IT Federation: Laying the foundation for phase 2
At its core, IT Federation is about technology service coordination: how the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) and divisional IT work together on shared priorities, decisions and technology spend. All of this rests on strong foundations: our people, our partnerships and our service operations.
Read on to learn more about phase 2 plans, what’s decided and what’s still to be shaped, how we’ll gauge success and more.
Phase 1 recap
Need a recap on phase 1? Check out the following for more details:
An overview of phase 2
Phase 2 is organized into workstreams and will run from September 2026 to June 2027. During this phase, IT staff will:
- Create an initial federated operating model for technology services
- Test it with service areas
- Refine it based on what they learn
Get involved in phase 2
Many of the decisions that will influence how we work together have not been made yet. Now is the time to get involved and help shape them. We want IT professionals at all levels to participate in workshops, interviews, pilots and workstreams.
What’s settled & what’s still being shaped
What has been decided:
- The status quo will not serve us into the future.
- We will use a federated operating model to better coordinate university-wide technology services and technology spend.
- We will use an iterative and inclusive approach to create the new operating model.
- The first few services that will get a deeper dive during phase 2 include endpoint management, IT service management (ITSM), storage, data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), software and collaboration tools.
What has not been decided:
- How we define an enterprise service, how we describe local services and how services may change
- The shared standards and practices we all agree to follow in the new operating model
- How we will make university-wide technology spend and service governance decisions
- What a broader rollout of the new operating model looks like beyond phase 2
How your feedback shaped phase 2
We learned a lot in phase 1. We reviewed feedback from all levels of the IT community and used that to shape our next steps.
- What we heard: More people want to be involved in phase 2. IT directors want opportunities for their staff to shape what’s next.
- What’s changing: We’re opening up participation to IT staff at every level. Through broad outreach for discovery efforts and a simple interest form, anyone across campus can raise their hand to help shape phase 2.
- What we heard: There’s a desire for more discussion during meetings. With so much new information coming out, there’s a real risk of people feeling overwhelmed or left out of the loop.
- What’s changing: We’re launching regular office hours, beginning September 28. Anyone is welcome to attend. We’ll continue sending our newsletter and publishing news articles on the web page. And a new Engagement and Communications Advisory Group will help advise on our near- and long-term communications strategy.
- What we heard: Some wording felt DoIT-centric, and “federation” can mean many things to different people.
- What’s changing: We’ve clarified that any unit can provide enterprise services, and we reworked program language to represent the entire university. We’re also creating a shared glossary in phase 2 so everyone is on the same page.
- What we heard: Pacing was too fast at times and too slow other times (and varied by person).
- What’s changing: When structuring phase 2, we built in time for more steady and predictable pacing, and for early review and feedback of draft phase 2 plans.
- What we heard: It’s hard to tell what is already decided and what is still open; some people assumed a plan was set.
- What’s changing: We’re aiming to better organize decisions and communicate decision status more clearly. We’re also building clear decision-making handoffs and tracking into phase 2.
Phase 2 workstreams
Phase 2 is organized into workstreams. These workstreams need to be chartered and refined with the Steering Committee. (We share more about the Steering Committee below.)
Two workstreams — Operating Model Design and Discovery & Recommendations — will run through the fall and produce an initial model and the evidence to test it against. Operating Model Mobilization will begin in the spring and put the model to use.
Technology Spend Stewardship follows the discovery path applied to university-wide spend. And Engagement and Communications will run throughout phase 2.
Roadmap at a glance
The workstreams are intended to help answer these core questions:
- Discovery and Recommendations (Oct. to June): What is the current state of priority services, and what changes should be considered?
- Technology Spend Analysis and Stewardship (Oct. to March): How can the university improve stewardship of technology spend?
- Operating Model Design (Oct. to Feb.): How should the IT operating model guide decision-making, accountability and service delivery?
- Operating Model Mobilization (Jan. to June): How can the operating model be tested and put into practice?
- Engagement and Communications (Sept. to June): How will people stay informed, provide input and participate?
- Related efforts: How should related efforts (e.g., Smart Access) be represented without creating confusion about ownership?
The Steering Committee will meet monthly from September 2026 through June 2027 to review workgroup questions and recommendations.
How the workstreams fit together
Fall: Design & discovery
Operating Model Design drafts the model’s building blocks. Discovery establishes the current state of the initial service areas and the decisions that need to be made. Neither waits for the other, and feedback runs both ways. The fall output is a draft set of operating model building blocks and evidence-informed paths forward for services.
Spring: Decide & mobilize
Discovery findings, along with technology spend findings, inform decisions that test and improve the operating model. Phase 2 ends with three things: documented decisions and next steps for the initial service areas; recommendations to be better stewards of university-wide technology spend; and a model that has been used, refined and can now be applied to more services.
The Steering Committee
This new group is composed of technology leaders from divisional IT and DoIT; together, members will serve as a sounding board. The committee will advise on the direction, structure and approach of phase 2 activities and help resolve risks or dependencies that cut across workstreams. The accountable owner will make final decisions unless a decision is explicitly delegated to the committee.
The committee will:
- Review work early on while details are being shaped
- Bring perspectives from their parts of the university into the program
- Raise risks and concerns early
- Help others understand the purpose of phase 2 and the opportunities to take part
- Guide how we draft workstream charters and select workgroup members
What does success look like?
At the end of phase 2, we’ll know we’re successful if we did the following:
- We made decisions. We made and documented specific decisions, including those related to storage, endpoint management, AI, ITSM and data centers.
- We made recommendations to improve technology spend stewardship. We understand how to improve stewardship of things such as software and hardware across the university.
- We created and used repeatable processes to make decisions. Through our work, we clarify and co-create practices around decision rights, standards and collaboration.
- The people who will live it, made it. People from different parts of the university, with different roles and backgrounds, did the work. There are many opportunities for broad engagement and input.
- We know what worked and what didn’t. We can name which parts of the operating model did not work in real situations, and what we can change as a result.
- We are using the same words. Everyone involved describes services and processes consistently. We can make better, more coordinated decisions.
- We can expand the operating model. We can continue applying the operating model to more services and continue to refine our practices.
Deep dive into phase 2 workstreams
Want to dive deeper into specific workstream plans and anticipated outputs? Read our companion article.
