• IT Organization
• IT Strategic Plan
  • Enhance Core Infrastructure
  • Innovate to support URI
  • Improve Outreach
  • Enhance Service Delivery
  • Build modern, uniform IT
• IT Governance
• ITS Priorities

Enhance Service Delivery

Enhance service delivery through a sustained program of outreach, collaboration, and management.

IT issues need to be resolved, quickly, accurately, and permanently. Our community needs to focus on their core mission while we work in the background to help them do so. Leveraging the core principles of IT service management and continuing our efforts to establish a culture of service are both vital to success for the URI strategic plan.

Goal 1

Continue the culture change necessary within ITS to become a truly service-oriented organization.

• Collaborate and gather input for planning service offerings from those we serve as well as gather feedback after service has been delivered to guide constant process improvement.
• Enhance business analyst skills within ITS to ensure better business partnerships.
• Implement, monitor, and enforce a single-step warm handoff system within ITS.
• Monitor and hold managers accountable for service level goal on-time performance.

Goal 2

Develop and implement effective communication and outreach strategies to inform and engage the university community on IT-related initiatives, services, and developments.

• Develop a system of targeted information delivery specific to those community members either using, interested, or directly affected by a particular IT service offering.
• Hire an IT communications specialist.

Goal 3

Fully implement the service delivery platform.

• Develop a comprehensive change management plan to ensure the successful adoption of new technology solutions and processes.
• Implement system integrations between the service delivery platform and other platforms to automate customer service interaction.
• Help other units define service offerings, their own service delivery targets, and request forms.
• Standardize and automate IT processes to increase efficiency and reduce manual intervention.

Goal 4

Implement proactive monitoring and maintenance procedures to identify and address IT issues before they become critical problems that impact the university’s operations.

• Fully implement a server monitoring tool (Solarwinds, Zabbix, etc.) to monitor all URI-owned system services remaining on-premise.
• Implement automated availability testing and load testing of all major systems and software.

Goal 5

Improve the efficiency and effectiveness of IT service delivery by finding the right balance between centralized and decentralized IT functions.

• Conduct a global TCO and value assessment of local vs central vs outsourced solutions for common issues across units of URI.
• Build a comprehensive resource model to support service delivery on a centralized basis, empowering distributed IT to engage in activities that are unique to their unit.
• Establish standard consultation processes and documentation of requests. Couple this with an outreach program at the college/department level with a local executive sponsor.

Goal 6

Proactively collaborate with other departments across the university to identify opportunities for IT to support their goals and contribute to their success.

• Engage in a series of meetings with deans/department heads to identify their IT pain points and propose solutions.
• Provide a single point of contact to coordinate larger service responses that span multiple departments within ITS or that require coordination between ITS and distributed IT staff.
• Review all other unit action plans to identify key IT elements and build a comprehensive list of all URI IT plans.