Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Brian McDonald, Founder of MOR Associates. Brian may be reached at [email protected] or via LinkedIn.
MOR Associates has been involved with numerous integration efforts at various universities over the years. Last week, the Tuesday Reading focused on what not to do when undertaking a major evolution in how information technology or other functions are designed. There have been too many false starts with shared services or ambitious restructuring efforts that fell well short of the mark due to the lessons shared in last week’s article.
This week, we offer an approach to integrating IT across the university or any shared service that enhances the likelihood of achieving the buy-in and ultimately the desired outcomes. MOR helps develop and facilitates processes that bring together the various stakeholders to constructively participate in the design discussions, thus achieving greater support and a better roadmap to guide the transition.
One core principle MOR brings to every consulting project, whether it is developing a strategic roadmap or creating a more integrated IT community, is engaging the stakeholders. MOR adheres to the principle:
“Change works when people feel that a change is being made with and for them rather than done to them.” – Dr. Curtis Odom, MOR Program Leader
Intentional Wording/Naming
Being intentional in naming the initiative will have an impact on how people respond to the early messaging. The words we use matter more than we realize. Don’t use words like Consolidate, Centralize, Reorganize, Restructure:
- Consider using titles like integrating IT or aligning or optimizing IT or One IT.
- Create a headline that conveys the intent, such as Indiana University using “Edge-Leverage-Trust.” This can serve as a consistent touchstone in the communication campaign.
- It is important to let distributed people know their expertise in serving faculty and staff is respected. Edge-leverage-trust messages the intent is to scale to create economies for commodity services. This phrase also communicates that relationships need to be built on trust.
Have a clear structure. Be sure all the appropriate people are involved. This is critical to success. Having a well-facilitated process outlining the desired future state, the priorities, the issues, and the concerns will enable people to influence the design and make the transition an extension of these consultations.
Integrating IT Across the University: An Inclusive Process
- The executive level provides sponsorship and final approvals.
- A steering committee gathers input and determines the recommendations.
- A design group that is broadly representative provides the input, builds the trust, and generates the alignment that leads to greater adoption.
Whatever the motivations are for your campus, it is important to be upfront and clear about the why. Leaders need to be able to articulate the purposes and convey these in a compelling way so that people can acknowledge the value proposition.
Clear Purpose
At the outset, clarify the purposes, and be specific about the intent of integrating IT across the university.
In recent discussions with university leaders, including CIOs, there have been a number of reasons cited for moving toward One IT:
- Optimizing the IT spend
- Reducing the security risks
- Leveraging and scaling where there are advantages
- Eliminating duplication or redundancies
- Improving services
- Making it easier to teach, research, learn, and work
- Conserving resources, achieving savings
Revisiting the purpose and keeping the intended impact visible will improve the likelihood that people don’t lose sight of the desired outcomes.
During the University of Nebraska’s One IT initiative, the primary purposes were to optimize the IT spend, enhance security, and leverage scale across three campuses and the System IT group. The effort also resulted in improved services, a more integrated environment benefiting faculty, students, and staff. They achieved considerable savings.
Established Principles
In integrating IT across the university, it will be helpful early on to establish some core principles. Distributed stakeholders will want to know how this will impact services. IT staff will want to know how their employment and future roles will be impacted. Below is example from an IT Shared Services effort at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that James Quisenberry was responsible for leading.
- Maintain service and support levels for each unit with staff that has historically served them.
- Share the costs for IT services across the units in way that is proportional and fair.
- Leverage the size and scope of the new IT Shared Service to improve consistency, efficiency, & service.
- Provide a richer and more supportive work experience for our current IT.
Effective Process
Though the process is important, it doesn’t need to take forever. MOR uses a 3-2-1-done framework to move the planning from the current state to the desired future state, identifying the necessary goals, strategies, and actions to achieve the end state.
There are four phases in transforming the alignment of IT or shared services across the enterprise
- The Discovery Phase
- The Design Phase
- The Transition Phase
- The Implementation Phase
Clarity regarding the roles of the steering team and the design group is important.
Ensuring the design group understands that this is a consultative decision-making process, rather than a consensus-based approach, will prevent misunderstandings.
Establish a realistic yet ambitious timeline. People will be anxious the longer there is uncertainty about their future.
Ongoing Communication
Regular communication, both internally and externally, is critical in integrating IT across the university; people need to know.
- Have communication pathways in place, groups to turn to, various ways to message and get feedback.
- Socialize the change, meet with key stakeholders early, recognize the first, second, and third-level impacts, and identify who will be affected. Have an outreach initiative early on.
- Regular communication is important, even when there isn’t much to report.
Transforming how information technology works together across the enterprise is a bold undertaking that goes against the historical and cultural evolution of the university. Doing this effectively will result in the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. As a result, information technology will be better positioned to serve the mission.
What do you think matters most when a university considers integrating IT across the university?
Last week, we asked about initiatives like this you have witnessed and what you think contributed most to the difficulties encountered.
- 31% said having too few people determine how best to reorganize
- 25% said overlooking the local expertise or relationships people have built
- 17% said lack of clarity or compelling purpose or goal(s)
- 14% said using words like consolidate, centralize, reorganize, or restructure
- 7% said people were nodding as if they supported, yet you didn’t have their support
- 6% said money does matter in the end, and the funding was an issue
The answer is in the room. That is, our collective knowledge and expertise is what we need to address our most pressing concerns. Over half of us identified difficulties when that expertise was not leveraged. As we discussed in today’s reading, an inclusive process that ensures voices are heard is a key to successful efforts.