February 2007 Archives
At our meeting on Friday afternoon, we took a quick look at how the goals are going. Other updates included: we have a new agenda for the Library IT Strategies (formerly known as IT Priorities) meeting that's going to have us focusing on a "big picture" discussion for the most part. I've got to make a couple of updates to the draft agenda but will send it on then. We also talked about a request we've just submitted to the Libraries to establish a regular weekly maintenance window. We're also going to be moving the weekly staff meetings to a different day but it'll be a few weeks before we can put that in place given current heavy schedules.
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS.
Janis reported that DLT, ITECH, ITS Emerging Technologies and ITS IT consultants are going to meet from 8 - 10 am on March 2. The goal of the meeting is to brainstorm and share ideas on ways we can collaborate in technical and other areas. We're hoping that both ET and the IT Consultants can serve as conduits for DLT/ITECH to other areas in ITS that share our technology interests.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
Peggy and Jack reported back on this goal. This DLT/ITECH team is calling itself the "Strengthening Partnerships Group" - good name! They met on Thursday and came up with a three phased approach to "work towards fostering an improved technology environment within the University Libraries". These are:
Phase One: Laying the foundation through Identity Presentations;
Phase Two: Brainstorming and collaborating to improve working relations;
Phase Three: Implementing and communicating to the larger University Libraries audience.
The team is soliciting ideas from both groups for presentations with a deadline of Tuesday, February 27. They'd also like to know how much time you'll need for your presentation. Suggestions to Peggy and Jack. Effectively, the team is looking for commonalites and overlaps, and gaps where customer needs aren't being met. The team (Jennifer, Peggy, Jack, Jeff, and Sylvia) meet again this Thursday.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
Currently asking everyone's opinion on a documentation system; eight responses so far. Joni is evaulating a new edition of Zope. Justin demoed the DLT wiki. Justin used our Direction Setting content to get the wiki started. We then had some discussion in our meeting on the uses of blogs vs. wikis vs. knowledge bases.
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Now that the wiki is in place, we'll be creating a space there to communicate and collaborate on professional development and training. We are moving ahead with SANS Security Essentials Bootcamp training for several infrastructure technologists in April at Michigan State.
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Several folks have expressed interest in the Learning Tree project management training that Paul Peworchik advertised last week. We've got to select a couple of folks by Wednesday, February 28th. ITECH has also identified some local training and we're going to explore that too.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
Ongoing; time will tell. (How's that for a project plan?) As for the conference table chairs in Mairéad's office; got two new ones. Need some tall(er) people to try them out.
I've been looking online for another New Yorker cartoon on blogs that I liked but haven't been able to find it so far. It shows a guy at his PC with the caption "And then I opened a can of vegetable soup for lunch."
An update on the progress we're making on the DLT Goals:
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS.
On Thursday, February 15th, Janis and Mairéad met with Jim Leous from Emerging Technologies, and Rhonda Brown and Kurt Baker from CSS IT Consultants group to talk about a meeting to start a discussion on possible collaborative opportunities within ITS. We had a good discussion and have scheduled a follow up meeting for Friday, March 2 from 8 - 10 am (this is one of our regular DLT all staff meeting slots). We anticipate areas of discussion will include repositories, data curation and preservation, Web 2.0 technologies, Web services, and Shibboleth. We quickly decided to include ITECH as much as possible in these activities. Agenda to follow.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
ITECH has nominated Sylvia MacKinnon and Jennifer McCauley to work with us on organizing a joint DLT/ITECH meeting. Peggy is going to be following up looking for DLT reps for this.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
Enhancing Documentation: The team looking at linking to the ITS Knowledge Base with Libraries specific documentation and FAQs, as well as developing a home for in-house documentation met again last week. (Team is Justin (lead), Joni, John, Peggy, Lance and Tun.) They would like to follow up this week with a short survey of DLT folks to get feedback on what they'd like to see as part of the in-house documentation.
