MEMO SENT TO THE DEANS, DIRECTORS, DEPARTMENT HEADS group by James Hilton in July 2002

Information Technology Roadmap Group Update

Deans, Directors and Department Heads:
The following message describes a process, now taking shape on campus, that could significantly change the way the university plans for and manages all IT resources. The process is designed to more closely mirror the way we work together at the UM: rooted in the core values and mission of the university, reflecting the diverse priorities of our many units and programs, and emphasizing the advantages of creative collaboration. If we move in this direction, I believe we will achieve a significantly more responsive and flexible IT environment enabling students, faculty and staff to leverage our IT assets far more effectively in the research, teaching and learning of our university.

Deans, Directors and Department Heads: please forward this memo to colleagues or staff that have an investment in the campus IT planning process.

Over the past few months, a group of experienced members of the campus information technology (IT) community have been working with external advisors to rethink the way in which IT planning and decision-making take place at the University of Michigan. This group, the IT Roadmap Team, was convened by the Office of the Provost and was charged with developing a vision of the future allowing us to address the numerous IT challenges which have arisen over the past decade or two.

Although most of the work remains ahead, enough progress has been made to make an initial report and to begin a wider campus discussion. The IT Roadmap Team envisions two major modifications to the IT planning environment: a shift from traditional "change management" central planning techniques to a model in which most planning occurs at the unit level with the University establishing incentives which encourage collaboration; and a realignment of IT strategic planning to integrate with existing University governance, processes, and culture.

The intent of these modifications is to create an environment in which IT planning becomes a natural part of the campus culture, collaborations and capabilities shared between units are encouraged and nurtured, and units realize cost savings which can be redirected toward unmet, discipline-specific needs. What follows is a brief summary of the IT Roadmap Team's activities and an outline of the next steps that we envision.

Background

The traditional centrally-planned change management approach to advancing technology in an organization focuses on identifying needs, establishing goals, marshalling resources, and driving toward the goal. When the goal is achieved, victory is declared and everyone moves on to the next project. With information technology, the rapid pace of change in the field and the great variety of requirements (frequently unique down to the level of individual faculty) make this managed technique cumbersome for large organizations or projects. The agility and flexibility necessary to deal with this change and complexity has encouraged units at all levels to develop customized, frequently redundant, services and capabilities to meet their changing needs. The central planning which was so natural when computing resources were few and specialized no longer makes sense in an era when IT services can be just as distributed as our highly distributed organization.

The IT Roadmap Team proposes an alternative, a model in which IT planning is thought of not in terms of technology but in terms of values, beliefs, and priorities tightly bound to the mission and values of the University community. In this model, change is led rather than managed at the University level. Incentives are put into place to guide behavior, whether it be individual or unit, in directions which produce desirable and sustainable results. Large-scale campus technology trends are monitored, and incentives are modified as needed in an iterative process which has no fixed end point. Goals are still important, and many of the details of change must, of course, still be managed, but that management takes place on a smaller scale where it is much more practical.

This focus on values and priorities at the University level should allow IT planning to be aligned with existing processes and organizations at the unit level without undue concern that units will diverge unnecessarily. When IT planning is integrated with existing planning activities at the unit level, units can balance their requirements and costs to best meet their needs.

The danger of costly unnecessary duplication or divergence of technical infrastructure can be avoided by lowering barriers to collaboration between the many information technology providers spread across the University. Incentives encourage units to collaborate on shared services in bilateral arrangements, small groups, or possibly campus-wide. This collaboration can be facilitated by such measures as standardized costing models which allow the costs of shared and unit-level services to be meaningfully compared, and business practices that facilitate joint ventures between units. Units, both central and non-central, that choose to participate will function as full partners, not vendors and customers. It is anticipated that participation in shared capability collaborations will free scarce resources for units to direct toward needs which cannot currently be met.

It is important to note that this vision does not include mandatory centralization of services. The goal of collaboration is not to produce only one version of each service, simply fewer versions. The university will continue to need a strong core infrastructure with the flexibility and depth to respond to emerging needs, and that core infrastructure will be best managed by a central organization with the units as full partners in strategic and tactical decision-making. Many services, however, will be the result of smaller multi-lateral collaborations designed to meet more discipline-specific needs. Units will be encouraged to opt in or out as dictated by their budgets, needs, and time pressures, with the only consequences for opting out being possible lost opportunities and the costs associated with operating duplicate services.

Implementation of the proposed major shifts in thinking about IT planning and management must wait for broader discussion in the community and for ratification by those responsible for running the University, including our new president. Faculty, staff, and students should expect to see changes over the longer term as IT planning is aligned with existing planning processes such as budget planning, unit strategic planning, position requests and searches, and curriculum committee deliberations. Ultimately, all members of the University community should experience a flexible, highly personal IT environment smoothly integrated into campus life which takes full advantage of economies of collaboration and cooperation where possible.

Next Steps

The IT Roadmap Team has identified a small number of technical challenges that present significant roadblocks to progress, which are best addressed collaboratively, and need to be dealt with no matter what strategic direction we decide to take. During the summer, three technical working groups, including experts from across campus, will be formed to devise solutions that can be implemented quickly. These working groups will focus on issues concerning directory services, authentication and authorization, and network-configuration services (such as DHCP, DNS, E911, and VPN's).

In addition, IT leaders from across campus will convene this summer to begin two activities: assembly of an inventory of unique IT capabilities which might form the basis of future shared services; and articulation of a set of shared guiding beliefs about technology directions, sourcing, and support which will be used to inform later activities.

We will be providing periodic updates about the progress of all of these initiatives. If you are interested in receiving these, click on subscribe or
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