Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education - a practical approach by Leo de Sousa

Who is Your Customer?

enterprise architecture, higher education, it service management No Responses »

May 032013

Who is Your Customer? This may be easy for many businesses especially if they are selling consumer goods. If you ask any service organization at a University, the standard response is “Students are our main customers”. The rationale here is that without our students, we wouldn’t have a university. At a very high level this is true.

Does this really help a service organization like the IT Department? If we take this restricted view of customer, can we see the full “marketplace” we serve? Does this focus on one customer restrict definition and planning of service delivery?

If your organization or department provides IT Services to a university or other higher education institution, the answer to the question becomes much less clear. Several weeks ago, we ran a workshop with our Academic Computing Group and our IT Department staff at the American University of Sharjah. We tried to answer the question. We broke the larger group of about 35 people into four teams. Here was the process we tried:

Brainstorm a list of “who” you serve
Each group writes their list and we consolidate into a common list
Vote by show of hands to rank the list within your groups
Each person gets 1 vote for who they think is most important for the Top Rank
Each person gets 1 vote for who they think is most important for the Second Rank

Outcome: Ranked list of who we serve = a prioritized list of our customers Read more...

Implementing Organizational Structure and Focus

communication, it governance, it service management, leadership, management, strategic planning No Responses »

Mar 232013

When I joined the IT Department at the American University of Sharjah as the Director, I was presented with an organizational structure challenge. I found out that I had 21 direct reports and that my department did not have a concept of operational management! I had just come from being the Manager, Business Application Services at the British Columbia Institute of Technology where I had 24 direct reports.

So you would think that less is slightly better right? Wrong.

When I moved to the Director role, my focus and responsibilities also changed. In my manager role, I had to focus on day to day operations and tactics. Occasionally, I got to work on strategic initiatives and plans. The Director of IT /CIO needs to let go of monitoring operational day to day activites and focus on tactical decision making and strategic planning. I knew I had to make a change to the structure and focus of my new team.

In an effort to implement structure and focus, I proposed the role of Team Leader to my Vice Chancellor and then introduced it to my team. I made the decision that I would appoint my Team Leaders as I needed to get a structure in place quickly. This is just one option for implementing this role. Some organizations allow the team to elect their own leader with or without management support. Now I have 7 direct reports which is much more manageable. Also, I have freed my time to focus on tactical and strategic issues allowing my Team Leaders to take leadership of day to day operations. Read more...

My First 180 Days as a CIO

communication, enterprise architecture, higher education, it governance, it service management, leadership, management, personal, strategic planning No Responses »

Mar 202013

Hard to believe that time has gone so quickly in my CIO role. On March 17, 2013 I have been the Director of Information Technology at the American University of Sharjah in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates for 180 days. It has been a huge change for me especially after spending 20 years at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

On the positive side, I have been very well prepared and capable in taking on my Director of Information Technology role. The combination of my MSc in Information Management from Syracuse University and my 25+ years of experience taught me how to face the challenges of my first 6 months. On the negative side, I clearly underestimated the impact on my morale of leaving my family behind in Vancouver to work in the Emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Even though we Skype twice a day, nothing compares to face to face with the ones you love.

There have been many posts and articles on a CIO’s First 100 days and I read some of them before starting this role. Here is a search link to some articles on a CIO’s First 100 Days. I decided to take two main focus areas: