In December Kelli shared UW Technology’s five major themes for 2010.  These include:

1. Operational Excellence
2. Partners in Major Campus Initiatives
3. Continue Our Support of University Research
4. Enable the Next Generation of Communication and Collaboration on Campus
5. Invest in Our People

You will find more detail about example efforts for each of these themes in her December 1 presentation.

Soon I will be sharing with Kelli the specific work UTS plans to undertake in support of these 2010 strategic themes.  It fits well with the work we began in September to define the UTS 2010 priority areas, and the recently published UTS 10-10-10 Plan.  I see our work as very complementary to the overall priorities for UW Technology, and look forward to capturing all of your efforts that will help contribute to the organization’s success and that of our customers and partners.   Staying focused on our priorities will help us to move forward despite the uncertainties related to the ongoing challenges with the state’s economy. 

Here’s a quick cross-reference to UW Technology’s themes and what’s already included in our 10-10-10 Plan.

Operational Excellence

• Develop a sustainable service and financial model and structure.
• Develop service management to align our services with the UW’s highest priorities.
• Empower our customers and staff through service delivery efficiencies.

Partners in Major Campus Initiatives

• Launch key initiatives:  cloud computing, green IT, mobility.

Enable the Next Generation of Communication and Collaboration on Campus

• Launch key initiatives such as Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS-D).

Invest in Our People

• Support our staff.

I will be sharing more information with you when I return from my “Olympic break” on February 23.  In the mean time, please share your thoughts, ideas, and questions.  I always enjoy hearing from you, and learning new things is one of the best parts of my job.  Stay in touch often:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech/avp

This week I’m grateful for:

• The wonderful Olympic Winterfest celebration with colleagues from Office of Information Management and UW Technology.  The 440 pounds of food we collected is amazing and benefits a great neighborhood food bank.  Many thanks to Millie Elliott and all of the creative and helpful volunteers who made this event possible.
• The collaborative work of the Technology Services staff and management team for developing the UTS 10-10-10 Plan and continuing to contribute towards UW’s success.
• Dan Comden and the Student Tech Fee Committee for preliminary approval of our Access Technology Lab proposal.
• Tacoma Chancellor Spakes for her proactive communication style and helpful messages; even though they are targeted toward UW Tacoma staff, I always learn new insights.   Here’s a recent example.
• The completion of the new UW Tower data center.   I’m especially grateful there are no more loud noises coming from below.
• Composting is now available in the UTS lunchroom!  Follow the signage to keep food out of the waste stream.

Please share your gratitude moments with me at anytime.  Help keep your mood elevator on the upper floors.

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech

In September I shared the framework to help connect your work to the success of the UW.  It is an attempt to create a clear, simple way to articulate our path forward.  Over the past few months you have seen updates to this work, and in October I introduced the 10-10-10 Plan that we are developing to help focus our work in 2010.  There have been a number of suggestions and iterations with managers and staff during the past few months.  I shared an initial draft at Monday’s brown bag lunch  and received a number of suggestions and ideas to make the plan clearer. Yesterday the UTS management team reviewed the plan, discussed further  refinements, and shared ways to involve and solicit feedback from staff. 

Today I am delighted to share the latest draft of the UTS 10-10-10 Plan.   Its purpose is to highlight the transformational work that we need to accomplish in the next year.  Most importantly, it strives to connect the work we are doing with the goal of balancing our imperatives – being Customer-Driven, Sustainable, and Valued – so we deliver the most value to the UW.  By working together toward the same target, we will continue to help the UW move forward.  

Completing the 10-10-10 Plan alone is not the end point, but rather the start of the conversation to continually focus our finite resources on the right things.  Each of you may be in different places in terms of understanding what this all means.  That’s okay.  Those that feel like their work already reflects our imperatives can be catalysts for others to increase awareness.  Others who are looking for specific behaviors that translate to realizing our goal or wondering how “you” fit can help increase understanding by asking questions and discussing with colleagues and managers.  I’ve also asked managers to work with their teams to help staff see how their work fits into the bigger picture.  “Connecting the dots” is a process we achieve over time.  Hopefully some of the blog messages you’re reading here are making those connections clearer every day.  

I will continue to host brown bag sessions, blog on a regular basis, and invite feedback, inquiry, and conversation.  This work requires all of us and I look forward to sharing why I think the way we do our work is so important to our future success, and learning what you think.  Please share your thoughts often:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech
• At brown bag sessions, climate lunches, team meetings, and hallway chats.

UTS 10-10-10 Plan Overview

I am delighted to resume publishing monthly revenue data for some of our key services.  You may recall we started this report last year to help us track revenue trends.  As I reported last week, we needed to do some manual manipulation of the newly organized financial information to achieve the same comparative service revenue data.  Most of this information comes from the Technology Services Equipment and Service billing system.  We then organize the many different billing tariff codes into the appropriate services represented in this report.  Frances Woods has  reorganized the tariff codes to provide as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as possible.  However, you will notice some differences in quantity and revenue that are attributable to these new groupings rather than changes in actual customer demand between FY09 and FY10. 

