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WHO NEEDS A HELP DESK, ANYWAY?(A Short Progress Report)
Duncan Sutherland
Technology Director and CTO
Vermont Law School
March 13, 2013
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Vermont Law School…
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VLS Mission Statement:
“To educate students in a diverse community that fosters
personal growth and that enables them to attain
outstanding professional skills and high ethical values with
which to serve as lawyers and environmental and other
professionals in an increasingly technological and
interdependent global society *emphasis added+.”
Vermont Law School…
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Vermont Law School…
• A bit about us: Private, independent law school
Located in South Royalton, VT (“SORO”)
Established in 1972; first class in 1973—113
students
Currently 512 students 64 faculty, and 110 staff
ABA (1978), NEASC (1980), AALS (1981)
JD, LLM, MELP, MERL and more coming
On-campus and DL (currently non-JD degrees)
#1 environmental law school (5 years running)
And…
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Vermont Law School…
Like virtually all law schools, confronting the
radical changes taking place in legal education
and in the market for lawyers!
Thus, under significant pressure to do more
with less!
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And then there was Irene…
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And then there was Irene…
• Tropical Storm Irene (August 28, 2011)• New Technology Director (September 13,
2011)
• “Dancing with Irene”
An opportunity to rebuild our technologyinfrastructure
An opportunity to rethink how we plan,
implement, and support technology post-Irene
• And so,
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•Pre-Irene we had an IT department of about a dozen
folks, 8-10 of whom were performing some level of
Help Desk functions at any given time
• Very long-in-the-tooth technology infrastructure
• Totally unmanaged end-user environment
• Many under-skilled students, faculty and staff • Historical culture of “How do I make it green…?”
• A Help Desk staff that liked to help
• A world suddenly turned upside down
• Frustrated customers, frustrated IT department
Confronting the challenges…
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• New conceptual underpinning for ‘IT’ • New organizational architecture
• New mission(s)
A fresh start…
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New conceptual underpinning for ‘IT’…
• Organizational Learning theory
The detection and correction of error.
—Argyris and Schön (1978)
The way firms build, supplement, and organize
knowledge and routines around their activities
and within their cultures and adapt and develop
organizational efficiency by improving the use of the broad skills of their workforces.
—Dodgson (1993)
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New conceptual underpinnings for ‘IT’…
• But, what kind of an ‘IT’ organization would bothencapsulate and enable both Argyris’ and
Schön’s and Dodgson’s definitions of
organizational learning?
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New organizational architecture…
Language shapes how we think about the world.
—Benjamin Whorf
• The name of the department was changed
from ‘Information Technology’ to simply
‘Technology’
The word ‘technology’ refers to the making, modification,
usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques,
crafts, systems, and methods of organization, in order to
solve a problem, improve a preexisting solution to a
problem, achieve a goal, handle an applied input/output
relation or perform a specific function [emphasis added].
—Wikipedia
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New organizational architecture…
• The term ‘Help Desk’ was banned! A help desk is a resource intended to provide the customer or
end user with information and support related to a company's
or institution's products and services. The purpose of a help
desk is usually to troubleshoot problems or provide guidance
about products such as computers, electronic equipment,
food, apparel, or software [emphasis added].
—Wikipedia
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New organizational architecture…
• Shift the organization’s focus from ‘computers’to ‘technology’
• Shift the organization’s focus from technology-
as-thing (i.e., computers) to technology viewed
as tools situated in use (i.e., tools inextricablyinterwoven with business processes and
organizational culture)
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New organizational architecture…
• Department reorganized into two groups: – Technology Operations
– Technology Competency
Competence (or competency) is the ability of an individual to
do a job properly.—Wikipedia
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New organizational architecture…
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New organizational architecture…
So, where’s the Help Desk?
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New organizational architecture…
Here… …and here!
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New mission(s)…
• Technology department Provide the technology required to become a learning
organization
• Technology Operations Build and manage great tools
• Technology Competency Technology Business Partner’ model, ‘business unit’ focus
Ensure that the organization is competent in the use of the
tools required to do their job properly
‘Organizational lead’ with respect to business process
reengineering (both technology-enabled and non-technology-enabled)
Collaborate with HR on training and technology-related
professional development
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New mission(s)…
• Every ‘problem’ reported (or discovered) is alearning opportunity!
• Mantra: Drive ‘Help Desk’ calls to zero!
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Progress report…
• Critical ‘enablers’ (all post-Irene): Standardized on Windows 7 and Office 12 (migrating to
Server 2012 and SharePoint 2013 currently; migrating to
Windows 8 and Office 13 in FY14)
Totally managed environment
Technology ‘Fit Test’ (fully leverage NERCOMP!)
• Overall, the new model appears to be
working ‘Help Desk’ calls have dropped dramatically
We remain, however, in a transitional period
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Progress report…
•Challenges Dealing with break-fix issues
Change management
Staff changes (both replacement and re-skilling)
Hiring
Budget
Culture change (students, faculty and staff)
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Progress report…
•Will we ultimately ‘succeed’? It depends on how we define ‘succeed’
There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of
success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a
new system. The innovator has the enmity of all who profit by
the preservation of the old system and only lukewarm
defenders by those who would gain by the new system.
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1515
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