Joint Meeting of the DIS
Transition Team
and the DIS Management Team
March 4, 1999
Steve Dooley opened the meeting
by welcoming staff and setting the stage for the day’s activities. He
reviewed why change is necessary at this point in time and how critical it will
be to the future of the IT organization. Michelle Lewski, the session
facilitator, reviewed the plans for the day. She also reviewed the work of
the transition team and compared it with the work of the IT Design Team.
Phase One of the IT Redesign project centered on the work of the IT Design
Team. This team met throughout the summer and early fall of 1998 and
focused on recommending an IT strategy for enterprise-wide IT service
delivery. Phase Two of the IT Redesign project involves the effort of the
CIO Transition Team and is focusing on the local alignment of the CIO
organization.
The first activity the management
team undertook was an activity to discuss their hopes, concerns and questions
about the CIO Transition effort. Small group reports indicated many
similarities among the teams. Most of the concerns centered around the need for
training and re-skilling of staff and the need to ensure that communication
lines stay open (formal and informal).
The team then moved on to the
primary focus of the day – to vision what the new IT organization needs to look
like. They were asked to think NOT from an organization perspective but
from the perspective of how we do business – to answer questions such
as:
- What does the new work
environment look like?
- How do you work with your
customers?
- How do you work with each
other?
- What kind of staff do we
have?
- What do we hear as we move around
the office?
To
provide inspiration to the management team as they began drawing pictures of the
new IT organization, CIO Valicenti shared her vision with the team. She
sees all a successful IT organization as one where the Governor’s Executive
Cabinet considers IT investments, strategies and priorities from an
enterprise-wide perspective and that the IT Shared Services organization is the
IT preferred vendor.
Team members drew pictorial
representations of their vision.
Several common characteristics of
the new IT organization vision emerged from a review of the team
pictures:
- Teamwork and true partnering
among staff and between staff and customers
- Everyone working here is
happy
- Adaptable, flexible staff and
processes
- Quality services are
provided
- Training and skill development is
important
- IT organization is recognized as
a leader
- Formal and informal
communications occur regularly
- Knowledge and expertise are
openly shared
- Projects and issues are brought
to closure
The
team spent some time reviewing the “As Is” and the “To Be” IT vision. They
identified major change initiatives necessary to move to the new
organization. The changes necessary were grouped into the following
categories:
- Training and skill
development
- Funding and billing
- Customer service and user
interfaces
A
summary of the high level changes necessary to move to a new way of doing
business was drawn (Major Actions, March,
1999).
The final activity of the day was
for the Transition team to present an updated CIO functional chart to the
Management team. Management was asked to review the information with the
following questions in mind:
- What functions are
missing?
- What should we not be
doing?
- What should we be doing
differently?
Feedback from this review will be used to create a final version of the
CIO Functional model, which will be posted on the web by mid-March.
Additionally, the transition team will create a draft organizational chart based
on the input from the Management team.
Next Steps for the group are:
- DIS Management team forwards
comments/issues with the IT functional chart or other materials from the day
to team members by close of business March 10, 1999.
- The Transition team updates the
function chart and posts the information on the web on or before March 16,
1999.
- A draft of the Vision and Change
Initiatives timeline will be posted on the web by March 16,
1999.
- A draft of the CIO organizational
chart will be presented to the Management team during the last week of March,
specific date and location to be announced.