I think this information is still worthwhile sharing so we can become more familiar with trends we are seeing with key services.  It is important to pay close attention to the scale on the left margin as sometimes the numbers are quite close even though visually it looks like a big change.  Generally, dial tone, our biggest revenue source, continues to trend positively.  Approximately 1,000 lines (or equivalent lines) have been added since June 2009.  Most of this reflects additions at Harborview Medical Center and a more accurate way of reflecting the larger trunk lines that they consume (for example, each primary rate ISDN digital line is now equivalent to 24 dial tones in this report).

As we look forward to FY11, we will continue to refine this report and align it more closely to the new service and rate model that we expect to implement in the coming fiscal year. 

Your thoughts, questions, and ideas are always helpful as we continue to increase the value of this information.  This is a work in progress.  Please share often:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech

November 2009 Revenue Update

The latest from Jim Bruce:

If you are leading a change initiative, then you must be an influencer for that initiative to be successful.  Yet studies have shown that only one in five leaders are able to influence positive change in a way that it lasts.  What’s going on?

Today’s reading is “The Influencers:  The Top Five Reasons Leaders Lack Influence.”  In this piece, Ron McMillan and Joseph Grenny, the authors who also wrote “Influencer:  The Power to Change Anything,” provide five reasons why leaders lack influence:

1. Leaders do not believe that it is their job to influence.  (I certainly hope that is not the case for IT Leaders alumni.)  Leaders see their job as strategy, as selecting winning products and services, as engaging stakeholders and major customers.  Few understand that their success, or failure, lies in influencing the behavior of those who execute the strategy.  The most influential leaders spend 50 to 75 of their time thinking about and actively influencing those responsible for delivering results.
2. Leaders lack the skills required to influence.  The study found that only one in twenty had a thought-out plan for influencing change.
3. Leaders often confuse talking with influencing.  Verbal persuasion is rarely adequate.
4. Leaders believe in silver bullets.  When leaders do attempt to influence behavior, they often look for a quick fix, believing that deeply ingrained bad habits can be changed by a simple action.  Research shows that this almost always fails.
5. Leaders try to influence everyone.  Rather than spreading their influence equally across all their staff, influential leaders invest time and effort in their direct reports and the opinion leaders in the area of the change.  By doing so, they build trust with those individuals who are most closely associated with the change.

To be able to positively influence someone, you must have a positive relationship with that person.  That’s why building relationships is so important.  In the Leaders Program we point out that relationships begin with someone initiating a contact;  that it grows by inquiring, by mutually learning about the other;  and that it matures by investing in the interests of the other individual.  As the relationship matures, trust and empathy are built and we naturally influence one another.

So, let’s all get to work on building and strengthening relationships.  They will provide a solid foundation for the work we will be doing.  

African Proverb:  “If you wish to go quickly, go alone;  if you wish to go far, go together.”

Share your thoughts and lessons with me at anytime:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech

Today was the first time I walked through the newly completed data center at UW Tower.  I intentionally stayed out during the year long construction process so I could see the finished product, and the wait was worth it!  It is equipped with all the amenities needed to ensure our customers have a safe, reliable, and flexible space to house their computing systems.  There’s also support spaces to help our customers and staff do their work effectively.

The new data center incorporates the reliability requirements articulated by key customer segments during the collaborative design phase.  One third of the total 1.8 Megawatts of server capacity is backed up by a dedicated generator and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to provide enterprise-class colocation space.   The remaining two-thirds is protected by minimal UPS to ride out any brief power fluctuations, and provides 1.2 Megawatts of new server colocation for departmental and research computing.  A typical rack consumes 10 kilowatts of power.

I began the journey that led to UW Tower data center in April 2006 shortly after the 4545 UPS fire incident that highlighted the critical overload conditions at 4545.  We relocated some server load to Sabey data center on an emergency basis in July 2006, and began an intensive planning process to find a permanent solution for more data center space.  Early design efforts yielded options that exceeded our budget capacity, and finding affordable ready-to-move-in data center capacity proved challenging.  After the UW acquired Safeco Tower in 2007, a viable data center option soon followed and we successfully funded the project with a $20 M capital investment from Olympia and up to $12 M in research bonds in 2008.  The pre-design and design phases entailed countless hours of interative design with consultants and customer representatives, but ultimately a final design was adopted just prior to construction in 2009.  The final result is the UW Tower data center which was completed on-time and under budget. 

It has been great watching the progress and ultimate project fruition for this strategic UW investment.  There have been so many people working tirelessly to get us to this point (especially Jim Vane’s team and our partners in Capital Projects).  The highlight for me was seeing Jim give the leadership team a tour of the new space.  His expertise, customer focus, and operational excellence all combined to showcase an impressive facility that reflected the same.  Every detail, every feature, to exacting specifications, and for the purpose of providing a customer-driven, sustainable, and valued solution.  I am so proud of the extended team’s accomplishment, and Jim’s excitement as he  gushes on the new space makes it all worthwhile!

