How is it that summer escapes IT workers so quickly? Even with careful project plans we concoct each spring, there are always enough curve balls to force tough choices about how summer time is spent.
This year, a few unexpected departures have jostled our workload some. One member of our IT team resigned very late in the spring for a different job in higher ed; I’ve spent at least six full days working on the hire, between getting the job posted, reviewing applications, arranging and conducting interviews, preparing background information for the interviews, writing up the interviews, and so on.
A key administrator resigned suddenly, as did a key staff member; both these people played important roles in our administrative data management strategies. Their leaving complicates projects in process and will affect our workload well into the school year.
Another curve ball came when several school offices were unexpectedly relocated to spaces new to the Schools, meaning significant voice and data networking tasks for IT staff.
As for me, I’m making headway on our IT Service Catalog. I think this is a vital resource to have in place in a time of shrinking budgets and higher demand for IT services. We have been pretty transparent in sharing what we do in an anecdotal way with our quarterly activity reports, but a formal listing of all the services we provide, phrased in accessible language all can understand, will surprise many (probably ourselves included) and flesh out the context in which we make decisions about how we allocate resources and for what mission-driven outcomes.
We’ve also had one good curve ball come our way. As the University revises its handling of part-time casual positions, we can’t rely any longer on the strategy of using these kinds of positions for doing level one support work. There will be some room to keep one or two of these slots in a more limited fashion, but by working with our HR people at school, we’ve been able to collapse a couple of these positions into a full time benefits eligible position. This is a good thing; in my eleven years in this job, we’ve had 48 people come and go in these part-time spots. I’ll be glad to put a dent in that number and add more stability to our support efforts.
Posted on July 30th, 2009 by Curt Lieneck
Filed under: General Interest, Uncategorized
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