Today I was asked how do I invest my 168 hours?
Family/relationships
Profession/work
Health
Spiritual
Giving
These are my buckets.
Leading Up To MGMT2012
This week I am attending a management institue through educause. Leading up to the event we had a few assignments to complete – a strengths inventory and an interview with a leader. Both of those have already returned many good thought and actions which are already having a positive impact on my day to day (at home and work). I look forward to building on those through the sessions at the institute.
Coincidentally, I started reading a book about Harry and Bess Truman that I thought would be simply a series of cute stories about a retired president and his wife adjusting to regular life by taking a road trip. What it is turning out to be is a window into Harry Truman’s beliefs and world view. I never new much about Truman’s presidency beyond the references to him on MASH. I am impressed by is integrity, his genuine interactions with all, and his controlled yet fiery temper (Apparently, he wrote many letters to people who pissed him off but never sent them.) Much of the book was read on the plane as I travelled.
Ebooks are wonderful things but when travelling by plane you need to pack something to occupy you for 15 minutes as you climb and decend through the atmosphere. For this I brought the October issue of an Educause magazine. The issues focus was on using data to help address the struggles higher ed faces in the near term by making sound learning and business decisions, instead of going with the gut. While overwhelmed with how to get that done, I was energized by the idea and the connections that can be made through such a project which brings me back to the strength finder assignment.
According to this survey, my five strengths are arranger, maximizer, includer, ideation, and connectedness. These align well with my current responibilities and challenges. I also see them as beneficial in leading the push to use data in decision making. It will be interesting to see what other ideas surface in the coming week.
Posted in Conference and Workshop Notes, Goals and Progress
Google+ is now available from Allegheny Google Apps
Today, Google+ came to Allegheny Google Apps. There are a good number of us playing with it. It seems reminiscent of Google Wave and Google+ when they came out. In other words it seems like it is a big deal, but not sure why I am trying to make it fit in my day-to-day work. It is not like there isn’t enough on my plate ate this point to keep me busy.
I think I will be using it as professional network site. I have never found much use in Linked for that purpose and I rather enjoy using Facebook as a place to laugh at my life and be a bit more relaxed. My Goggle+ profile is linked from the main menu bar at the top of this site. Add me to a circle if you like and we can see where this goes together.
QR Codes – Gateway to Ticket System for Classroom Problems
I picked up The Campus today and found a QR Code linking the paper version to the online version. It got me thinking about how to use that to help solve a problem we are experiencing in the technology classrooms of people not reporting problems when they encounter them. Could we use a QR Code to link a user through their phone to our ticketing system?
So I tried the concept:
First, I started with generating a qr code using the Scan Life plugin for Chrome which generated a nice little image
This will open the logon screen of our ticketing program. Nice but not particularly useful as it actually takes longer to create ticket on a smart phone than it does on a computer. (In other words a lot of energy with little reward.)
Next, I started wondering is there a way to connect directly into Web Help Desk without logging in? The answer is yes, tickets get created automatically when an email is sent to webhelp[at]allegheny.edu. Being that the only difference between a link to a website and an email address is http:// vs. mailto: I gave it a shot. The ScanLife plugin would not let me hack that nor would the actual scanlife website. As not to be deterred, I googled for an answer and found it in Kaywa. I am sure there are others but it was the first one that allowed me to switch mailto: for http:// and it generated this
This worked well in generating a email but as I was looking at my phone’s email client, I realized that I do not have it configured for my allegheny account and to generate a ticket in this way the email needs to be from an @allegheny.edu account. Grrr! I need to figure out how do most folks have their phone’s client configured for their @allegheny.edu account or do that use the gmail app?
With all this being said, I realize that QR codes to report a problem is much more than the typical user will be ready for and that is ok as i see this a a piece of the signage that we should create to encourage the community to report problems experienced in classrooms.
I leave this post with the following questions –
- What are others doing to promote and facilitate the reporting of problems with technology?
- Has anyone attempted to use QR Codes in this manner that has some tips from experience?
- Are new releases of WebHelpDesk going to have features that will make reporting problems from smartphones be easier than it is currently?
Throw your ideas in the comments field…
A new it framework to enable effective change
Starting at the University, he realize IT was a silo and trusted organization. This came from IT was never viewed as an enterprise enabled by the institution.