Progress has also been made setting up a Wiki to support our DLT Direction setting work and Lynn gave a short presentation this morning on the topic. Our DLT Wiki is now in place.
The snow day last Wednesday meant we've had to put the kick-off meeting for the UL IT Services Analysis project back another couple of weeks. However, Ann Snowman and I are looking at a couple of ways to get some prep work done offline in the meantime.
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Maryam did an informal survey of folks to see how the group interpreted my suggestion of "creating a permanent DLT team to identify appropriate professional development and training opportunities, and to establish "career paths" of sorts." The results were interesting and a reminder to me to keep taking those Communication 101 classes: some thought the group would be about limiting the range of opportunities, or even having approval authority for training, as well as having the responsibility for ensuring that training opportunities were being pursued. That's a lot more work than I had in mind (why don't people read my mind??) and I think the Wiki and the SRDP process will both serve very well in keeping us focused on training.
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Not sure if the Project Management 101 is scheduled yet; Tun was busy last week preparing for his presentation at the SIRSI conference being held in Colorado Springs this week. ITECH has also identified some local project management training that we need to explore. Good topic for our joint meeting. More to follow on the possibility of a dedicated project manager hire.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
I'm going to keep any follow ups from the Suggestion Box to our in-person meetings. The struggle to find a comfortable conference chair for Mairéad's office continues.
Meanwhile, the agenda for this Friday's meeting is resource management and our R&D agenda. We may also have a Wiki demo.
I've been looking online for another New Yorker cartoon on blogs that I liked but haven't been able to find it so far. It shows a guy at his PC with the caption "And then I opened a can of vegetable soup for lunch."
An update on the progress we're making on the DLT Goals:
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS.
On Thursday, February 15th, Janis and Mairéad met with Jim Leous from Emerging Technologies, and Rhonda Brown and Kurt Baker from CSS IT Consultants group to talk about a meeting to start a discussion on possible collaborative opportunities within ITS. We had a good discussion and have scheduled a follow up meeting for Friday, March 2 from 8 - 10 am (this is one of our regular DLT all staff meeting slots). We anticipate areas of discussion will include repositories, data curation and preservation, Web 2.0 technologies, Web services, and Shibboleth. We quickly decided to include ITECH as much as possible in these activities. Agenda to follow.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
ITECH has nominated Sylvia MacKinnon and Jennifer McCauley to work with us on organizing a joint DLT/ITECH meeting. Peggy is going to be following up looking for DLT reps for this.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
Enhancing Documentation: The team looking at linking to the ITS Knowledge Base with Libraries specific documentation and FAQs, as well as developing a home for in-house documentation met again last week. (Team is Justin (lead), Joni, John, Peggy, Lance and Tun.) They would like to follow up this week with a short survey of DLT folks to get feedback on what they'd like to see as part of the in-house documentation.
Progress has also been made setting up a Wiki to support our DLT Direction setting work and Lynn gave a short presentation this morning on the topic. Our DLT Wiki is now in place.
The snow day last Wednesday meant we've had to put the kick-off meeting for the UL IT Services Analysis project back another couple of weeks. However, Ann Snowman and I are looking at a couple of ways to get some prep work done offline in the meantime.
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Maryam did an informal survey of folks to see how the group interpreted my suggestion of "creating a permanent DLT team to identify appropriate professional development and training opportunities, and to establish "career paths" of sorts." The results were interesting and a reminder to me to keep taking those Communication 101 classes: some thought the group would be about limiting the range of opportunities, or even having approval authority for training, as well as having the responsibility for ensuring that training opportunities were being pursued. That's a lot more work than I had in mind (why don't people read my mind??) and I think the Wiki and the SRDP process will both serve very well in keeping us focused on training.
