IT Federation Program

It’s natural to wonder this, since great collaboration already happens across our IT community. In listening sessions and other discussions, people have shared many examples of successful partnerships: shared problem-solving, peer networks and pilots that worked well because people were involved early and trusted the process.

We’ve also heard that these experiences are often inconsistent. They tend to depend on who you know, are hard to discover if you’re not already connected, and are limited to specific groups or initiatives.

IT Federation isn’t about replacing what’s already working. It’s about learning from these examples and making effective collaboration more intentional, more visible, and more consistently available across the institution, so good outcomes don’t depend on already knowing the right person or being part of the right group.

IT Federation is a university initiative, sponsored by Provost John Zumbrunnen and Vice Provost for Finance and Administration Rob Cramer. IT Federation is part of the university’s broader Operational Excellence effort and is being shaped by voices from across the university. Gathering input from diverse groups across campus isn’t just a checkbox — it’s a core value of how we work. DoIT and school/college/divisional IT staff were involved in phase 1. In phase 2, we will continue to sustain and increase our methods of ensuring broad representation.

Higher education is facing increasing financial pressure, growing cybersecurity and compliance requirements, and rapid technological change, including advances in artificial intelligence. We want to proactively and collaboratively address these changes and rising pressures. Universities that do not take a proactive stance are at risk of being forced into suboptimal choices under less favorable conditions. 

By pursuing federation on our terms, we can make thoughtful and intentional choices that align with university and IT strategic priorities. We have an opportunity to learn about what’s working well and what needs improving, and to then explore possible solutions together. This program gives us a chance to consider how we can work in more intentional and coordinated ways to address the challenges we’re facing.

We are early in this process and many decisions still need to be made. We have a charge from our executive sponsors to work together to enhance the technology experiences of faculty, staff and students; improve stewardship of our technology investments; and strengthen security and compliance in a more coordinated and intentional way. How we decide to do that will be shaped and continuously improved by broad collaboration across the university. There will be opportunities for you to participate in shaping the path forward.

While being good stewards of the university’s resources is important, this program isn’t a budget-cutting exercise. There are many drivers, including financial stewardship, service quality, risk reduction and research competitiveness. Higher education is facing growing external pressures — from rising cybersecurity threats and compliance demands, to the rapid rise of AI. IT Federation is about adapting to these changes proactively, on our own terms today, instead of reactively.

No, a federated operating model is a hybrid with a blend of service types. In an organization as diverse and complex as UW-Madison, there will be no “one size fits all” IT solution. Our focus is on coordination: how we work together, make decisions, manage services and more. 

Enterprise services are services offered to all schools, colleges and divisions (SCDs) within the institution. While DoIT does provide most enterprise services, they don’t provide all of them. 

There is still a lot to be decided related to enterprise services. As we work together to shape our federated model, we want to give room for the IT community to explore possibilities and options.This program is helping identify many nuances in our current operating structure, including service ownership, coordination and delivery. 

Some schools, colleges and divisions (SCDs) are undergoing restructuring of their technology services and staff. These efforts were initiated by their respective SCDs and several predate IT Federation. While the IT Federation Program is not leading these efforts, they will shape how our operating model evolves. Through IT Federation, we want to focus on building the framework that allows our diverse environments — regardless of how they are structured internally — to collaborate seamlessly.

It makes sense that at first glance, you’d want to pause your work to see how IT Federation evolves. But we don’t want this program to stifle or block innovation. Instead, it aims to enable and improve it. Keep moving forward; we want to build a framework that supports your momentum, not stalls it. And please reach out to us and share how you are innovating or improving services. We would love to learn from your successes and add to our list of examples of innovation in action. We are happy to work together to coordinate timelines and roadmaps as needed.

If you want to hear about program progress on a regular basis, we share ongoing project updates in news articles and our monthly newsletter. To stay informed about IT Federation, we encourage you to:

• Visit our web page to browse past articles
• Subscribe to our newsletter for monthly emails

The IT Federation Program is also committed to regular engagement with various governance and stakeholder groups. To submit a scheduling request, please email the program team.