University of Wisconsin–Madison

Information Technology Governance

Engaging faculty, staff and students in decisions that affect them is an important part of how UW–‍Madison works.

Our university has a structure and process to address IT decision-making — setting priorities, determining policy, setting and spending the budget, and evaluating effectiveness. IT Governance ensures that the people who pay for and benefit from IT services have a role in making decisions.

Information Technology Committee

The Information Technology Committee (ITC) is the faculty advisory body for IT policy and planning at the university. It is composed of faculty, academic staff and students.

Policies

The Policy Planning and Analysis Team is a subcommittee of the Information Technology Committee, assisting in the development, review and revision of IT policies.

IT policies under development or revision

Priorities

Over 200 significant IT projects are in progress at any given time. The IT Governance Initiative’s priorities are based on overall university priorities, audience, scope, impact and other factors.

Process

IT Governance evaluates a variety of work, including project intake, services, policies and reports. The appropriate stakeholders gather information, consider alternatives and make recommendations to executives.

Information Technology policies
Services

Projects

The IT project portfolio web page lists current high-impact projects and initiatives centered in both the Division of Information Technology and distributed university IT departments.

IT project portfolio

Core principles

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Current state

Fragmented governance, decision-making, and management. Works against a cohesive IT strategy, prioritization of investments, identifying opportunities for improvements, cost savings and more.

Future state

  • More effective decision-making processes through teamwork
  • Decisions focused on core IT infrastructure, strategic IT projects, initiatives, services
  • Better support for the core missions of teaching, learning, research
  • Effective and efficient support for the operations and management of divisions.

Current state

Fragmented governance, decision-making, and management. Works against a cohesive IT strategy, prioritization of investments, identifying opportunities for improvements, cost savings and more.

Future state

IT decisions, priorities and investments will be grounded in an integrative, holistic view of all IT services and their delivery across campus.

Who’s involved in the process?

The process will be characterized by broad representation and engagement of all stakeholders in IT investments and strategic decisions.

  • Advisory Groups
    • Representation and advocacy of technology needs of faculty, students, staff in colleges, schools, administrative units (“voice of the customer”)
  • Faculty
    • ITC, University Committee (UC): Commitment to shared governance. Continuous engagement of the UC.
    • Strong representation of faculty (more on faculty below)
  • Central and divisional campus leadership
    • Central leadership: Broad executive oversight from the Chancellor, Provost, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, deans
    • Divisional leadership: Divisional officials participate in the advisory groups
  • Central and divisional IT leadership
    • Divisional CIOs/IT leaders
    • Central IT leaders: CIO, Deputy CIO, others

The governance process will entail close coordination and communication between ITSC, ITC, Technology Advisory Groups and IT service providers.

Decision-making & assessment processes

  • Initiation
    • Initiatives, projects, proposed decisions and policies may be initiated by any committee, advisory group or service-provider group
  • Analysis
    • Iterative evaluation and analysis involving the stakeholders
  • Decision-making
    • Strategic decisions
    • Tactical decisions
  • Approval
    • Decisions with policy and strategic implications will be discussed and approved by the ITC, then sent to the UC and Faculty Senate

The number of faculty has been increased significantly. Faculty have significant experience in governance. The Teaching & Learning Advisory Group and the Research Technology Advisory Group comprise mostly faculty.

New business model/culture

  • Service-centric focus
    • Focusing on the value that IT services provide and that allow close alignment with the university mission and objectives
    • Goal: Increase value
    • A shift in thinking: Away from managing applications and technologies and toward managing services, increasing value

Bottom-up strategic planning process

  • Each group/area will develop its strategy and priorities
  • These will be incorporated in an overall and cohesive strategy

Strategic initiatives to achieve goals

  • Service catalog
    • Opportunities for efficiencies, consolidation, economies of scale (cost savings)
    • Evaluate services: centrally delivered, locally (distributed)
    • Focus on value
  • Cloud infrastructure group
    • Progress toward a service-centric focus requires the development of a cloud services strategy
    • Cloud services and technologies offer opportunities for value-adding features such as scalability, flexibility, reliability, and uptime that are hard to provide on premises
    • Work with IT service providers and with users and business leaders to evaluate cloud-based solutions, design and implement a cloud-based strategy