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Not sure if the Project Management 101 is scheduled yet; Tun was busy last week preparing for his presentation at the SIRSI conference being held in Colorado Springs this week. ITECH has also identified some local project management training that we need to explore. Good topic for our joint meeting. More to follow on the possibility of a dedicated project manager hire.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
I'm going to keep any follow ups from the Suggestion Box to our in-person meetings. The struggle to find a comfortable conference chair for Mairéad's office continues.
Meanwhile, the agenda for this Friday's meeting is resource management and our R&D agenda. We may also have a Wiki demo.
Whenever I blog, I can't help thinking about this New Yorker cartoon:
In case you can't read the microscopic font, it says:
I had my own blog for awhile, but I decided to go back to pointless, incessant barking.
We had a productive meeting Friday to review progress on our six goals. A lot of our discussion focused on communication tools and how we can collaborate, interact, and track our progress on the goals. We decided that a Wiki rather than a blog (especially this blog!) would serve that purpose best. Justin took the action item of following up with the Emerging Technologies group to get access to their Wiki software. Hopefully, we should have the Wiki up and running in a week or so; we decided to stick to one Wiki rather than multiple ones.
Robin Anderson joined us and talked about blogs, wikis and RSS feeds, showed us what her group and TLT were using to create a communication hub of sorts for their work. Very much appreciate her doing this with absolutely no notice.
A quick report on the progress we're making on our goals:
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS.
Janis followed up by organizing a meeting with ET folks this Thursday to talk how we might plan a retreat/meeting together. In the meantime, Janis is going to be collecting ideas for that agenda and we'll continue that discussion in the Wiki as soon as it's available.
Maryam is following up with Kurt Baker, our IT Consultant, to review the idea of a developers' list and/or forum.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
Mairéad and Peggy sent an email invitation to Dace Freivalds proposing a meeting with I-TECH. Dace is going to review with her folks and select a couple of people to work with a couple of DLT staff on planning.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
The UL IT Services Analysis will have their kick-off meeting the week of February 12. (Mairéad distributed the charter for this project Friday morning.)
Justin took the lead on this and reported back for the team investigating the Knowledge Base idea: Review the possibility of providing a link to the ITS knowledge base with the possibility of creating library specific FAQ's. Here is Justin's report. Justin will keep the momentum going on this one and, once again, a great use for the Wiki. (Life will be close to perfect once we have that Wiki. That's what I said about this blog before I started it.)
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Again, the Wiki was suggested as the locus for developing ideas and following up on them for this goal. (Always with the Wiki ..... )
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Tun has started working on the Project Management 101 and this is a topic we'd definitely like to have on the agenda for our meeting with I-TECH. Tun has also applied project management to a SIRSI Steering Committee project and created two docs for that group; one on Project Management Steps and one applying those steps to one of their projects.
Mairéad has been looking into the possibility of a project management hire and discussing that with folks in ITS and the UL.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
Suggestion box is in place, as well as a process for dealing with the suggestions and reporting back on them. We narrowly escaped putting into place a complicated and burdensome process for dealing with the suggestions but we managed to keep it simple in the end.
Mairéad has been making inquiries about some additional space for the summer equipmenet deliveries. Deb has ordered cubicle screens. More to follow here.
We did spend a lot of the meeting talking about how we can communicate about this work and keep the momentum going. There are also other communication issues that we need to explore - some operational (how does the Help Desk know when a new technology has been introduced into the UL, for example) and some organizational (does staff feel they hear enough from management in the group, for example). A topic for a future meeting ........ We also didn't get time to discuss measuing outcomes, and also didn't touch on the resources issues we have; that's pretty much the agenda for this week's meeting.
Whenever I blog, I can't help thinking about this New Yorker cartoon:
In case you can't read the microscopic font, it says:
I had my own blog for awhile, but I decided to go back to pointless, incessant barking.
We had a productive meeting Friday to review progress on our six goals. A lot of our discussion focused on communication tools and how we can collaborate, interact, and track our progress on the goals. We decided that a Wiki rather than a blog (especially this blog!) would serve that purpose best. Justin took the action item of following up with the Emerging Technologies group to get access to their Wiki software. Hopefully, we should have the Wiki up and running in a week or so; we decided to stick to one Wiki rather than multiple ones.
