CIT Client Services

Retreat Information and SWOT Analysis

17 November, 2005

Attachment F: Framework for the Development of an Environmental Scan

• Explore both sides of the ledger to gain a complete picture.
• Think macro and micro.
• Use multiple lenses to look at the same information or situation.
• Think beyond felt needs and opportunities

• Task (Clients and/or Customers) Environment.
• Industry (Peers Institutions, State Influence, etc.) Environment.
• Microenvironment.

1. Social
2. Technical / Scientific
3. Economic / Occupational
4. Environmental / Green Issues
5. Political.

Organizational Environment:

1) Mission, Vision, and Goals:

a. Do you have a mission statement? If so, what is it?

b. Do you have a vision statement? If so, what is it?

c. Have you defined goals for your department? If so, what are they?

2) Organizational Structure

3) Faculty and Staff

a. What is your faculty and staff profile?

b. What is their education level?

c. What is your department’s workforce diversity?

i. Organized Bargaining Units?

ii. Contract Employees?

iii. Special Health and Safety Requirements?

4) Other information needed to have a complete scan of your Organizational Environment (to be determined by each Direct Report) Suggestions:

a. What are your major technologies, equipment, and facilities?

• We attempt to mirror the hardware and software our clients use
• We lack appropriate space for test labs, equipment staging
  
• Quality of office space varies greatly
  

b. What is the regulatory environment under which you operate?

• FERPA
• DMCA
• University policies and confidentiality requirements
• Software licensing agreements and contracts
  

Organizational Relationships

1) What is your organizational structure and governance system? What are the reporting relationships between staff and senior leaders?

2) What are your KEY customer and stakeholder groups?

1. Students (11,896 graduate, medical, and undergrads)
2. Faculty (3,036 including adjunct and clinical)
3. Staff and administrators (2,341)
4. Retirees and emeriti (1,119)
5. Temporary employees (560)

What are their KEY requirements and expectations of your services and operations? How do you know?

1. Computing assistance: 51.9%
2. Technological and information literacy: 33.4%
   
3. Encourage and support IT standards for software/hardware: 31.4%
   
4. Integrated collaboration and communication tools: 28%
   
5. On-campus computers in convenient locations: 25.9%
   
6. Web development services: 15.8%
   
7. Individual faculty technology help: 12.2%
   

1. Develop a core set of IT support services: 41.3%
   
2. Provide researchers access to new technologies: 27.7%
   
3. Provide access to specialized research software/hardware: 26.5%
   
4. Strengthen core systems (email, calendar, etc.): 24.5%
   
5. Establish a core set of technology/applications: 20.3%
   
6. Establish info. literacy & technological competencies: 20.2%
   

3) What are your KEY supplier, partner, student, and stakeholder relationships and communication mechanisms?

Organizational Challenges

What are your KEY education and learning, operational, human resource and community related strategic challenges?

1. Staying on top of the opportunities and challenges posed by new technologies, both big picture and specific; leading rather than following our clients
   
2. New security threats, from emerging trends to the exploit released two minutes ago
3. Finding effective and efficient ways to share individuals' knowledge and discoveries
   

1. Coordination with distributed IT units; different support and escalation matrix for each
   
2. Coordination with Microcomputer Services and Network Services can be complicated by ledger-three issues
3. Coordination and collaboration with LRG, primarily Academic Computing Services and Web Team, may be challenged by organizational structure, particularly when similar services are offered by multiple units (e.g., surveys, statistical consulting, EndNote support), and where LRG and CIT units each hold part of the solution (e.g., web publishing)
   
4. Service hours and locations not optimal for many of our clients (students in particular); can and do address the hours; location is difficult
5. Inadequate space, especially drop-in help center located within Microcomputer Services
   

1. Utilization of outstanding student and temporary employees nevertheless presents challenges for training, scheduling, retention, consistency, and service quality
2. Explosive growth of malware (viruses, spyware, adware, security exploits) and predominant client use of systems most subject to malware has diverted resources from activities more valuable to the institution
3. Insufficient staffing for timely response to client needs and requests; for teaching classes; for publications; and for taking on support of "new" technologies (e.g., blogging, instant messaging, podcasting, multimedia production, graphic arts, expanded use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as Palm, PocketPC, Blackberry, "smart" phones)
4. Availability of personnel from -- and to -- other CIT and LRG units for collaborative work
   

1. Client education and information techology proficiency lags University needs and clients' own expectations
2. Lack of time and priority for developing information and communication technology fluency
   
3. Lack of awareness of IT-related security and privacy issues
4. Widespread failure to follow best practices for protection of information assets
   

Does your department use a system for performance improvement? If so, describe it.

What are your KEY sources of comparative and competitive data from within your industry?

• EDUCAUSE Core Data
• Green Campus Computing Project
• Technology sections of college rankings
• Listservs
  

Does your department have a sustainability plan? If so, describe it.

• Activities are covered primarily by general funds (2-04020).
• The three 50-50 positions are half-funded by the respective colleges.
• University Communications pays 5% of Henrietta Menzies's salary.
• Telecommunications pays a portion of Jonanthan Trigaux's salary. 
• Any malware clean-up fees go to Microcomputer Services. 

Attachment G: Framework for developing a SWOT Analysis

Internal Assessment

1) Strengths. What are our resources and capabilities that can be used to serve our faculty, staff, students, alumni and public?

