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.