Robin Anderson joined us and talked about blogs, wikis and RSS feeds, showed us what her group and TLT were using to create a communication hub of sorts for their work. Very much appreciate her doing this with absolutely no notice.
A quick report on the progress we're making on our goals:
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS.
Janis followed up by organizing a meeting with ET folks this Thursday to talk how we might plan a retreat/meeting together. In the meantime, Janis is going to be collecting ideas for that agenda and we'll continue that discussion in the Wiki as soon as it's available.
Maryam is following up with Kurt Baker, our IT Consultant, to review the idea of a developers' list and/or forum.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
Mairéad and Peggy sent an email invitation to Dace Freivalds proposing a meeting with I-TECH. Dace is going to review with her folks and select a couple of people to work with a couple of DLT staff on planning.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
The UL IT Services Analysis will have their kick-off meeting the week of February 12. (Mairéad distributed the charter for this project Friday morning.)
Justin took the lead on this and reported back for the team investigating the Knowledge Base idea: Review the possibility of providing a link to the ITS knowledge base with the possibility of creating library specific FAQ's. Here is Justin's report. Justin will keep the momentum going on this one and, once again, a great use for the Wiki. (Life will be close to perfect once we have that Wiki. That's what I said about this blog before I started it.)
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Again, the Wiki was suggested as the locus for developing ideas and following up on them for this goal. (Always with the Wiki ..... )
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Tun has started working on the Project Management 101 and this is a topic we'd definitely like to have on the agenda for our meeting with I-TECH. Tun has also applied project management to a SIRSI Steering Committee project and created two docs for that group; one on Project Management Steps and one applying those steps to one of their projects.
Mairéad has been looking into the possibility of a project management hire and discussing that with folks in ITS and the UL.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
Suggestion box is in place, as well as a process for dealing with the suggestions and reporting back on them. We narrowly escaped putting into place a complicated and burdensome process for dealing with the suggestions but we managed to keep it simple in the end.
Mairéad has been making inquiries about some additional space for the summer equipmenet deliveries. Deb has ordered cubicle screens. More to follow here.
We did spend a lot of the meeting talking about how we can communicate about this work and keep the momentum going. There are also other communication issues that we need to explore - some operational (how does the Help Desk know when a new technology has been introduced into the UL, for example) and some organizational (does staff feel they hear enough from management in the group, for example). A topic for a future meeting ........ We also didn't get time to discuss measuing outcomes, and also didn't touch on the resources issues we have; that's pretty much the agenda for this week's meeting.
Friday morning, we had our fourth meeting in a series on DLT direction setting. (John Palmer asked a good question as we were finishing up Friday: what do we call these meetings? I'm calling them "Direction Setting" meetings for now until I come up with something catchier: got any suggestions?)
And that brings up a related question of what this blog is dedicated to: Frankly, I had no idea when I created it what the heck I was going to write about, but that seems to have taken care of itself with the topic being DLT organizational development for the most part - a journal of sorts of the team's work and progress.
On Friday, each of the groups assigned to our six goals reported back with recommendations, we reviewed these and came up with action items. I've tried to summarize the recommendations here but I'll also collate the original recommendations and circulate so we don't lose any of those. Here's what we came up with:
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS
Janis reported out for this team. There were three broad recommendations:
1. Establish regular meetings with other ITS units.
2. Look for collaborative projects with those units. (Some examples of these were: Digital Repository development, LDAP & Web Access, Help Desk collaboration, Inventory Management, Service Oriented Architecture, Developers Listserv, as well as examples that directly relate to our Project Management and Operational Efficiencies goals.)
3. Communicate what DLT does to other ITS units.
We came up with the following immediate action items to support these goals:
1. Janis will take the lead in setting up an initial "information sharing" session with Kurt Baker, our CSS IT consultant, and the ASET Emerging Technologies group. The goals of this session are to look for mutual areas of interest and to establish some channels for "project matching" with the rest of ITS.
