Dear Member, The next session of the Coalface Community will be a breakfast event held in Sydney on Thursday May 3rd. Topic: Change management – overcoming doubts about the capability of the IT department, and without the power of coercion, how one organisation achieved effective change management that required end users to surrender control, alter work practices and entrust IT to deliver. The case history is being presented by Geoffrey Brown, the Director, Solutions & Engagement at The University of Sydney. Buffet breakfast 7:30 am In 2006 the University of Sydney realised that it needed to change the operating model for IT. Growing funding pressures on the tertiary sector, and the steady decline of revenue from overseas students, resulted in calls for significant efficiencies in the delivery of IT. Each Faculty had the autonomy to run their own IT environment but this had resulted in a smorgasbord of diverse systems in use for common functions across the University. As such, the IT Department was tasked with centralising and rationalising this disparate IT environment. However, this was easier said than done. The IT department had a poor track record and the business had little confidence in its ability to deliver. In this briefing Geoffrey Brown, who joined the University in 2006 to lead this significant change management initiative, will outline his experiences. He will describe how he set about improving the IT department’s reputation. Then he will explain how he assisted the Faculties to surrender responsibility for IT. Then he developed a Service Catalogue but this required the business units to embrace formal support procedures and it compelled the IT staff to see their roles in a different light. Today Geoffrey believes that nearly 90% of the business units in the University use the services of the central IT department. This has resulted in significant savings in IT costs. Yet he sees that the really tough change management task still lies ahead. He believes the University should ultimately divest itself of much of its IT infrastructure through the use of cloud computing. He thinks this will enable the IT staff to better focus on the value add activities that will bring the most benefit to the University. However, he is encountering a lot of internal resistance to pursuing this path, especially from his own IT colleagues. Your company may send three delegates. They should come prepared to discuss and debate their views, experiences or concerns with issues like: shared services, change management, creating a service catalogue, getting end user support, reskilling long-term IT staff, where IT can add value, the viability of cloud computing as an ultimate delivery model for IT to the business and how can you reduce the risks associated with such IT transformations. Moreover, if you have items that you would particularly like the meeting to discuss, please include your questions when you reply. For catering and seating purposes we need to know who will be attending the session by Monday April 30th. As such, can you please let us know whether your organisation is intending to send representatives to this session, and, if so, who they are, by using this online registration form. If your organisation will not be represented at the session can you also use this form to advise us? Sincerely,
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May 2012 |
