Tough Times and Hard Decisions Thinking Strategically About

Tough Times and Hard Decisions – Thinking Strategically About IT The CIO – What Lies Ahead? Gordon Wishon, CIO, University of Notre Dame 2003 SAC Executive Seminar

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Wednesday, March 26, 2003 • American colleges and universities this year expect to spend more than $5. 2 billion on information technology, an amount that reflects about a 5 -percent increase over what they budgeted for academic- and administrative-technology expenses in the 2001 -2 academic year.

Nicholas G. Carr, HBR, “IT Doesn’t Matter”, May 03 • Most businesses unlikely to benefit from proprietary IT, and opportunities for competitive advantage with infrastructural technology are very short lived. • “Worrying about what might go wrong may not be as glamorous a job as speculating about the future, but it is a more essential job right now”… “When a resource becomes essential to competition but inconsequential to strategy, the risks it creates become more important than the advantages it provides. ” “Just staying in business will require big outlays for IT. ” Should focus on vulnerabilities, not opportunities.

What Lies Ahead? • Transformative nature of the technology in teaching and learning and resultant impact on institutional strategy • In Higher Ed, IT Does Still Matter • Changing Role of the CIO

Rationalizing Our IT Investments David Smallen, EDUCAUSE Review March/April 2001 • “Whether they (higher education institutions) are spending appropriately on IT resources is a strategic question. ” • 1980, Richard Van Horn, Provost at Carnegie Mellon University asked: “How much [academic] computing is enough? ” Still relevant today. Every institution needs to have a strategy that links the choices about computing to the institutional mission. • Need to have a understanding of the relationship between the institutional mission and the needed IT resources. Spending guidelines will be different for a school with a significant research component compared to a school with a teaching focus.

What Lies Ahead? Strategic imperative -- How can IT help to transform teaching and learning? What are the characteristics of this transformation? Formal and informal, experiential, collaborative Communities of learning Collaborative technologies

What Lies Ahead? Gary K. Allen, ECAR, “Leveraging IT Investments: Technology. Based Partnerships and Collaborations” July 22, 2003 • “To a greater extent than ever before, colleges and universities must make critical decisions regarding how and to what extent they will leverage investments in information technologies to forge synergistic collaborations to accomplish their core missions. ” • Institutions must provide enabling technologies in order to support collaboration. • Leverage IT investments to enrich connections to collaborative and partnering organizations

What Lies Ahead? • How does one then operationalize the strategies developed? • In operationalizing, the following questions should be considered > Does the institution embrace transformation? – Affects relationships, degree of support for investments, tactics of implementation > If not, will the institution resist transformation? – What is the institution’s capacity for change?

What Lies Ahead? • The CIO -- Agent Provocateur, Executor of Strategy, Partner

What Lies Ahead? • Understanding the strategy of the institution > Deriving IT Strategy from Institutional Strategy > Developing a Plan > Executing the Plan – Portfolio Management (Methodology, Discipline) > The Need to Be Flexible > The Role of Luck – No such thing; rather “Being prepared to take advantage of opportunities”

What Lies Ahead? • A Word on Trust > Deliver the Goods – Get the Fundamentals Right > Be Honest > Be a Partner, Not a Competitor

What Lies Ahead? • Need to reframe the IT investment question in terms of what we do with it, not what it is – focus on the value added, not just the sunk cost • Understand the forces affecting behavior in the process of the transformation occurring in higher ed – agents, technologies, roles, communities, and rules • Partnering ability may be the most important qualification for IT executives

Rationalizing IT Investments Practical Recommendations for the Higher Ed CIO (YMMV) • • Achieve alignment with institutional strategy Reduce complexity > but remember, complexity is conserved • Push standards > but recognize the legitimacy of exceptions • • • Strike the right balance of centralization and decentralization Partner, partner Remember, IT’s about people