2. Maryam will take the lead in proposing the establishment of an institutional-wide Developer's listserv to support communication among that community.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
Jeff reported out for this team. The recommendations were:
1. Survey the UL for feedback on how DLT and I-TECH can best serve them.
2. Look for ways for DLT to be more actively involved in Library activities, and have more face-to-face time with our Library constituents, both at UP and the CCL.
3. Establish more regular meetings with I-TECH.
4. Establish project management processes in collaboration with I-TECH.
Immediate action items:
1. Mairéad and Peggy will organize a DLT/I-TECH meeting to discuss issues of communication, shared work, focus, etc.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
Mark reported for this group; the group had realized that there were some immediate actions that could be taken as well as ones that would take more time and more data to make informed decisions. The immediate actions were:
1. Review the possibility of providing a link to the ITS knowledge base with the possibility of creating library specific faq's. Look for confusion issues over things such as email setting in Eudora and others.
2. Continue the process of evaluating the conversion of Meeting Maker to Oracle calendaring.
3. Convene a group to look at moving to PSU mail.
4. Convene a group to look at moving network support to TNS.
5. Develop a centralized repository for documentation. This would have to come with an editorial process to group documentation so it can be found reasonably well and also browsed for content.
6. Attempt to move some responsibility for ongoing maintenance of systems to the Libraries or I-Tech. (In our discussion the issue of application/software decommisioning also was raised.)
It was agreed that actions 2, 3, and 4 would be covered in the UL IT Services group that is in the process of being set up to analyze the provision of IT services, such as email, to the UL.
With regard to the knowledge base and documentation actions, we agreed to put together a team to come up with a plan for these. The team is Justin, Joni, John, Peggy, Lance, and Tun. (Did we decide who was going to take the lead for this?)
The second part of this goal -- "invest in R&D for new technologies" led to an energized discussion on whether we had the capacity to do that. (An example of resources issues: DLT has nine technicians to support 1700 desktops whereas the ITS CLC group has 30 for 2000 machines.) We concluded that we needed a meeting dedicated to this topic to fully discuss.
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Peggy reported out for this group. They did such a nice job on their report that I'm going to reproduce all of it here (my favorite team ;)
Mission: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Vision:
* DLT should create a climate of support and encouragement for professional development within our group.
* Training and professional development should be in line with goals stated in SRDP or to fulfill job requirements. Release time should be granted to pursue development activities.
Action Items:
1. DLT should pursue a conversation with other IT departments to find out how they handle training, share information and to find out what conferences/meetings they find useful. Also find out what training classes their employees are attending and if DLT could join in their training. (For example, if they have someone coming in to teach JAVA, we could join in on their training. Possibly lowering costs for both departments)
2. DLT should identify and create awareness of other groups that may be a source of pertinent information, e.g. Network of People.
3. A practical environment should be created for those completing training so that they can practice and apply their skills.
4. Information sharing sessions should be held on a regular basis, early in the work day so as not to interrupt other work. Agenda for these sessions should be published in advance.
5. Supervisors should ensure an appropriate rotation of training opportunities.
6. Information sharing should be encouraged and recognized as professional development whether it is a presentation delivered to a conference group or sharing information learned at a conference within DLT.
7. DLT should commit to participating in Library forums such as the Tech Update or other opportunities that may present themselves.
Possible obstacles:
* Money
* Scheduling conflicts; managing work load
* Finding available and appropriate courses
Action items:
Mairéad suggested a permanent DLT team to identify appropriate professional development and training opportunities, and to establish "career paths" of sorts. She seemed more enthusiastic about this than the group as a whole.
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Ben reported out for this team. The recommendations were:
1. Organize an Introduction to Project Management or Project Management 101 for DLT and Library (I-TECH partners to begin with.)
