03/24/2009

11 am, N42-286, CSS Managers 

Agenda

Preamble from Wilson: Deb is presenting to IT-SPARCC tomorrow; end-of-April has been decided as the drop-dead date for having a costed plan and strategy for Email project.  DLCs need to know.  Develop a metric to have on hand: unit cost per mailbox.  

• PGP Roll Out and Final Steps (Patrick McNeal)
  • child of HIPD project from summer 2008.  Installer, internal support expertise, etc.  Release team finished in March, release team feels it is done.  But there are issues that continue apart from or beyond the release.
    • No one group has "taken ownership" of PGP going forward. 
      model a: task force group owns the problem soup to nuts until steady state; 2 to 3 engineers do it all.  The team acquired the skills themselves and did it all.
      model b:  chunks of functions are matrixed out and corralling a piece of each function for a product is a major project, with uncertain outcome.
      issue for us: how to change from a product oriented IS&T to a service-oriented IS&T will be a challenge for us.
      Tim's take: HIPD / PII is actually a service of ITSS, and PGP is a component of the portfolio.  But it takes some convincing for some around IS&T. 
      chris' take: some machines that need PGP are not under SLAs, but we will just take care of it; track the number of machines done "not under SLA" and we sort it out internally.  To send an SLA-oriented staff person out to do these non-SLA machines "will put additional pressure on the SLA position."
      outcome: Patrick and Tim will meet and work it out.

• • • The operational component of "recovery" is a number one support problem for us.  Tim will be moving on it.
    • we're committed to make all this happen by January 1 for compliance with Mass Law.
• Iriina will meet with Barbara and Jana for VoIP transition, in the wake of Elliott's announcement.  who will be her backup over the summer?  [Mark ...]
• Assignment of items around cost-savings.  Chris, Jon and Barbara will be the CSS core team for handling cost-savings matters, like assessments.    CSIRs job is to spawn projects done by good people who get back to the team.  
  Task force ideas is at the million dollars and up level; less than that is "just do it", like Athena printing. 
• Roundtable: 
  • IE8 is coming with a wait recommendation.  Wilson: what else are we desupporting to take in IE8?  Jon's response: IE 6.
  • Training Alignment Team working on a Train the Trainer program, looking for a body in IS&T to use as a cavie subject.  Distributed authoring within the IS&T web site, an idea of Wilson's.  Eight three-hour classes, once a month, to train people who don't train professionally in how to train.
  • Swept credit charges are down from 19K to 2K -- good job. 
    Be sure to certify salaries.
• Performance Appraisals  
  • We will be doing them.  View it as an opportunity to help the individual with sincere recommendations for improvement.
  • No one should be "surprised".
  • Have goals for yourself and your staff, to map into the goals for CSS.  3 to 5 high level goals.  Ratings should be really honest. 
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