As part of our pledge to keep you informed and engaged during the Informatics and Information Technology Collaborative, we encourage you to ask questions and come to us with comments and feedback. The lists below contains our answers to questions from the March 5th All Staff Meeting. Your IT lead or Service Line Director can also serve as a resource for specific questions unique to your situation.
Service Line Structure and Transition
Q: What information is used in determining the structuring of the service lines?
A: We’re working with the stay Interviews, looking at titles, work duties, and related responsibilities, and having ongoing conversations with IT managers and Service Line Directors to help set up the structure of the service lines. In alignment with our guiding principles, as we transition into service lines, our goal is to prioritize the employee experience, limit the number of HRS changes we make through thorough analysis, ensure consistency across service lines, and align duties with technical skills, training, and operational needs, considering employee preferences as much as feasible.
Q: How is SMPH IIT supporting departments throughout this transition?
A: Overall, support will be provided through our Service Lines and BRMs. More specifically, we have planned large communications and outreach campaigns to our many stakeholders, including leaders, faculty, staff, and students, about how they will request and receive support once that process starts changing.
Q: Is there a transition roadmap for departmental IT staff?
A: Given the range of duties IIT staff support, we don’t believe an overall roadmap would ultimately be helpful. These transitions will be supported on a team-by-team/service line-by-service line, and case-by-case basis.
To reiterate the timeline, on May 4, IIT staff will become members of their service line — but your work won’t immediately change. In our “people first” approach we are making the organizational staff change first, and then work will begin to change as individual service lines begin to be fully stood up over time.
Q: Will the “teams” roughly follow departments?
A: It depends, but the service line teams won’t specifically align to departments. The groups that, at least initially, will be most closely aligned with departments will be teams within user services and maybe infrastructure. Work and project teams will be arranged largely around ongoing services we provide and projects (ticketing system, platform x, etc).
Business Relationship Managers (BRMs)
Q: What will the BRMs be doing, and what departments/units will they work with? How will they interact with those departments?
A: BRM roles are new to us, so details are still being figured out. We aim for BRMs to establish regular meetings at different levels with departments, fine-tuning meeting frequency and types to departmental comfort. BRMs will focus on becoming active participants in departmental future plans. Initially, the focus will be on supporting clinical departments, with ongoing evaluations for expanding BRM support.
Q: Are BRMs responsible for intra-Service Line communication?
A: While BRMs will collaborate with SLDs, all team members will communicate across service lines. The intent is to foster broad communication, avoiding the creation of silos, with service lines acting as ‘knowledge networks on steroids.’
IT Service Management (ITSM) Project – “Navigator” Project
Q: Do we know when the Navigator demos will be held and if there is a target date for when it would be available for use?
A: Demos are planned for the week of March 18, with communication and invites to follow. A phased approach is envisioned, with further details on availability to be provided.
Q: How will communication to end-users be handled during this change period?
A: A robust campaign is planned, leveraging lessons learned from campus examples and focusing on ensuring a seamless transition for service requests. School-wide communications will inform stakeholders about changes in support request processes.
Software Requests and Cybersecurity
Q: What software requests need to go through a full cybersecurity review, and is there a plan to create a library of reviewed tools and a standard request/approval process?
A: Our mantra of “less is more” guides us toward offering a limited set of thoroughly vetted tools. We’re collaborating with cybersecurity partners to streamline the review process, focusing on software that will be widely used. Reviews, being expensive, aim to ensure broad utility for approved software.