IT INTERIM MANAGEMENT AT UEL
After discussions between Malina Tubbs and Rick Branston, this proposal covering arrangements for interim
management of the UEL IT Directorate has been agreed and can be summarised as follows.
IT Governance Team
This is a collective management team that will take responsibility for the interim management of the IT
directorate (as described in later sections). The team consists of the following three members and will meet
weekly:
 Malina Tubbs – Associate Director of IT Infrastructure (currently also acting Corporate IS manager)
 Rick Branston – IT Operations Manager
 Jane Phillips – Business Support Co-ordinator and PA to IT Director
Objectives
 Ensure business as usual in terms of the provision of IT services with improvements in service quality
implemented as soon as possible
 Manage risks and prevent or minimise any adverse impact of the IT leadership changes on UEL’s
teaching, learning and operations
 Focus on customer needs and improvement of the overall IT service quality and resolve the most
serious and urgent IT issues
 Continue to deliver those IT projects that are approved, planned and funded
 Start and maintain proactive communication and transparency with customers and keep
stakeholders informed of IT’s short term plans and progress made on IT service improvement and
projects
 Start and then maintain good communication and transparency within the IT directorate
 Motivate and re-engage all the IT staff in diagnosing problems, proposing and implementing
solutions and taking ownership of improvements to the IT system performance and service quality
Interim Responsibilities
Line Management
 Malina Tubbs – CIS dept, server team & network team
 Rick Branston – Operations dept, including IT campus support teams (DL & ST), Service Desk team,
telecom and switch board & Audio/Video support team
 Malina Tubbs & Rick Branston – Project and programme team and IT admin
Reporting to Dusty
 Short weekly joint reports from Malina and Rick to Dusty on Tuesdays from 5 November onwards
 Reports will contain brief updates on plans, progress and major issues
Operational Management
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Decisions and resolutions for BAU major issues
Decisions and resolutions for service quality issues
Decisions and resolutions for IT security issues
Decisions on major IT changes and risk management
 All the existing IT governance processes, such as Change Management process will remain
unchanged until we have time to review and update them in the near future
Procurement Management
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Review and renew existing licensing and maintenance contracts
Evaluate and select solutions and suppliers and sign new contracts if and when required
Procurement for budgeted opex/capex
Make business cases and get approval from Dusty for capital expenditures above £10k and for any
items not covered by existing budget.
Programme/Project Management
 Review, monitor and evaluate plans, timescales, progress and deliverables for IT
projects/programmes
 Make decisions on priorities, issues, changes and capital expenditure
 Cost and budget management
 Risk management
 Customer expectation management
 Evaluate final deliverables on project completion and post implementation reviews
Recruitment & Personnel Management
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Recruit to fill approved permanent vacancies
Seek approval from Dusty for recruitment of temporary IT staff when required
Staff communication and engagement
Staff performance, grievance & absence management; take disciplinary action as required by HR
processes
Communication and Meetings
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Weekly meetings for IT Governance Team (Monday)
Monthly meetings for SMT
Fortnightly meetings for each department (IT Infrastructure, IT Operations, CIS)
Weekly meetings (Monday) plus ad-hoc meetings for project/programme management
Weekly meetings for each technical team
Fortnightly updates for all IT staff (verbally at meetings or by email)
Fortnightly updates for key stakeholders on status of IT services and progress made on IT projects
Work Focus for November and December
 Investigate and propose a solution for the user profile corruption problem
 Find a solution for the poor performance and reliability of the email system that serves Stratford
campus
 Investigate and propose solutions for the poor performance of the infrastructure in Sports Dock,
including slow logging-on, slow responses of the email system and finance system
 Investigate and propose solutions for the overall poor performance of the infrastructure across
campuses, including slow logging-on and slow responses of the email system
 Implementing the student printing management system (PCounting)
 Network preparation and relocation of IT equipment for a series of office moves scheduled for
November and December
 Set up several focus work groups working on the issues and making proposals for solutions
IT Staff Development
 Improve technical knowledge, skills and capability of all the IT staff to ensure the effective
management and support of UEL’s existing IT systems and applications
 Each technical team led by the team leader will plan, prioritise and organise internal team and cross
team training and knowledge sharing sessions regularly
 Encourage staff to make suggestions for improvement and solutions and to make contribution to the
focus groups