The institution and IT organization were ripe for some change even though the University is steeped in traditions and e way things were normally done.
Conceptually he views the frame work as a series of triangle
The top triangle is governance and base triangles of quality assurance and project manage mention with the central base triangle being portfolio management.
Governance
Having senior administrators understanding that they need to be responsible and accountable for their IT. If they don’t IT wont be seen as an asset but instead a black hole of dollars and untapped resource.
Role of governance is to
Ensure strategic alignment
Assess value delivery
Optimize risk management
Advise on resource management
Promote performance measurement
Uses a senior committee structure to have a representative group review the portfolio and take ownership of projects as institutional initiatives not IT projects.
Portfolio Management
While technology is not a strategic initiative in and of itself roughly 70 percent of what is identified in the strategic plan making IT a tactic of the strategy.
They view portfolio management more universally than the stricter definitions of project management.
Some points of the portfolio management section
1. Give different priority of strategic projects than projects from the community (Faculty, Staff, Administration).
2. Give people the right and authority to say no and a structure to identify when and how to say no.
3. In this framework functional units need to share information, staff, knowledge, resources, etc..
4. There is a person whose job it is to manage the portfolio and the system hinges on this person being informed.
Project Management
1. Has invested time and resources in developing project management skills of the staff.
2. Commitment to follow project management standards in all projects.
3. Use dot project as the project management system.
Quality and Process Management
1. Time,
2. Money
3. Quality
Tagged with: NERCOMP university of new brunswick
Posted in Change and Change Agents, Conference and Workshop Notes
Posted in Change and Change Agents, Conference and Workshop Notes
Developing a Project Management Culture
It is interesting, the conversations around me are following are all carrying a similar tune…
Do you have a project manager? Nope it would be nice.. We could really use another one…
The presenter started with project management culture is not something that happens easily. He has hooked us as the audience is already frantically taking down his bits of wisdom.
Interesting enough he is spending a fair amount of time on what is culture and why it is important to understand and committing to change at that level. It comes down to people. We are the largest investment on any project and we are the reasons project succeed or fail.
Project Management is people management pure and simple.
Portfolio Management is a managed grouping of potential and active processes. The right portfolio and right culture is operationalizing strategic goals
At the end of a project the process needs to be normalized and transitioned to the service operations.
By developing a culture of project management you can solve
Priority setting issues
Minimize the I don’t have time to communicate the project, just let me get it done.
Never ending projects
Budget pressures by maximizing investments and resources 60-70% of our time is merely to keep the lights running
Gives us a way to say no
Increase the 15-20% of our time to work on strategic projects
Improvement of user technician relations
Improved employee satisfaction.
Project fails
Missing and incomplete requirements
Unrealistic timelines
Lack of user involvement
Scope creep
Lack of change control
Inadequate resources
The pillars of your project management model
1. Define the job what do you need and I will provide you what we can provide.
2. Get the right people involved. Lay it out and ask for commitment.
3. Estimates of time and cost. Be careful to avoid premature precision.
4. Breakdown the tasks.
5. Establish a change procedure – change will happen we do not want unmanaged change.
6. Know when the project is done. Agree up front the completion criteria.
Common pit falls and success factors
1. Project management culture can not be bought it needs to be bought into from the ground up and the top down.
2. Take stock of where you are now. Encourage the good and diminish the trait that aren’t in line with the culture you are developing
3. Recognize that what you are attempting is behavioral change and that takes time
4. Be multidirectional in your communication.
Maturity Model PPM
5. Pre and post project evaluations of business value, continuous evaluation.
4. Systematic project prioritization.
3. Resource management across all projects.
2. Awareness of what is in the pipeline.
1. awareness of current projects
Other important steps
Important to document a shared common language.
Standard reporting and monthly review
NYU’s Virtual Computer Lab
Their idea was based on NC States experience with improvements. Presenter was project manager.
One of the critical pieces of the success was having the A Team. Having people who could tell you what you wouldn’t know until you failed kept them going and on time. (Does Longsight have this expertise? )
Some take aways
1. High end projects are still expected to be done in the physical computer lands. “Regular” course work on special software.
