UIT Town Hall Meeting roundup

By Jesse Drake

During a Town Hall meeting December 9, Chief Information Officer Steve Hess presented an overview of 28 recommendations resulting from Deloitte’s University IT Assessment. Roughly 140 UIT staff members attended the Town Hall, with 168 hits on the live online stream.

Hess explained that the 420-page Deloitte assessment report, a 13-week engagement, was delivered in two stages. “Deliverable A” was a comprehensive assessment of the current state of UIT, based on data Deloitte gathered from institutional data sources, interviews, and questionnaires. Key performance indicators used in the assessment included skills and training, network operations, wireless coverage, financial spend, and how UIT employees interact with campus. “Deliverable B” focused on an assessment of other (non-UIT) IT providers and services at the U. 

“We really need everyone to embrace these [recommendations] to be successful,” Hess said. “There aren’t many companies or organizations that really succeed that don’t have good IT, that don’t have access to all the data, that don’t have applications online that are free of place and time that can really help a university forge forward and do what it needs to do.”

Hess addressed each recommendation, including suggestions on how to rein in spending, improve processes, minimize duplication of effort and enrich UIT culture, among other things. During the presentation, he thanked UIT employees for making ongoing improvements to IT services university-wide.

“I just want to say how much I appreciate all that you do and the progress that we’ve made in the last few months,” Hess said. “It’s been significant and it’s been recognized by the administration.”

The meeting ended with an open forum Q&A session.

To view or download the full hour-long presentation, please visit http://bit.ly/1RFrhTV.

UIT’s last presentation of the Deloitte IT assessment took place at a special IT Professionals Forum on January 6, 2016 in the Gould Auditorium at Marriott Library.