IT Federation phase 1 outcomes, program reports
Phase 1 overview
This article outlines the achievements and findings of Phase 1 of the IT Federation program, which ran from January to April 2026. Phase 1 convened two working groups, Enterprise Services Work Group (EWG) and Benchmarking Work Group (BWG), to review current state and make recommendations for focus areas for the next phase of the program. Details on each group’s charge and membership can be found on the IT Federation website.
A unique element to the IT Federation program has been the iterative approach and the intentional priority on establishing collaborative practices. In a federated operating model, collaboration isn’t a nice-to-have, it is a structural necessity. The journey to a federated operating model will not be straightforward or easy, but phase 1 demonstrates early wins and a viable path to establishing a federated operating model that leverages and enhances our existing strengths and partnerships to:
- Enhance the overall experience of technology services for faculty, staff and students
- Improve stewardship of technology investments to ensure sustainable use of resources
- Strengthen security and compliance to protect university data and systems
Explore the phase 1 reports & summaries
Both work groups have delivered a series of proposals and reports. These documents provide the data behind the strategy to phase 1. Explore the reports linked below or review the highlights included at the end of the article.
- What’s included: Core reports, reference materials and FAQs from both work groups.
- Access: You must be signed in to your UW-Madison Google Workspace account. Reports and summaries are read-only.
Current efforts ahead of launching phase 2
Both work groups have delivered a series of proposals and reports. These documents provide the data behind the strategy to phase 1.
- Learning from phase 1: We’re conducting retrospectives with the work groups and other project subteams to learn what worked and where we can improve our process.
- Engagement opportunities: Exciting news! Starting now and through phase 2 there will be more ways for you to get involved — from contributing to discovery efforts to joining discussions on collaboration.
- Consistent communication: We’ll continue to share progress and milestone updates through our website, newsletters and governance and advisory groups.
- Subscribe to our newsletter: Stay informed and get deep-dive updates and early notice on engagement opportunities.
Highlights from working groups
Enterprise Services Work Group (EWG): Service proposals
The Enterprise Services Work Group has been a successful collaborative effort between divisional IT leaders and DoIT IT leaders. This group tackled a significant body of work in just a few months. Using a structured evaluation process facilitated by the Office of Strategic Consulting (OSC), the group narrowed 78 stakeholder ideas down to five high-priority proposals for action in FY27. Together, these proposals will help reduce risk, better coordinate across similar services, deliver valuable service improvements, promote responsible stewardship of funds, and establish key data that will inform and build a federated operating model.
Endpoint Management Discovery
Goal
- Assess how endpoint devices are managed across UW–Madison and identify opportunities for a more coordinated approach.
Focus
- Inventory of endpoint management tools and services
- Device lifecycle practices (procurement, provisioning, support, retirement)
- Security baselines and policy alignment
- Shared capabilities (software catalog, automated deployment)
Expected outcomes
- Baseline view of endpoint management across campus
- Recommendations for shared standards and services
- Options for a federated endpoint management model
- Roadmap to improve security, efficiency, and user experience
IT Service Management (ITSM) Discovery
Goal
- Evaluate how IT services are supported across the university and identify improvements to shared processes, tools and coordination.
Focus
- ITSM tools and service management practices across the university
- Incident, request and change management processes
- Opportunities for shared standards or platforms
- Integration with enterprise services and federated governance
Expected outcomes
- Baseline understanding of service management capabilities across the university
- Recommendations for improving cross-campus coordination
- Opportunities to streamline tools and workflows
- Foundations for a federated IT service management model
Secure AI for Sensitive and Restricted Data
Goal
- Evaluate options for providing campus-approved AI capabilities that allow faculty and staff to safely work with sensitive or restricted university data.
Focus
- Support two existing AI funding proposals expanding secure AI licensing and capabilities
- Pilot shared decision-making approaches to coordinate AI services, platforms and investments
- Conduct discovery of priority use cases, capabilities and governance needs
Expected outcomes
- Recommended approach for campus-approved secure AI capabilities
- Coordinated AI service portfolio and governance model
- Guidance on supported AI tools and appropriate use with institutional data
Storage Expansion & Lifecycle Tiers
Goal
- Develop a sustainable approach to managing the university’s rapidly growing data storage needs while balancing cost, performance and long-term stewardship.