2. Make some conscious decisions about what is going to happen and what is going to be outside the scope or phase 2.
3. Rubric of selection – makes it easy to tell the story of selection.
4. Really takes a lot of conversations to put such a system into place. Basic project management so don’t forget it.
5. Don’t forget that you need documentation and q and a time. Developing a proof of concept provides ample benefits buyin from higher ups, test the value of the consultants, gets you something that can be shopped around for feedback.
6. Be willing to get something rolling and add stuff in successive phases.
7. Time out periods can be an issue. Add this as a measurement in the pilot period.
8. Storage issues where are the files be saved?
9. SPSS still does not work. NYU is working with IBM on virtual licensing wolfram.
10. Are doing access on a first come first serve system because the decided not to pursue a reservation system. They would like to have a ticket system. This was not designed for in class use. (They are in talks with the Chemistry department to provide in class access. This is an issue of citric licenses not application licenses as the chemistry classes are in the hundreds of students range. )
11. They do not use roaming profiles and time from click to use is roughly 10 seconds. Students say that is too long so there is less likelihood that they will institute a roaming profile.
12. June 1 is the deadline to have a new application added to the virtual lab to be ready for fall semester.
Stuff for our project
1. Get the players in the room and talk about this to make it a project.
2. Account for this in the summer project list.
3. Will our option be functional on windows and Mac os? Do we care?
4. Who is the on the ground champion for this project? Do I need to worry about this?
5. Are we attempting desktop virtualization or application virtualization? (what is the difference?)
6. Where are we at on licensing?
7. Is our intention to provide application access for inclass use or outofclass use?
The New IT Organizations
How have we gotten here? Spent a ton on technologies and that model was unsustainable in and of itself but when we throw in The economic pressures of recent years.
The next several years will be characterized by IT Professionals will use the current technology in new and creative ways.
Data management becomes our job as it professionals much more than the plumbing.
Disaggregated Data is infusing a modular learning environment.
Disaggregation forces IT to decide if we support the modular tools or do we force learning to happen through a single tube. (My preference is the prior- Need to walk this walk when I return to campus)
Allegheny is being mentioned as a good example of the dissaggregation. (Guess we are already walking the walk)
Leverage
This is where we start to look at current technology and apply it in new directions.
The New Model
Everyone owns the technology not just IT – IT helps to model and develop strategies using technology to answer the problems of the institution
This implies that technologists become strategists, designers of new systems, problem solvers, project managements, economists of technology solutions, connectors of people, analysts of processes. Etc..
The tools to build this new house of IT
Interoperability
Shared Services (cloud services).
Library preservation
Virtual computer labs
Off site help desk could this be a GLCA initiative.
Portfolio approach – forces us to focus on identity management, data interoperability, persistence, etc.. Buy, develop, integrate the pieces that are necessary (this makes me proud of the Sakai choice as it provides a backbone that we can plug the best in breed into)
Open source economics
Drive innovation and pools resources allows us to get the most flexibility in scare resources and vendor.
Notion of interoperability is built natively into open source as development is standards not proprietary code.
Commoditization
This helps IT Matters. On the backend making things standard helps to allow for cost controls. And allow the tools of the front end to be used flexibly to meet the needs of the student, educator, administrator
Language of UC – Davis designers and strategists
Above campus
cloud
On campus
Private campus middleware and interoperability
Below campus
Integration with consumer based products Facebook, google, MobileMe
Stanford presentation
(need to talk with Jason about the role of data mashup in the future of Digital communication. )
(this session makes my head hurt it is running so fast with ideas and reviewing allegheny’s current position in the transition.)
On becoming a manager
With two of the three User Support people not in this morning. I got asked to cover the desk so an emergence could be responded to. The last time I had to cover the desk I realized how superficial my abilities are in resolving day to day issues. Know what needs to be done is very different than knowing how to do it.
Posted in About Me, Goals and Progress
Projects: Suck We Do At Leading Them.
So really we don’t all suck at leading projects. We do bring to the projects we lead our biases and blind spots and often they provide stumbling blocks.
I was reminded today that as a leader of a project that your first commitment is to the end goal of the project. To get there, sometimes you need to allow others to dictate how a task is accomplished and other times you need to “throw your project manager weight around” to take the straightest line from point a to point b.
The true trick is knowing when which one is called for. The distinction is often clouded by ego and fear which is the path to the dark side.
Posted in Project Management
Thoughts, Experiments and Experiences 