1. Motivated, service-oriented, knowledgeable, and experienced personnel; high level of local, institutional knowledge
2. Strong collaborative relationships with LRG and distributed IT units
   
3. Talent to implement new technologies meeting University's strategic needs
   
4. Support from and to other CIT units
5. Strong technologies upon which to build client services, e.g., email, calendar, problem tracking, file services, others
6. Personnel dedicated to best-effort communication with clients, including major support for computing web site and IT newsletter
7. Single point of contact for many client computing needs (Help Line), with escalation processes within and beyond CIT
8. Drop-in, on site, and roving support and clinics
9. All-hands-on-deck collaboration for  addressing peak periods, e.g., back-to-school
   
10. Case-tracking system, supported in CIT, is also used by many distributed IT units, supported seamless client service
    
11. Able to adapt to new client needs and expectations, with priority on security threats
12. Standards, supported by site licensing agreements, with increasing compliance
13. Most departmental computers, and approximately half of student computers, are UVM standard systems with Client Services-developed system configurations; improves support staff productivity and client satisfaction
14. Reliable and up-to-date computer lab and classrooms, with support for distributed labs in academic units and residence halls
15. Priority support for executive offices, 24x7
    

2) Weaknesses. What resources and/or capabilities do we lack that hinder our ability to serve our faculty, staff, students, alumni and public?

1. Lack of implemented and tested business continuity and disaster recovery plans -- particularly at individual client workstation level
   
2. Time to resolution often too long, with impact on client productivity
   
3. Being proactive: Very little time is available for proactive work such as teaching, publication, and research into new technologies.  Client surveys show that our services are needed and appreciated, but are insufficient to meet demand.  This group could be providing significantly greater value to students, to faculty, and to staff if we could shift the majority of our time away from fixing broken software and handling security and copyright incidents and toward in-depth assistance and collaboration, with individuals, in understanding how IT can address needs, choosing appropriate tools, learning how to use software effectively, and boosting information technology proficiency.
4. Technical communications and publications: Many clients are unaware of, or unable to take advantage of, important IT services available to them. Some services are undocumented, and limited-scale publications don't reach intended audiences.  Some offerings are underutilized for lack of client education.   Significantly increased education, communication, and marketing would improve student, faculty, and staff productivity, while reducing the demand for problem resolution.  The catalog of available services needs to be clarified and consolidated in one location.
   
5. Departmental client computers are purchased and owned by departments, and some are purchased externally; University-level ownership would facilitate support and productivity
6. Service, computer lab, and office locations are not convenient for many clients; cramped space for drop-in help center
   
7. Free-or-fee issues arise when integrating services with ledger three units (Microcomputer Services, Network Services)
8. Insufficient teaching lab space to meet demand, especially in the graphics area, i.e., Macintosh.  Demand generally outstrips supply with conflicts arising over priorities.
   

External Assessment

1) Opportunities. What changes are occurring in technology, the economy, our customers (faculty, staff, students, alumni and public) politics, laws, ethics and society as a whole that would present an opportunity to us?

1. We provide more comprehensive computing support than many institutions -- particularly for students -- supports recruitment and retention
   
2. Technology prices tend to fall
3. Legal decisions and commercial offerings may diminish the popularity of P2P software, resulting in fewer copyright complaints and fewer malware infections
4. The collaborative and sharing spirit of other educational information technology practicioners helps us learn from others' experiences
5. The IT industry and the popular news media are placing greater emphasis on technology-related security
6. Educational pricing makes software and hardware more affordable, fostering standardization and boosting the productivity of end users and support personnel
   

2) Threats. What changes are occurring in technology, the economy, our customers (faculty, staff, students, alumni and public) politics, laws, ethics and society as a whole that would present threat to us?

1. Malware (viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, advertising software, spam, phishing, pharming) consumes increasing levels of staff time, with an unfortunate impact on client productivity.  The Safe Computing initiative, approaching the problems with education, policy changes, additional help, and limited fees, is helping to some extent.
   
2. Most of our efforts are now reactive, and often come too late. Higher rates of computer ownership, greater integration of computing into our daily lives, lack of information literacy, illegal file sharing, and continuing escalation of threats from malicious software have resulted in frustrating call queuing at the Help Line; large crowds during drop-in help hours; an unacceptable average of seven days to complete a help request, and client wait times that can exceed two weeks for on-site help. The damage to client productivity is substantial. 
   
3. UVM has no control over the quality, and little control over the pricing, of vendor and open-source software and hardware, nor over the timing or end-user adoption of new software versions and releases (also true of computing hardware and other IT devices)
   
4. Products are often designed for a corporate setting and are not feasible for an academic environment
5. The client population continues to expand.  Residential students, who constitute the largest portion of the increase,  require more support resources, per person, than other students.  Client Services has accepted additional responsibility as Residential Life's support decreases. 
   
6. Client expectations are not always in line with what UVM can provide; expectations have grown while end-user proficiency has declined in some areas
7. Comparator and competitor schools may provide services that UVM is not technically or financially ready to implement
8. Legal mandates without funding, e.g., DMCA, HIPAA
9. Clients' independent decisions to purchase and implement systems and hardware (from PDAs to servers) sometimes carry unplanned and unfunded requirements for central support