How Modern IT Departments Advance an Institution's Mission and Goals

Huron fez uma parceria com o CIO recém -nomeado da Universidade do Central Oklahoma para reimaginá -lo e alinhar a estrutura organizacional de TI aos objetivos estratégicos da instituição. O que antes foi um departamento focado apenas nas iniciativas táticas de TI agora ... Para entender melhor o estado atual do departamento, ...

The role of an information technology (IT) department in higher education has shifted in recent years. What once was a department solely focused on tactical IT initiatives is now a strategic one that impacts and enables institution-wide transformation.

As technology evolves, chief information officers (CIOs) must keep pace with change by leading projects that address broad business strategies — shifting from a near-term focus on technical support to a long-term vision of a unified architecture. This shift in focus better positions IT leaders to directly support an institution’s objectives and strategic goals.

Recognizing the critical role that the IT organization would play in shaping future successes at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), newly appointed CIO, Sonya Watkins, leveraged the opportunity to align the IT organizational structure with the institution’s strategic goals.

UCO’s leadership partnered with Huron to assess its IT operations and review the IT organizational structure. To gain a better understanding of the department’s current state, Huron conducted interviews with UCO’s senior leadership, academic and administrative management, IT executive leadership and staff across the institution. Huron also conducted focus groups and facilitated skills and activities surveys with the institution’s distributed and central IT professionals. Finally, Huron completed an extensive data analysis, reviewing existing documentation that provided further context regarding the current state of the UCO IT environment. The information gathered in this initiative enabled Huron to benchmark UCO against peer institutions and industry best practices in terms of IT spend, staffing levels and service delivery efficiencies.

The assessment also provided a better understanding of the current organizational structure and staffing mix. Specifically, Huron evaluated the IT department’s organizational structure for:

• Necessidades de capacidade: Os níveis de pessoal estão de acordo com suas necessidades e prioridades? A maneira mais eficiente de se concentrar nas principais áreas? As recomendações também incluíram um sequenciamento de roteiro como as iniciativas devem ser implementadas para estabilizar, evoluir e elevar a organização de TI para novos níveis de desempenho. Huron colaborou em estreita colaboração com o CIO e sua equipe de liderança para garantir que as recomendações e o roteiro fossem práticos e apropriados para o ambiente único da UCO. Pontos -chave dentro das recomendações incluídas:
• Capability gaps: Do staff have the right capabilities and skills to address business initiatives?
• Focus areas: Are teams structured in the most efficient way to focus on key areas?

Using the findings from the assessment, Huron provided actionable recommendations across the people, process and technology dimensions and formalized guidance on how to structure the future IT team. The recommendations also included a roadmap sequencing how the initiatives should be implemented to stabilize, evolve and elevate the IT organization to new levels of performance. Huron collaborated closely with the CIO and her leadership team to ensure that the recommendations and roadmap were practical and appropriate for UCO’s unique environment. Key points within the recommendations included:

• Desenvolvimento e alinhamento de plano estratégico: Alinhando sua estratégia com a missão da instituição. Os recursos certos estão focados nas áreas certas. Plano estratégico de Huron, desenvolvimento profissional E as recomendações da estrutura organizacional foram adequadamente adaptadas para permitir que ele atinja realisticamente seu objetivo de ativar efetivamente os objetivos de nível institucional da UCO. A avaliação e a revisão capacitaram a UCO a reorientar e alinhar suas operações de TI com a estratégia da instituição. O desenvolvimento de um modelo de entrega de serviço de TI eficiente não apenas afeta o sucesso a longo prazo, mas também o desempenho diário-as solicitações de suporte técnico podem ser abordadas mais rapidamente, o corpo docente é capaz de obter recursos tecnológicos com mais facilidade e a equipe de TI tem uma melhor compreensão de suas áreas de foco. No geral, os resultados da estratégia de realinhamento aumentarão a produtividade, focarão fundos em áreas prioritárias e melhorarão a eficiência das operações de TI. Ter um plano estratégico bem alinhado e uma mistura de pessoal e capacidades apropriados permite que o departamento de TI:
• Staff sourcing and training: Attracting and retaining top IT talent in a local competitive market.
• Organizational restructure and realignment: Ensuring the right resources are focused in the right areas.

The partnership approach between Huron and UCO’s institutional and IT leadership was particularly critical given the need for IT to continue in its strategic role at the institution. Huron’s strategic plan, professional development and organizational structure recommendations were appropriately tailored to enable IT to realistically deliver on its goal of effectively enabling UCO’s institutional level objectives.

The way an IT department is structured dictates how it will operate. The assessment and review empowered UCO to reorient and align their IT operations with the institution’s strategy. Developing an efficient IT service delivery model not only affects long-term success, but also day-to-day performance — help desk requests can be addressed faster, faculty are able to source technology resources more easily and IT staff have a better understanding of their focus areas. Overall, outcomes of the realignment strategy will increase productivity, focus funds on priority areas and improve the efficiency of IT operations.

As funding for higher education is likely to become more scarce, it is increasingly important for UCO to have an optimal organizational structure in place to make sound resource allocations. Having a well-aligned strategic plan and an appropriate staffing and capabilities mix enables the IT department to:

• Priorize o campus precisa melhor
• Seja mais eficiente em gastos administrativos
• Suporte e modernizar a experiência do aluno e da faculdade | Alinhando os recursos da universidade para atender às diversas e em constante evolução de seus alunos, professores e funcionários.
• Improve decision making with business intelligence capabilities

UCO now has a solid framework in place for aligning the university’s resources to meet the diverse and ever-evolving needs of its students, faculty and staff.