Finding Recommendations
Date: December 23, 2005
To: Ken Niemi and Laura King
Chairs of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Enterprise IT Investment Planning
From: Systems Development Steering Committee
Re: Regional Meetings Findings and Recommendations
During fall semester 2005 the Systems Development Steering Committee initiated a series of regional meetings to learn more about the campus needs for our information management system. We asked the following question:
In the next 10 years what will our systems need to meet the expectations of students we serve and increase the efficiency and competitiveness of our academic and administrative operations?
Hundreds of people throughout all 5 regions of the state representing all functional areas participated in these meeting. We readily observed that people throughout the system have great vision for the future of our enterprise system but feel disenfranchised due to the lack of resources dedicated to meeting their current needs.
A summary of our key findings are;
- Many participants in the regional meetings have critical requests that have been on the enhancement list for many years. This point?s to an exponential under investment in the enterprise infrastructure and the lack agility in our staffing, procurement and budgeting processes.
- Due to the tremendous inadequacies in the available resources dedicated to supporting current infrastructure, users of the system are at risk for prolonged downtime due to hardware, software or network failures. The greatest risk exists in the areas affected by the aging infrastructure and lack of redundancy of the system; including programming language, database, hardware, and networking.
- The enterprise systems are not meeting the expanding and critical functionality needs required for Colleges and Universities to remain competitive.
- The user interface with our current system is cumbersome at best, and because of its complexity, results in loss of productivity by campus staff.
We recommend that in order to achieve and sustain as well as innovate, the following actions be taken;
- The commitment to a significant influx of resources is required to achieve the expanding and critical functionality needs of the system. Development of agile processes is an essential corollary to enable the use of these resources in a timely fashion.
- Identify and fund a sustainable level of ongoing support for every aspect of the enterprise infrastructure. Each new project requires initial funding as well ongoing maintenance and replacement cycle support.
- Information Technology requires innovation to survive and thrive. It is essential to create a methodology for providing unencumbered resources each year to support unanticipated needs and innovation throughout the enterprise.
In conclusion, the very engagement of all those that participated in these regional meetings indicates their willingness to assist in the resolution of these issues but that engagement will dissipate unless timely changes are made. It is also clear that without substantial immediate improvements to our infrastructure our system will not survive.
The Systems Development Steering Committee is ready and willing to support the future work of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Enterprise IT Investment Planning committee by recommending tactical solutions or providing additional information as needed.
Attachments:
Regional Planning Results: Today's Issues
Regional Planning Results: Consolidated 10 Year Vision
Committee Members:
Les Bakke, Minnesota State University Moorhead
Joanne Chabot, Office of the Chancellor
Jim Dillemuth, Office of the Chancellor
Scott Erickson, Minneapolis Community and Technical College
Tim Gilsrud, Rochester Community & Technical College
Glen Guida, Office of the Chancellor
Chad Haatvedt, Itasca Community College
Mark Johnson, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Mark Malecek, Office of the Chancellor
Sue Raddatz, Dakota County Technical College
Ken Ries, Pine Technical College
Gerry Rushenberg, Office of the Chancellor
Beverly Schuft, Office of the Chancellor
RaNae Thompson, Southwest Minnesota State University
