IT Stewardship has been a major focus for the past year and a half and as I said in the Town Hall in January, this is one of three major areas of focus (People, Stewardship, Technology). IT stewardship is key to the success of IT at ND and aligns our work in support of the new ND strategic framework at Notre Dame.
The goal of IT Stewardship is to ensure that investments in IT align with the strategic needs of the university and that we are able to sequence work in such a way to ensure appropriate staffing levels. Engaging with the new processes will help identify areas that require funding to expand our staff’s capability to deliver on large, high-risk projects.
WIIFM: What's in it for me?
This does not mean that the work “below the hard deck” or maintenance of business work stops or that leadership will expect us to do both the project new work and the old MOB at the same time with no additional resources or re-prioritization. One aim of this new stewardship model is to protect staff time to devote to maintaining the services we are already committed to supporting. Existing services MUST be well maintained, patched, secure and properly supported while they are in the active part of their lifecycle.
Over this past year, we have made great progress:
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There has been tremendous buy-in and support across campus leadership and within all major units including all our major stakeholder units.
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We have initiated new committees for Administration, Student & Academic, Community Experience, and Security, Risk and Compliance. A new committee supporting Research IT will be introduced this semester. Most committees are chaired by a VP and are co-led by OIT leadership.
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We are asking campus units to create 3-year IT Strategy Roadmaps to articulate their future technology plans. So far, Human Resources, Notre Dame Research, and University Enterprises and Events have completed roadmaps with several other units in progress.
What to expect
Over the next 6-8 months, campus teams will put together project proposals to submit for consideration and prioritization by the stewardship committees. Within the OIT, many teams will work on their own roadmaps service reviews, building project proposals for next year. By the summer, each stewardship committee will prioritize its list of submissions. The PMO and OIT leadership will consolidate those proposals into a portfolio of projects to be considered for recommendation of funding by the IT Executive committee. The recommendations will then be considered by the Budget Working Group (BWG). Funding approved by BWG in November begins in July of the following year. If you have any questions about how your teams get their proposals considered, please connect with your SLT member or with Sherry Morrill or Katie Rose.
Information about the IT Stewardship process and updates from each committee can be found in a new section on the OIT website. I intend to deep dive into some of the specific topics in upcoming issues of Insights. Please let me know if this is helpful to you.
Yours in ND,
Jane