High Level Requirements – A Concierge Framework for IT Professionals Executive Summary IT professionals (both campus and distributed) must increase their focus on engaging students, faculty and staff to enable the core research, teaching and engagement missions of the University. As new scaled and shared services are introduced, IT professionals are able to adopt new roles that take advantage of the resource efficiencies to become more customer- and solutions-focused and act in the spirit of the engaged concierge to connect customers to solutions that work along the shortest path possible. The roles of advocate, facilitator, strategist, technologist, and manager will combine in different ways in the various IT positions on campus as needed to meet the technology needs of students, faculty, and staff in colleges and units. The roles outlined in this framework are not suggestions of positions, per se, but rather responsibilities performed by IT professionals. The core goals of this framework are: 1. Refocus IT professionals to become more engaged, enabling partners in the university, college and unit’s mission, better able to provide solutions that are critical to the success of students, faculty and staff. 2. Create a seamless and superior customer experience for students, faculty and staff across central and distributed IT. Current State The level of collaboration among IT professionals on the University of Illinois at Urbana campus has improved significantly over the last several years, in particular around services that have previously been brought to scale at the campus level, including Unified Communications and Data Center Shared Services. Units such as Engineering have formalized collaborative structures into college-wide IT organizations, while department IT staff in other units such ACES have worked together through lessformalized collaboration. These new organizational structures and collaborations have resulted in greater efficiencies in providing scaled and standardized levels of desktop support, storage infrastructure, endpoint management and other services. Overall, IT professionals have become better at providing a basic level of commodity services to our customers but have not used these collaborations to advance past the notion that IT can offer more than a utility service. The roles of IT professionals have been slow to evolve to take full advantage of these collaborations or resource savings. Despite conversation of the importance of partnering and engaging with faculty in order to be proactive in providing IT services and support, only one unit, the College of Engineering, has implemented roles of facilitators who work closely with faculty to explore new information and technology solutions best suited for their research and instruction activities. It is more common that distributed IT professionals, while providing a variety of IT support, develop happenstance relationships with their customers that result in informal conversations that may lead to greater engagement. Opportunities for improvement in the current state of IT on the Illinois campus include: The customer experience is highly fragmented and quality is variable. Many of our customers cannot answer the question, “Where do I go to get assistance with technology X?” Interviews and data collected from the Year of Cyberinfrastructure indicated that faculty do not understand the IT services or staffing resources available to them. Other surveys have indicated similar frustrations among non-faculty members of the university community. Due in part to lack of clarity in IT services, faculty frequently assign IT responsibilities to their graduate assistants, resulting in highly variable, often inefficient and potentially insecure technology practices. Student surveys indicate a general dissatisfaction with IT services on campus. The distributed nature of IT on campus combined with a lack of documented services results in “too many groups doing too many jobs” and a general confusion to the customer about the breadth of campus technology solutions. Anecdotal evidence suggests that IT professionals are too busy “keeping the lights on” to be able to engage their customers at a more value-added level. Non-IT workers (secretaries, grad students) perform IT responsibilities. These staff have not been engaged evenly and effectively by IT professionals with proper support and training. Customers encounter dead ends when seeking assistance and the solution exists outside their unit because of the siloed, undocumented and distributed nature of IT services on campus combined with the lack of a culture of seamless customer experience across services. Due to a large number of service offerings, IT professionals are often too busy to engage in activities that require higher levels of engagement. Future State: The Concierge Framework In the future state, students, faculty and staff have a superior, seamless experience in acquiring and using IT services, and IT professionals are engaged, enabling partners in the academic mission. IT professionals act in the spirit of the engaged concierge according to an IT Professional’s Code to connect customers to solutions that work along the shortest path possible. IT professionals assume the appropriate combination concierge-inspired roles of advocate, facilitator and strategist and the operational roles of technologist and manager. These roles are not defined specifically as positions, but as central and distributed units have the opportunity to revisit IT staffing strategies and position descriptions, these roles should form the foundation of constantly-evolving job responsibilities. Advocate The advocate easily connects students, faculty and staff to existing technology solutions. All IT professionals (both central and distributed) have the role of advocate. The advocate role is central to the seamless customer experience – a consistent, professional attitude combined with a commitment to serve our customers. The advocate does more than point in the direction of solutions; he or she ushers the customer to the next step in the solution process. The advocate: Serves as an IT first point of contact for faculty, students or staff, regardless of unit affiliation. Understands the main use cases for commodity level services. Maintains a broad knowledge of available technologies. Possesses and exercises a customer-centered attitude and orientation. Connects members of the campus community with existing technology solutions. Acts in the customer’s interests and owns the issue until successfully transferred to a more appropriate resource in the IT community. Builds informal relationships with and is accessible to IT customers. Brings customer needs to the attention of facilitators and technologists. Facilitator The facilitator engages students, faculty and staff to integrate technology solutions into their learning, research and administrative activities. Certain IT professionals (both central and distributed) have the role of