Author: Patrick Chinn

The project manager and project team are working closely with stakeholders to determine a schedule for transitioning support into the User Support Services structure that was announced in January. (See USS Organizational Chart Draft Now Available.)

Factors under consideration include academic schedules, unit-specific projects, commencement, and the Duo two-step login project, among others.

The schedule, once drafted, will be posted on this site.

Once a schedule is developed, the project team will communicate details to each transitioning unit in writing, email, and meetings.

On Monday, January 27, the current version of the User Support Services organizational chart was presented to and discussed with university IT staff through a series of meetings with Jessie Minton, chief information officer.

For details of the organizational chart, service level strategy, liaison program and more, see the Project Documents page on this website.

User Support Services is actively working to hire the Associate Director of Enterprise Device Management (EDM) through an internal-only search.

Gary Sullivan, Director of User Services, is leading the search.

This position itself and most the Enterprise Device Management team are new roles. However, Transform IT is net neutral in terms of staff budget. We will accomplish this by staffing these new EDM positions by hiring from existing ranks of UO IT staff.

Note that a large majority of jobs in Transform IT’s User Support Services are not new. These jobs will be filled through reassignments of existing IT staff.

The Transform IT Steering Committee reviewed the organizational chart, SLA proposal, and details of the liaison program on Friday, December 13. Rather than posting the org chart in draft form, the committee recommended we provide time for Jessie Minton, chief information officer, time to review the chart with deans and other campus leaders.

Over the next five weeks, Jessie will meet one-on-one and with groups such as the Senior Leadership Team, Academic Leadership Team, deans, and the managers of IT directors to gather input on the organizational design in preparation for the first pilot transitions in early 2020.

The town hall on Transform IT has been rescheduled to Jan. 28 (10:30am to noon, Knight Library Browsing Room) to allow time for these conversations. Previously, it was scheduled for Jan. 9.

The first staffing transitions in Transform IT, the university’s information technology restructuring process, will take place in early 2020.

Most IT staff who provide technical support to the School of Journalism and Communication and the College of Design will be integrated into user support services, a new team in Information Services, starting in January or February.

“We are looking forward to having the College of Design and the School of Journalism and Communication join user support services,” said Jessie Minton, vice provost for information services and chief information officer. “We have over 70 UO employees who’ve been working hard since mid-July to develop implementation plans as part of the project execution. We’ve been incorporating ongoing campus feedback into those plans, and I’m incredibly pleased to have the first changes in sight early next year. I’m very proud of the collaborative, thoughtful work contributed by the UO IT community throughout this process.”

Read more at Around the O: First two Transform IT transitions planned for early 2020

The User Support Services organizational chart will be reviewed by the Transform IT Steering Committee on Friday, December 13. We expect to share the chart with the campus IT professionals via email on Monday, December 16, followed by a posting on this website.

The organizational chart will show reporting lines, general area coverage, and which positions will be filled through searches (internal to UO or external).

The User Support Services Implementation project is planning how groups will transition into the new User Support Services (USS) structure, and to exercise these plans, the School of Journalism and Communication and College of Design will move into the new USS structure beginning in January or February, 2020. The transition is a pilot that is expected to last 60 days. After SOJC and Design have moved, work will pause briefly. Staff will gather lessons learned and upgrade transition planning and checklists based on that information so that future transitions are more efficient.

These plans have been incorporated into the milestone timeline on the Transform IT website.