2. Determine project management approach (principles, requirements, toolkit, etc.)
3. Consider appointment of dedicated project management hire.
4. Consider project management training for DLT staff. (This links to professional development objectives, Objective #3.)
There was a lot of discussion and agreement in the group that project management as a general approach needed to be supported from the top down in all of our organizations. The action items here were:
1. Mairéad to look into possibility of dedicated project management hire.
2. Tun will take the first recommendation and present a project management 101. We can propose this to I-TECH when we meet.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
Justin reported out for this group. The vision for this goal is to "Foster a professional atmosphere, incorporating courtesy and respect for all." The recommendations fell into four categories - Facilities, Communications, Professional and Personal Development Concerns, and Climate Concerns.
Under Facilities, a critical concern was expressed about the fact that we don't have anywhere to store desktop machines and equipment, and it ends up clogging the hallways during the summer especially.
The action items from these recommendations and discussions were:
1. Mairéad to consider recommendation under Facilities and Climate.
2. We agreed that recommendations under "Professional and Personal Development" were covered under that goal.
3. Mairéad suggested we dedicate some of an upcoming all staff meeting to discussion of communication issues.
Friday morning, we had our fourth meeting in a series on DLT direction setting. (John Palmer asked a good question as we were finishing up Friday: what do we call these meetings? I'm calling them "Direction Setting" meetings for now until I come up with something catchier: got any suggestions?)
And that brings up a related question of what this blog is dedicated to: Frankly, I had no idea when I created it what the heck I was going to write about, but that seems to have taken care of itself with the topic being DLT organizational development for the most part - a journal of sorts of the team's work and progress.
On Friday, each of the groups assigned to our six goals reported back with recommendations, we reviewed these and came up with action items. I've tried to summarize the recommendations here but I'll also collate the original recommendations and circulate so we don't lose any of those. Here's what we came up with:
Goal #1: Develop a culture of collaboration and team-work by integrating more fully with ITS
Janis reported out for this team. There were three broad recommendations:
1. Establish regular meetings with other ITS units.
2. Look for collaborative projects with those units. (Some examples of these were: Digital Repository development, LDAP & Web Access, Help Desk collaboration, Inventory Management, Service Oriented Architecture, Developers Listserv, as well as examples that directly relate to our Project Management and Operational Efficiencies goals.)
3. Communicate what DLT does to other ITS units.
We came up with the following immediate action items to support these goals:
1. Janis will take the lead in setting up an initial "information sharing" session with Kurt Baker, our CSS IT consultant, and the ASET Emerging Technologies group. The goals of this session are to look for mutual areas of interest and to establish some channels for "project matching" with the rest of ITS.
2. Maryam will take the lead in proposing the establishment of an institutional-wide Developer's listserv to support communication among that community.
Goal #2: Strengthen our partnership with the Library to better serve students, faculty and staff.
Jeff reported out for this team. The recommendations were:
1. Survey the UL for feedback on how DLT and I-TECH can best serve them.
2. Look for ways for DLT to be more actively involved in Library activities, and have more face-to-face time with our Library constituents, both at UP and the CCL.
3. Establish more regular meetings with I-TECH.
4. Establish project management processes in collaboration with I-TECH.
Immediate action items:
1. Mairéad and Peggy will organize a DLT/I-TECH meeting to discuss issues of communication, shared work, focus, etc.
Goal #3: Look for operational efficiencies and invest in R&D for new technologies.
Mark reported for this group; the group had realized that there were some immediate actions that could be taken as well as ones that would take more time and more data to make informed decisions. The immediate actions were:
1. Review the possibility of providing a link to the ITS knowledge base with the possibility of creating library specific faq's. Look for confusion issues over things such as email setting in Eudora and others.
2. Continue the process of evaluating the conversion of Meeting Maker to Oracle calendaring.
3. Convene a group to look at moving to PSU mail.
4. Convene a group to look at moving network support to TNS.
5. Develop a centralized repository for documentation. This would have to come with an editorial process to group documentation so it can be found reasonably well and also browsed for content.