facilitator. The facilitator role is a vital component of this new framework – the partners in the academic enterprise who actively engage with and serve as a broker between members of the campus community and IT services. The facilitator: Functions as a super-advocate who works as a consultant and partner with faculty, students and staff to understand their needs and workflows. Maintains a broad knowledge of available technology solutions, with a specific focus on helping the customer best utilize them. Connects customers with appropriate resources, and, in many cases, serves as a longer-term technology consultant. Proactively engages members of the campus community to learn more about their work and to identify possible solutions that support their work. Serves as a bridge between customer and technologists/services, helping the customer to identify possible and optimal solutions in the customer’s workflow. Acts in the customer’s interests and builds long-term trust with faculty, students and staff. Informs the technologist and IT leadership of trends and unmet technology needs in the campus community. Manages and monitors the technology aspects of projects. Provides feedback to IT strategists, technologists and architects to inform needs assessments and resource and strategic decision-making. May function specifically as a facilitator for research, instruction or administrative functions. May be an escalation point for customers, from Tier 1 help or advocate level requests, in cases where solutions aren’t evident. Ideally, the facilitator role is performed by an IT professional in a neutral position, independent from service operations or particular technologies. While not preferred, in some units, it may be combined with other roles due to resource restrictions. The facilitator may have an academic background similar to his or her customers. Strategist The strategist anticipates future needs and technology trends and is an engaged campus partner at a strategic level to bring innovative solutions to customers. Certain IT staff (both central and distributed) have the responsibility of strategist. The strategist can be broken into two sub-roles: Technical Architect: o Serves as a high-level systems strategist and innovator. o Identifies potential technologies based upon the unmet technology needs. o Evaluates and tests horizon solutions. o Informs the strategic technology roadmap. Strategic Partner: o Works with campus and unit leadership to understand and shape strategic goals and objectives. o Partners with campus units to identify opportunities for technology integration. Functions as a technology super-facilitator in strategic discussions. o Collaborates with other campus IT strategists to ensure resources are used efficiently and effectively within units and across campus. Technologist The technologist provides expertise to create/source, integrate, maintain, document and improve campus and local technology solutions. Certain IT staff (both central and distributed) have the responsibility of technologist. The technologist role can be broken into the following sub-roles, which may be combined in various configurations within a single position based on need and resource availability. This list of sub-roles is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather illustrative of the types of responsibilities performed by technologists. Supporter: Provides Tier 1 support for custom applications and in-person assistance in support of the Tier 1 Help Desk. Tier 2 resolver: Resolves problems/issues that emerge from existing services that cannot be resolved by Tier 1 Help Desk or supporters. Service-level consultant: Works directly with customers on a short-term basis to identify how a specific service can be utilized in a given workflow. Administrator: Ensures performance and quality of existing services. Serves as point of contact with vendors to maintain service reliability and improvement. Integrator: Develops systems and applications to implement commodity and cloud technology solutions in custom work environments. Trainer: Trains customers to use technology solutions. Technical writer: Documents systems, solutions and use cases. Manager The manager ensures the efficient and effective functioning of teams of IT professionals. Certain IT staff (both central and distributed) have the responsibility of manager. The manager: Provides the day-to-day oversight, staff management and logistical support for central and distributed systems and services. Serves as point of contact with vendors to maintain service reliability and improvement. Provides administrative support and budgetary oversight for teams, projects and initiatives. Fosters an environment of continuous opportunity and development of IT staff at all levels of the organization. Resources Needed, Improved Functionality and Metrics Resource Needed A comprehensive service catalog, including commodity services and unit-level customizations of such services Clear documentation of use cases, procedures and appropriate use Customer service training A single CRM that allows seamless transfer from the advocate to the appropriate solution Management and leadership training (including but not exclusive to existing campus MgrDev and ITLW programs) Professional development opportunities including privatesector training conferences. Improved Functionality Ease of determining what services are available Metrics Completed service catalog entries documented Ease of determining what solution is appropriate Improved customer service skills Seamless customer experience Improved management of resources and staff Customer service ratings/experiences Number of customers successfully navigated to effective solution Number of “hops” to effective solution. Staff retention Cost savings Improved strategic planning and consideration Better relationships with senior campus leadership Higher levels of technical expertise and facilitation skills Number of IT professionals “at the table” in strategic circles Certifications Milestones September 2015: IT Professionals Framework Town Hall Discussion Creation and Charge of IT Professionals Framework Solutions Team Develop IT Professional’s Code Coordination with service catalog creation October 2015: Conduct focus groups with customers to refine the framework Conduct focus groups with IT professionals to identify opportunities and obstacles Identify training need and opportunities Job description templates Summary and Charge The solutions development team should work to develop an IT Professional’s Code that will become the foundation for IT services and support on the University of Illinois at Urbana campus, coordinate with ongoing efforts to create a comprehensive service catalog, identify training needs and opportunities, and create templates for job descriptions that capture the spirit of the Concierge Framework for IT Professionals. This process should be informed through focus groups and interviews with customers and IT professionals on campus.