Focus
- Coordinate ongoing enterprise storage investments (secure/restricted storage, ResearchDrive, Shared Drive)
- Pilot shared decision-making approaches for a storage service portfolio including lifecycle tiers and funding models
- Assess campus storage usage and growth patterns
Expected outcomes
- Baseline view of campus storage services, capacity and usage
- Institutional storage portfolio and lifecycle tier model
- Sustainable funding and cost recovery model
- Long-term storage roadmap for scalable data stewardship
Data Center and Campus Cloud Infrastructure (CCI)
Goal
- Endorse ongoing Data Center modernization and Campus Cloud Infrastructure (CCI) initiatives as shared enterprise infrastructure for UW–Madison.
Focus
- Ongoing data center modernization supporting research and enterprise workloads
- Campus Cloud Infrastructure (CCI) as a shared virtual hosting platform
- Continued collaboration around secure, compliant shared hosting environments
Expected outcomes
- Reliable, scalable infrastructure for research and administrative computing
- Improved security and compliance through managed infrastructure
- Capacity for emerging workloads (AI, HPC, data-intensive research)
- Greater efficiency through shared enterprise platforms
Benchmarking Work Group (BWG): Technology spend & benchmarking data analysis
The Benchmarking Work Group compiled and analyzed UW-Madison’s technology spend and organized relevant industry benchmarking data. The work group leveraged existing data while noting the limitations and relevant context of this data. The Benchmarking Work Group has set a positive example for analyzing spending and organizing technology spend data in a way that is objective, efficient and retains the appropriate level of nuance. Overall, the results of this work group establish a solid foundation for the next phases of the IT Federation program.
Staffing & salary trends
Staffing trends
- Growth in IT/Technology FTE fastest in other central campus/admin units (see categorization spreadsheets in the references folder for included departments)
- DoIT staffing was largely flat
- IT/Technology staffing growth*:
- Slower than student and employee growth (2016 to 2021)
- Faster growth from 2022 to 2025
* Cannot compare the number of IT job group FTE before and after November 2021 due to changes through Title and Total Compensation (TTC). See full report for more details.
Salary spend distribution
- Decentral schools/colleges — 32.9%
- DoIT — 29.4%
- Other central campus/admin units — 11.9%
- DoIT System-funded — 7.1%
- ATP — 5.1%
Peer comparison
- IT/Technology staff = 8.44% of UW professional FTE, HelioCampus peer average = 7.66% (see accuracy improvement suggestions in ‘BWG Recommendations’ below)
- Percentage of IT staff centralized 39.4%, peer average 49.6% (41.9% excluding outliers)
Select Non-salary spend observations
What the data suggests
- No clear efficiency concerns in transaction-level data
- Technology purchases largely routed through preferred vendors
- Workday implementation costs distort some comparisons
Data limitations
- Transactions cannot clearly separate one-time vs recurring costs
- Inconsistent account coding complicates reporting
- Some system-funded technology costs are not comparable with peers
- Software purchases do not capture no-cost or free licenses
Benchmarking
Gartner benchmarks
- Gartner benchmarks for external, cross-industry comparison
- At individual service level and not organizational level (e.g. HelioCampus, Deloitte)
- Many limitations – Data is cross-industry, no direct higher ed peer group; incomplete
- Provides directional insight, not exact comparison
Select DoIT services overview
- Service descriptions – Provided where some overlap with service proposals
- Intention is data to enable an initial current state overview, understand current barriers to adoption, and inform future funding and scalability work
- Helps identify patterns in cost, productivity and performance
Deloitte benchmarks
- High level data at the organizational level; does not align as well as HelioCampus
BWG Recommendations
Similarly, the BWG also gathered a lot of data in phase 1. As we plan for phase 2, possible next steps include:
Improving benchmarking accuracy
- Restate FY25 benchmarking data (HelioCampus) to exclude:
- DoIT System‑funded salary and expense data (if peers do not include system costs)
- ATP‑related staffing and expenses tied to the Workday implementation
Strengthening software governance
- Partner with Cybersecurity to review software purchase data for potential risk exposure
- Identify high-volume or broadly adopted software tools used across campus
- Evaluate opportunities for enterprise licensing or central support
Improving financial visibility
- Standardize expense coding guidance
- Provide central finance training for technology expense reporting
Contact us
If you have any questions, please email the project team.