6. Attempt to move some responsibility for ongoing maintenance of systems to the Libraries or I-Tech. (In our discussion the issue of application/software decommisioning also was raised.)
It was agreed that actions 2, 3, and 4 would be covered in the UL IT Services group that is in the process of being set up to analyze the provision of IT services, such as email, to the UL.
With regard to the knowledge base and documentation actions, we agreed to put together a team to come up with a plan for these. The team is Justin, Joni, John, Peggy, Lance, and Tun. (Did we decide who was going to take the lead for this?)
The second part of this goal -- "invest in R&D for new technologies" led to an energized discussion on whether we had the capacity to do that. (An example of resources issues: DLT has nine technicians to support 1700 desktops whereas the ITS CLC group has 30 for 2000 machines.) We concluded that we needed a meeting dedicated to this topic to fully discuss.
Goal #4: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Peggy reported out for this group. They did such a nice job on their report that I'm going to reproduce all of it here (my favorite team ;)
Mission: Commit to professional development, training and information sharing.
Vision:
* DLT should create a climate of support and encouragement for professional development within our group.
* Training and professional development should be in line with goals stated in SRDP or to fulfill job requirements. Release time should be granted to pursue development activities.
Action Items:
1. DLT should pursue a conversation with other IT departments to find out how they handle training, share information and to find out what conferences/meetings they find useful. Also find out what training classes their employees are attending and if DLT could join in their training. (For example, if they have someone coming in to teach JAVA, we could join in on their training. Possibly lowering costs for both departments)
2. DLT should identify and create awareness of other groups that may be a source of pertinent information, e.g. Network of People.
3. A practical environment should be created for those completing training so that they can practice and apply their skills.
4. Information sharing sessions should be held on a regular basis, early in the work day so as not to interrupt other work. Agenda for these sessions should be published in advance.
5. Supervisors should ensure an appropriate rotation of training opportunities.
6. Information sharing should be encouraged and recognized as professional development whether it is a presentation delivered to a conference group or sharing information learned at a conference within DLT.
7. DLT should commit to participating in Library forums such as the Tech Update or other opportunities that may present themselves.
Possible obstacles:
* Money
* Scheduling conflicts; managing work load
* Finding available and appropriate courses
Action items:
Mairéad suggested a permanent DLT team to identify appropriate professional development and training opportunities, and to establish "career paths" of sorts. She seemed more enthusiastic about this than the group as a whole.
Goal #5: Implement project management in collaboration with our Library partners.
Ben reported out for this team. The recommendations were:
1. Organize an Introduction to Project Management or Project Management 101 for DLT and Library (I-TECH partners to begin with.)
2. Determine project management approach (principles, requirements, toolkit, etc.)
3. Consider appointment of dedicated project management hire.
4. Consider project management training for DLT staff. (This links to professional development objectives, Objective #3.)
There was a lot of discussion and agreement in the group that project management as a general approach needed to be supported from the top down in all of our organizations. The action items here were:
1. Mairéad to look into possibility of dedicated project management hire.
2. Tun will take the first recommendation and present a project management 101. We can propose this to I-TECH when we meet.
Goal #6: Make DLT a "preferred workplace".
Justin reported out for this group. The vision for this goal is to "Foster a professional atmosphere, incorporating courtesy and respect for all." The recommendations fell into four categories - Facilities, Communications, Professional and Personal Development Concerns, and Climate Concerns.
Under Facilities, a critical concern was expressed about the fact that we don't have anywhere to store desktop machines and equipment, and it ends up clogging the hallways during the summer especially.
The action items from these recommendations and discussions were:
1. Mairéad to consider recommendation under Facilities and Climate.
2. We agreed that recommendations under "Professional and Personal Development" were covered under that goal.
3. Mairéad suggested we dedicate some of an upcoming all staff meeting to discussion of communication issues.
