01/06/2009

11 am, N42-286, CSS Managers 

Agenda

  • HD Guy PSA password sharing short film - yea/nay (othomas/goguen)
    • the general idea of doing short videos

Roundtable

  • Anne -- working on project costs project, due tomorrow.  Q2 financial reporting coming up.  Financial team working on cost savings analyses. Managers should check statements in SAP.
    • wilson followup: MITBI is being prepped for a demo around the now hugely manual financial process IS&T uses. 
  • Kate -- implementing changes in training in response to community suggestions.  For instance, they like the online demos, short and pithy.
  • Jeff -- some evidence of community clients reconsidering their use of DCAD in response to MIT budget tightening.  Some apparently trying to not pay for work completed.
    • wilson followup: it would be best to start phased billing, 1/3 upfront, 1/3 midstream, 1/3 at the end.
  • Chris -- trying to hire for two open SLA spots.  Wilson: prepare a short thing on the revenue impact of not hiring.
    Initial batch of Dell-tagged machines will start arriving next week or so. 
    HR Payroll kiosks said to be supported by DITR -- news to Chris.  Rolled out in summer 2006 -- trying to track them down.  Are they being used?  There may be some Facilities staff and others without ready access to computers during the day who do use them.  
  • Oliver -- Hermes demo session on the 14th for itpartners and others in 32-144.
    Athena 10 -- what does Linux support mean to the range of services Athena runs -- printing, etc.
    Wilson: it's not clear to people what "linux support" means, and we have to worry about what it costs.  Continue to include cost considerations in the planning for support of things. 
    Account deactivations will start occurring this week.  There's a new accounts policy that hasn't been mentioned before at css-managers.  Does it include really shutting down folks who have been let go for performance reasons.
    Hardware Recommendations group got a request for NetBooks recommendation as a cheap alternative to laptops.  A cheap way to get a linux machine.  Some academic software just wouldn't run on these things.
  •  Jon -- Sharon Grant auto-response mail issue has been fixed.
    Vista SP2 testing is starting.  FM10 has been released to the public; big interface changes in the application. 
    Do we need to write down all the changes, gotchas, etc, as part of an IS&T release process?   "Do we do a release for this, what's the value..." 
    Wilson: it is necessary for all products to do this, not just Filemaker.   Before we start the work, for any release like that, we need a project plan with resource estimates, etc.  For some products we need to be ahead of the game, but for others we can lag to see if the market ever starts to catch up to the new version.  Just because a vendor releases it, we don't have to jump. 
    Barb: in twenty years, there still is no process defined for deciding whether something is Supported just because a vendor releases it.
    Wilson: let's make FM 10 an agenda item to prove the process.  Next week. 
  • Mark -- exchange doc for calendaring is under development.  HR pages are being done and going live soon.
    Drupal is being geared up for.  Mark Damian of SAIS and Pubs are getting together to establish a working relationship.
  • Mary -- Accessibility reviews are up 41% over last year; almost 20 are not from DCAD referrals.  Student projects requesting reviews accounts for 14 of them 20.  ATIC open house coming up.
  • Barb -- Josef Doczi is back in-country; Mike Agoucha is interviewing around MIT for a full-time slot.
    barb likes to be saluted when she asks people to do things.  Our printer repair guy has a broken arm and won't be able to do that work easily.  Barb and Jana trying to get telephone help and help desk working more closely.
    Sloan has a new HD manager -- Jean Real -- likely to sign on to our ACD, to use Hermes, etc., a movement towards using the same tools seems to be happening.
  • Tim -- Tom Jagatic is out seriously sick; not online.  DMCA says their not going to pursue lawsuits with our students anymore; we'll see.   
    For people interacting with folks who are having security issues, please write to security@mit.edu and not to individuals as there aren't very many people involved.  It gets logged and not lost.
    Three IAP sessions on how to handle sensitive data, especially in the new Mass Law regulatory environment.
    ChemE department has had serious security issues in the big IT shop they run and don't run very well.  Thinking of pitching a security risk assessment program to them as a pilot.  Steve Winig is the RM twixt them and us.  Planning to do a longer-term effort around risk assessment, especially for repeat offenders.
  • Wilson -- Project cost calculations may be surprising. 
    Products and Services list will be sent out; please evaluate the list -- what does it mean to say "we provide the service" -- we need to know the cost basis of service provision.
    - Low-hanging cost savings list may prompt some tough conversations across IS&T.
    - If a service is "just me and a server" in the eyes of the service provider, it isn't really so simple.  Things that people never factored in to their costs will become targets for considering alternatives. 
    - the impact on Donors of their market losses are starting to manifest in future promises of donations. 
    - we should not be caught unprepared -- have a plan for layoffs, say, or sharp revenue reductions. 

- it's impossible to look at cost reductions if we don't know what the unit cost is for a service. 
What does it cost, say, per HD call, regardless of whether we charge anyone.  What does it cost to send Tom Jagatic to handle a security case. 

- performance appraisals coming in March.  in a couple of weeks time, wants to start looking at what do the letters really mean.  For candidates for promotion, need to see their last two performance appraisals and get a sense of their growth.  We need to have common and consistent expectations.

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