - Merging of Administrative and Academic Computing Infrastructure - Demand for new services (SAP, Help Desk, Databases, etc.) - More rapid turnover in vendor products, more depend for off- the-shelf products (which may not fit our infrastructure) - MCC Changes (PC Service repairs and installs) - Role of the Mainframe (VM Server) II. Impacts - More use of contractors/out-sourcing - MITnet upgrade - Restructure our rate structures (Server Services, Telecom, Network, Consulting - SGI/Sun/Dec) - Better project management/use of resources - More emphasis on Telecom contract process/generate new model - More need to coordinate across processes (avoid process stovepipes) - Reduce dependencies on single vendors (AT&T, Transarc, etc.) - Be better about phasing out old services - More dependence on I/T by non-I/T professionals III. Capabilities - We have a good staff, but talent and workload is not balanced - We need to find the balance between micro-managing and empowerment Roger A. Roach ________________________________________________________________________ Vision for I/T Support Process The former telecommunications organization will be a fully integrated part of IS, with coherent leadership at the director level. The Help Desk will be a positive reflection of overall IS quality and will meet specific performance standards. Customer education and problem-prevention measures, as well as robust self-help tools, will be in place as keystones of this effort. Thorough evaluation of all position openings will yield a different mix of full-time, part-time, and contract staff. All teams will continue to aggressively pursue partnership opportunities in major Institute initiatives such as ECAT and SAP. Communication will improve with other IS teams so that there are fewer surprises, misunderstandings, and pointed fingers. Commitment to targeted staff training and professional development opportunities will increase. The Support Process as a whole will focus on details as well as larger issues, recognizing that excellent customer support often stems from careful attention to clarity, timeliness, responsiveness, and a willingness to take the time to understand the customer perspective. ****************** Drivers of IS Change - Rapid improvement of desktop and network price/performance. (external) - Further proliferation of software choices. (external) - Pressure on market for staff with high level of both technical and behavioral competencies. (external and internal) - Reengineering initiatives. (internal) - Demand for "national class" organization. (internal) - Customer support expectations. (internal) - Budget realities. (internal) - Physical relocation of some staff and operations. (internal) - Team and individual imagination, energy, and creativity. (internal) Threats - Resistance and/or fatigue in the face of continual change. - Failure of vision, conviction, or communication by leadership. - Loss of customer confidence and good will. Opportunities - Unparalleled partnership possibilities, internal and external. - Stable budget better than most universities and starts from higher base. - Deep and rich intellectual and technical capital to draw upon. William F. Hogue ________________________________________________________________________ Vision for I/T Integration Process At the end of 1998, MIT will have several successful new IT applications that are well designed, integrated, and take advantage of the appropriate infrastructure to address the functional requirements. IT designs will be done by MIT system architects. IT developers at MIT will be well-educated, and have accessible and understandable information on the tools and infrastructure recommended at MIT. Drivers of change in Integration area, as well as other areas, are: Market conditions in technology continuing accelerating rates of change many more public barely betas Microsoft commerce on the Internet, certificates, SSL, SMIME more use of the Web and more web applications more firewalls and possibly the breakdown of firewalls dynamic address assignment, IPV6 on staffing higher IT salaries higher priced consultants User expectations of faster delivery of software any time and any where access at higher speeds software with more features and sophistication yet easier to use Educational changes of distance learning and increased use of IT for teaching Reengineering and other pressures at MIT bring more IT with the same IT resources continually changing organizations changing geography and environment Management expectations that IT people can do more with less that IT will be bleeding edge Impacts of change - Need market pay, more skilled staff, more training, more time to research, more judicial use of consultants. - Risks of low morale, loss of best people, increasing staff turnover, extreme outsourcing, and inability to deliver integrated IT solutions using MIT infrastructure. - Opportunity to increase staff moral, provide interesting work for staff, retain best, and compensate for inevitable stress. Must solve. - IT is harder to package and make easy to use. Less time to service. - Increased costs. Customer partnerships are more difficult to cultivate and maintain. Short cuts of no integration or use of infrastructure. - Risks that changes get ahead of our handling. - Opportunity for managed expectations, including creating criteria for successful IT beyond fast and narrowly functional. - Technology issues other than IPV6 are addressable with competent staff. - The risk of forced IP address renumbering of campus machines in a short time frame may need to be addressed by other than technology. Capabilities and assets in IS to address threats and take advantage of opportunities: - Talented staff that are dedicated to MIT. - Management that cares and will continually try to make a difference by "addressing the hard problems." - The human attribute that people want to be successful. Susan Minai-Azary ________________________________________________________________________