Question

PLEASE I NEED HELP!!!

Case One: UConn’s University Information Technology Services (UITS) Develops a Five-Year Strategic Plan

The University of Connecticut was founded in 1881 under the name Storrs Agricultural School. As the name implies, the school was originally focused solely on agricultural studies. In 1893, the school became part of the national land-grant college program, which provided land and funding to one college in each state whose focus was on teaching practical skills in agriculture, engineering, military arts, and science.

Over the years, the school’s name changed three more times—finally becoming the University of Connecticut in 1939—while its programs expanded into areas such as social work, law, and nursing. Today, UConn, as the school is commonly called, has more than 18,000 undergraduate students at its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, as well as 4,500 students who take classes at five smaller campuses across the state. Another 8,200 UConn students are pursuing graduate-level degrees in dentistry, education, law, medicine, and pharmacy, among others.

The 200 employees who work for the University Information Technology Services (UITS) division at UConn are responsible for deploying, managing, and maintaining IT systems and services—including classroom applications, data management, desktop and software support, email, file services, high-performance computing, mobile applications, and Web services as well as the university’s entire data network and telecommunications infrastructure.

The primary mission of UITS is “to facilitate, coordinate, or implement information technologies that effectively enable the institutional missions of research, teaching, learning, and outreach.” In an effort to ensure that it is fulfilling its mission, UITS recently undertook an intensive strategic planning process, the end result of which was a five-year strategic plan that defines the role UITS will play in fulfilling the university’s larger mission.

From the start, UITS utilized a collaborative approach to its strategic planning process, which began with conversations with key stakeholders, including students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators. The information gathered during these meetings helped UITS staff assess the current state of IT services across the university. The planning process then extended for several more months, with participation by various college deans and directors, members of the president’s cabinet, and representatives from the IT Partners program, which includes three advisory committees, made up of faculty, administrators, and IT staff, respectively. At that point, UITS released a draft version of the plan and then spent more time gathering feedback from its various constituencies.

The final version of the strategic plan identifies five high level objectives (referred to as goals in the plan) that establish how UITS will support UConn’s institutional mission and the changing IT needs of the university community:

• Goal 1: Pursue IT solutions that empower members of our community to successfully, productively, and securely engage in all of their institutional roles as individuals.
• Goal 2: Pursue IT solutions under the guidance of our academic partners that facilitate effective research, enrich teaching and learning, and enhance institutional competitiveness for extramural funding.
• Goal 3: Pursue IT solutions in concert with functional partners that support the business of the university and increase operational effectiveness.
• Goal 4: Pursue IT solutions that assist technical partners at all UConn campuses to successfully provide for the specific needs of their respective communities.
• Goal 5: Pursue IT solutions that can best be provided centrally and deliver them securely, efficiently, and robustly at scale.

These goals now guide UITS staff in their efforts to identify, develop, and implement specific initiatives intended to support its mission. For example, some of the UITS initiatives that fall under Goal 1 of the strategic plan relate to the delivery of mobile device services and collaboration tools that members of the university community can use no matter whether they are on or off campus. In addition, UITS has placed a priority on developing high-performance computing capabilities and instructional technologies in support of Goal 2. Initiatives connected to Goal 3 include one intended to enhance the paperless document-management tools available to the various administrative and academic departments.

According to UConn’s CIO and Vice Provost for Information Technology, Michael Mundrane, who led the strategic planning process, “Our primary goal for the plan itself was to produce a marketing document that would explain to the organization and to our community where we were going and why.” And as Mundrane explains in the plan document, “The challenge was never to generate a laundry list of technologies but was always to identify the smallest practical number of key choices that would have the greatest impact on the success of the university.”

From Mundrane’s perspective, a strategic plan offers guidance to help an IT organization ensure that “the important” is not squeezed out by “the urgent.” As he puts it, “By focusing on the big picture, you can ensure that your goals are accomplished and that it is easier to find the resources needed to tackle unexpected challenges or to pursue unique and innovative opportunities that appear throughout the year.”

Critical Thinking Questions

1. How well do the five high-level goals in the UITS strategic plan support the IT organization’s stated mission? How well do the goals address the needs of the various constituencies within the university?
2. UITS’s commitment to collaboration did not end when the UITS strategic plan was finalized. Michael Mundrane considers the plan to be a dynamic document and has pledged to actively solicit feedback from the university community every two years to reassess the plan and its relevance to the changing needs of the university. Do you think such a strong commitment to collaborative strategic planning is more or less important at a public institution, such as the University of Connecticut, versus a private company? Is it more or less difficult to implement?
3. Do you agree with Michael Mundrane’s statement that a strategic plan should be treated as a marketing document? Go to the UITS Strategic Plan Web site (http://itstrategy.uconn.edu), and click the link to view the strategic plan. What do you think of the final document? Is it effective as both a strategic plan and a marketing document?

Answer 1

1. All five high high level goals support the IT Org's mission WELL. Here below is the explanation.

(a) It (the five high level goals) provide more ways to its community work effectively by leveraging the latest technology. For example an intranet website for all campus information, or a closed social media group for engaging the community with latest happenings on the campus, opportunities for new engagements such as voluntary services, game/sport activities etc.

(b) It provides more effective way for the research using IT such as computer and internet which will increase the competitiveness of its students.

(c) Eases the operational burdens such as student enrollment, operational expenditure with the help of IT

(d) It increases the speed of execution of different activities (getting permission from the authorities through an email is much faster than getting the same thru a mail from USPS)

2. Very much important for UConn. Actually it is very much important for any and all institutes and companies to continue its success story. It is difficult to implement but definitely NOT impossible. Seeking feedback at regular intervals clears lot of confusion among the community. Also, the continuous feedback provides scope for improvisation and new opportunities.

People may not like to provide the feedback which will be a challenge here. It is common tendency in the public "resist to change". But if the senior management explains the community on why it is seeking the feedback, why it is important, then people may agree to provide or at least they don't oppose as much as they do when they are not informed.

3. Strategic plan and marketing document are in one or other way works in similar fashion.

For any organisation, be it a large multinational company or a well known university, the ultimate goal to conquer the market share and becoming popular/famous. It is also very much evident that there is competition between organisations. To achieve the business goals a strategic plan which tells the public, stakeholders and the investors how and why the organisation moving in a particular direction which is called the strategic plan. Marketing document more or less serves the same purpose to let key stakeholders know its marketing plan to achieve the market share.

The strategic plan of UCONN looks effective as both strategic plan and marketing document. In the strategic plan it is mentioned, university's near team plans, how it is going to leverage the technology and why. So it is looks effective to me.