IT Questions

For the IT@UMN community, PEAK does not mean significant reorganization. There will be two new leadership positions that report to the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. 

• The Chief Technology Officer will define and sustain an integrated enterprise technology architecture across the domains of infrastructure, software/applications, methods/standards, and innovation.
• The Senior Director, IT Leads, will strengthen bi-directional communication, collaboration, and accountability between enterprise IT and academic and support unit IT. 

After the Sr. Director, IT Leads is hired, the Academic and Support Unit IT Leads will begin to have a dual reporting relationship: one solid line to the unit leadership and one solid line to the Senior Director, IT Leads. IT managers and individual contributors will continue to report to their current units.

First, it should be reaffirmed that VPCIO Gulachek is adamant that enterprise services do not mean Office of Information Technology (OIT) services. Enterprise services can exist in any unit on any campus and should be run by the unit with the appropriate expertise.

Virtual teams already exist and are working well in IT! One example is the Enterprise Data Network team. Networking professionals from Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and the Twin Cities work as a team to plan, prioritize, and execute work. The professionals on the team benefit from having back-up if they are out, increased capacity to accomplish their goals, and sharing their knowledge and experience. The amount of effort devoted to the virtual team was negotiated in consultation with members of the team by their IT Leads, Jeff Sperling - Crookston, Jason Davis - Duluth, and Bill Zimmerman - Morris along with the Service Owner for Data Networks, Louis Hammond. 

The exact process by which virtual teams form will be developed by the Senior Director, IT Leads in coordination with academic and support unit IT Leads. The expectation is that the Senior Director, IT Leads will work closely with enterprise and academic and support unit IT Leads to:

• Identify which enterprise services would benefit from virtual teams.
• Understand capacity, interest, knowledge, skills, and abilities among IT professionals across all units.
• Initiate virtual teams.

The intention of creating these virtual teams is to build capacity and bench-depth so that we can better support our students, faculty, and staff across the system and to offer opportunities for IT professionals to lead, learn, and develop professionally among colleagues who do similar work.

People who participate on virtual teams will maintain their current HR reporting structure. However, those individuals can expect that virtual team leaders will share input about their performance with them directly and with their manager or supervisor.

The goal of PEAK is not a reduction in existing staffing levels; the goal is a realignment of existing staff around work. For IT@UMN, we will leverage the Sr. Director, IT Leads and virtual teams to achieve work alignment. Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing and Communications will centralize some functions. For more information about how PEAK might offer new opportunities to your colleagues who work in Human Resources, Finance and Marketing and Communications, you may reference their FAQ pages.

The PEAK recommendations for IT are intended to help us build capacity by leveraging the skills and talent that exists across the system on virtual teams. Our expectation is that, together, we will find more efficient ways of working and the teams that right now feel “thin” will have back-up support as recruiting is ongoing for open positions.

To support retention, PEAK will create professional development opportunities. One example is provided by virtual teams, enabling inexperienced members to develop knowledge and skills and more experienced members to mentor and lead.