If you’re interested in learning more or joining a tour of the new facility, let me know and I’m sure we could arrange something with Jim.  You definitely want him to be your tour guide.

Share your questions, thoughts, and ideas with me anytime:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech

This week I’m grateful for:

• Dana Whitford for helping our customers be successful in what they do.  Check out Dana’s HR Spotlight.
• UTS staff completion of the annual Asbestos Training requirement by the Jan. 31 deadline.  Thank you!
• Successful fire evacuation drill at 4545 this week.
• Pink Elephant’s presentation on ITIL (information technology infrastructure library) processes and Service Management overview for UW Technology leadership and management teams.

Share your gratitude moments with me anytime:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech/avp

Please join me for my next brown bag lunch on Monday, Feb. 1.  It will be an opportunity to learn more about the UTS 10-10-10 Plan and our 2010 priorities, as well as discuss any other issues on your mind.  With the ongoing activity in Olympia, and President Emmert’s recent announcement about reuniting UW Technology and the Office of Information Management into one organization, I’m sure there will be something to talk about.

Revenue Trend Reporting

August was the last month we published monthly revenue data. I’m working with Frances Woods to resume the monthly reporting of revenue trends for key services.  After Business & Finance implemented the new cost allocation framework over the fall months, some of the financial reporting needs to be reworked to reflect comparable unit and revenue information.  Frances has completed the report through December 2009, and we are reviewing some interesting anomalies to see whether we need to refine any of the tariff grouping assumptions. Overall, it appears we are trending positively so that is encouraging.  I will publish the new revenue trend report next week.

Please share your ideas, concerns, and questions with me anytime.  I really appreciate your feedback and the opportunity to explore issues in greater detail with you.

• By email: tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech/avp
• RSVP for Feb. 1 brown bag

Today I met with Computer Operations and Software Support Group staff at their regularly scheduled meetings (one early morning, and one late afternoon).   As always, it’s great to have an opportunity to engage directly with staff.  It’s one of the parts of my job that I enjoy most.  Concerns about the state revenue shortfall and implications for UW and UW Technology budgets remain a source of uncertainty.    While it’s too early to know the exact outcome, we continue to be mindful of our expenditures to minimize the impact of any future reductions.  Staying focused on our 2010 priorities will help us to increase our sustainability and flexibility as we prepare for another challenging fiscal year ahead.  We can also stay informed by visiting the Planning & Budgeting Website periodically, and staying in touch with the State Relations blog (which I’ve linked to mine in the the right navigation).  New State Relations Director Margaret Shepherd is posting updates from Olympia throughout the 60 day session that is underway.

Mike Houlihan also invited Deb Verginia’s Customer Solutions Engineering (CSE) team to provide an overview of their group for the computer operations and software support team.  It was a helpful introduction to both the people and work of both groups, especially since Computer Operations provides off-hours support to CSE and its customers.  It also provided an opportunity for the teams to ask each other questions and explore things that may not have been clear in the past.    I thought the interaction was exactly what we need to accomplish throughout the organization to increase people’s awareness and appreciation for the diverse work we do in UW Technology.  Our work rarely stays within the boundaries of a single team, and often working effectively with others is key to success.   This initial meeting starts building relationships that make collaborative work and problem solving easier across teams. 

I also learned that the Technology Service Center recently hosted colleagues from Business & Finance at one of their staff meetings and achieved similar outcomes.  I highly encourage teams to incorporate guest presentations and dialog with other groups as part of their regularly scheduled staff meetings.  I am also planning to incorporate this sharing/learning approach at a future UTS all staff meeting (yes, we are planning one for 2010).  Great job everyone!

Please share your ideas, questions, and concerns with me anytime. 

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech/avp

Jim Bruce shares the latest reading:

Every time you begin a change endeavor, it’s quite natural to ask “am I prepared and ready?”  Is my team/organization prepared and ready?  Are the stakeholders ready?

Answering these questions on an ad hoc basis is not easy.  Several weeks ago in my reading, I came across an instrument to assess transition readiness  on William Bridges’ website.  He notes that the instrument comes from his “years of studying organizations in transition and of seeking out the reasons for the very different fates they encountered.”  He goes on to say that he has found the tool useful, even though it has not been used sufficiently to generate norms.  

I found just reading and reflecting on these questions to be helpful in getting my head in the right space to think about change.  Bridges suggests using it with a group of people who are getting ready to engage in a change initiative and then acting on what is learned as a further step in your process.

If you do use the tool, and Bridges’ has shared it for that purpose, let me know how it worked for you.

Share your thoughts with me anytime:

• By email:  tech-avp@uw.edu
• Via Web:  http://uw.edu/depts/tech/avp

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