Download Dec 18 IT Task Force - University of Waterloo

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University of Waterloo
IT STRATEGY TASK FORCE MEETING
Minutes of the Meeting held December 18, 2012
PRESENT:
Dave Wallace (CIO), Meltem Kurtman (Secretary), Trevor Bain, Colin Bell, Kim
Boucher, Natalie Cockburn, Lawrence Folland, Chris Halonen, Natasha Jennings, Robyn
Landers, Steph Sempson, Ann Williams-Gorrie, Mark Walker, Barb Yantha
REGRETS:
Andrea Chappell (Chair), Diane Bader, Steve Bourque, Andrew Brown, Pascal Calarco,
Pam Fluttert, Pat Lafranier, Ian McKillop, Paul Miskovsky, Daniela Seskar-Hencic
1.
APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF DECEMBER 11TH
 The minutes of the meeting of December 11, 2012 were accepted as distributed.
2.
CONSULTATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS UPDATE
a. Completed since last week: IAP, Arts Lunch & Learn, Engineering Sys Admins
b. Upcoming before end of December: Web Advisory Committee (WAC)
Comments & Discussion
 Arts Lunch and Learn:
o Meeting was very good
o Questions about risk management and best practices
 Engineering Sys Admins:
o Meeting went an hour longer than the scheduled time
o Different opinions about open source
o Need for transparency
o Federated model – how services will be received
o How are IT decisions made? How were they made in the past?
 IAP:
o Two major themes: Information Management and Integration
o Different uses of data
o Fantastic feedback
o Number one priority is the need of systems to talk to one another
 CECA:
o Background work was already done
o Need to understand their unique needs; they work with industry, our systems are
down for a week for upgrades
o Questions around Active Directory, how it’s used for Identity Management,
Onboarding process
 We are at the end of Phase II; we still have a few consultation meetings happening in
January. We need to speak the same language; use the correct terms so that people can
give good feedback.
 Dr. Keller, Vice-President Academic & Provost, gave a talk on big data. What do you do
with that? Information and data management will be a huge issue. In most cases, there is
no need to look at individual data, aggregate data is used. What is the optimal between
the two?
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3.
UCIST/STEERING UPDATE
 The Organize for Success consultants think we need to speak to the faculty to get their
input, look at the federated model; what are the handshakes? UCIST will be completing
the Strategy Map.
 Suggestion was made to contact the Faculty Association, build a relationship with them.
Professors David Porreca (President) and George Freeman are two ideal people to
contact to reach the faculty.
 We have been using the term stakeholder a lot; we also have Faculty, Staff and
Students. Do we want to further divide this?
o We keep it simple; we work with all these people; IT takes on a role to help
them. They are all users.
o We cannot identify them now; that will come out when we get to the project
level.
o Needs sometimes overlap.
o We should recognize stratification. We have to build a system around needs.
o In the initial document we should have broad brushstrokes, and then build
appendices. We want some common principles.
o Who is the audience of this document?
 Users of IT
 Definitions should be included early in the Strategic Plan document
4.
“THINGS TO DO” (or Desired Outcomes) WORK BY THE THEME TEAMS
The Task Force members broke into their Theme Teams and discussed the requirements for the
clients of the IT service(s), considering the consultations to date, data mining and the table
supplied to each team to complete.
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Enabling Research
As a sample, the "Enabling Research" Theme Team discussed the results of their discussion and
their work to date with the rest of the Task Force:
The group had initial discussion here as part of the Task Force meetings but did not get together
later. The group put together a number of ways that IT can do things to help Researchers such as
purchasing technology, administering systems, accounts maintenance, IT support, financial needs,
facilitated access to uW services, and a private cloud for in-house file synchronization.
It will be important to ensure that the needs of Researchers are a top priority and that we are
helping/enabling, not hindering.
Dave Wallace noted that he went to the City of Toronto with a group of uW staff. They have a
collaboration environment that has grown a lot in the last three-to-five years; it has a lot of
potential as an example for uW. The staff from the City also discussed their work with Excellence
Canada, as a quality benchmark for their IT organization. The Excellence Canada framework has
four levels to show quality in an organization. The goal is to move up the levels.
Next Steps
 Present a summary that identifies scope, prerequisites, products and who would be
involved.
 Complete the table and link it to the objectives; also include the consultations that were
not there before.
 From evidence (data and consultations), derive potential opportunities
 Next meeting (January 8) will be two-hours.
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5.
PLANNING FOR THE PLAN DOCUMENT
Due to time constraints, this item was not discussed.
6.
NEXT MEETING
January 8th, 10:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m., MC 2018A
/myk
January 3, 2013
Meltem Y. Kurtman
Recording Secretary