The graphic below summarizes the technical and organizational infrastructure associated with the transformation from baseline technology infrastructure support to support for the kind of innovations enabled by collaborative, blended, adaptive planning and cultural models focused on improving institutional performance.

If modest adjustments to current IT practices and the relationship of the IT organization to other units have proven futile, then more systemic changes to the current IT staff and organization, its per-student-FTE funding, and/or its practices should be pursued.  According to a recent study by the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research:

“As needs arise, institutions should consider the broadest range of sourcing options, including collaboration with other institutions, ERP or other software, outsourcing, and open source technologies.  Both one-time and ongoing support costs and benefits should be considered.”

“IT organizations will not be able to achieve more stable, flexible funding by seeking additional budget dollars alone, and flexibility and agility will not come entirely from cost cuts.  The CIO must lead efforts to rethink personnel strategies, sourcing strategies, process improvements, and project prioritization in order to ensure that the climate encourages IT innovation and provides maximum IT value to the institution.” [15]

A high-performance IT organization is necessary but not sufficient for improving institutional performance.  Executive and faculty leaders outside the IT organization must lead the non-technical effort to develop an analytics infrastructure and then an innovation infrastructure and culture that can identify and embrace initiative after initiative aimed at improving institutional performance over the long term. 

Leadership barriers are usually more cultural than tactical.  The prevailing shared-governance culture of higher education can easily collide with the culture of evidence required to identify, track, and report performance obligations, especially as they relate to the outcomes and expenses of instruction and other academic services.  Agreeing internally on mission-appropriate formulations of institutional performance standards and metrics can be difficult in the presence of the following weaknesses:

• Faculty and executive leadership not collaboratively aligned to meet performance obligations
• Limited experience with or resistance to the service redesign strategies that can improve academic and service performance—including IT service performance—while reducing unit costs
• Strategic plan or a planning methodology that lacks institutional performance indicators and goals to guide daily work, track progress, and revise goals/indicators based on evidence or changing priorities
• Exclusion of the CIO from the cabinet
• Dysfunctional relationships within a cabinet that includes the CIO

Creative leadership is required to correct any such institutional weaknesses and lead the process to establish a culture of innovation.