ITS Communication Plan

Initative #1 | Initative #2 | Initative #3 | Initative #4 | Initative #5

Initiative #4: Communicate our Work Efforts and Priorities

Customer Need

What is ITS doing for me?

Situation

The amount of work requested of ITS increasingly exceeds the amount of resources needed to accomplish the work. As a result, priority projects receive attention and the many other projects wait in queue for resources. Currently there are no mechanisms in place to effectively communicate which projects have taken priority (and why), nor is there a way to consistently indicate customer project status or placement in the queue.

Outcomes/Risks

  • Lower customer satisfaction
  • Lack of understanding or support for institutional priorities
  • Customer jockeying for priority using various methods
  • Customer pursuit of non-ITS or non-institutional support options
  • Central resources diverted to individual departments
  • Loss of support or trust in ITS
  • Project outcomes compromised by division of effort, support, resources

Efforts

  • Educate organization on IT Strategic Plan
  • Provide user-friendly information about progress of Strategic Plan
  • Provide timely information about project status, progress, priority
  • Educate customers on project approval processes, funding
  • Educate administration on volume of requests, prioritization implications

Identified Projects

Project Name Project Description Target Completion Date
ITS Core Steering Committee Website. Initial web page created. Identify areas for enhancement and additional materials to post. Identify (and possibly train) website owner, process and schedule for updates. ITS global priorities are set by the Core Steering Committee so as to be aligned with teh Strategic Plan. 2Q04
Top Department Priorities. Continue to report top department priorities in monthly Metrics Report. Create website to post summaries of completed projects and descriptions of priorities, if no description already exists. TBD
Team Project Lists. Create a mechanism to publish priorities and project lists for each individual team. The publication may be a manual process depending on the technical feasibility of integrated reporting mechanisms. Identify team contacts for keeping lists updated. Identify publish schedule and ongoing maintenance responsibilities. TBD
Enhancement Requests/Progress. Create a mechanism to report bug fixes and system enhancements. TBD