OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
“ For two years we enacted some intensive training , and we established Get Stuff Done Teams – highly agile eams put in place to scale our skills while increasing capacity to get to a point where we could deliver digital transformation .
“ With 17 diverse GSD teams working on different priorities , we ’ ve seen true foundational change , with upgrades and total redesign to lay the groundwork for what we ’ re building on right now .
“ Every one of our GSD teams had representation from not only the enterprise IT functions that directly report to me , but all of our distributed IT personnel , and with effective communication we were able to push things through and get the funding needed to make transformative change .
“ Within that I created many paths , such as Strategic Mentoring for Managers , which encompassed 12 months of one-on-one classes where I helped train individuals on what it is to be a leader IT and helped them to identify their own needs .
“ Now , we have leaders in IT who have asked themselves : ‘ Do I still want to be a team lead ? Do I still want to be a manager or a director ?’ IT leaders become leaders because they ’ re great at using the latest technology , and now we have scaled our staff skills to deliver great leaders .”
“ The additional work we ’ ve done in IT has helped us grow our own identity . IT now has a presence in every system at OSU .
“ This has helped OSU not only stand up as a STEM institution but helped take us further by integrating all departments through IT , so we can scale and level up effectively as one .”
“ IT REALLY IS NOW OR NEVER . WE ’ VE PUT ALL THE PROCESSES IN PLACE AND NOW IT ’ S TIME FOR US TO ACT ”
ANDREA BALLINGER VICE PROVOST & CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER , OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
Continuing the path to digital enablement today Ballinger has established a clear vision , unified OSU ’ s IT Teams and increased capacity to upskill her teams ’ technological abilities , the next step ( phase four ) – for now , and the future – is igniting transformative change with urgency and imagination across the organisation .
Ballinger and her teams are well on their way to enabling a digital future at OSU .
“ We ’ re close to finalising what we initially set out to accomplish ,” she says . “ First , it was to streamline and simplify our IT approach – removing duplicate processes from within the organisation , which we ’ re close to completing .
“ Second was freeing data , which included creating a new data platform and ecosystem to deliver data as a strategic asset . Securely and based on role .
“ When I joined the organisation , we had no confidence in our identity platform , but now we have that in a zero-trust strategy .
“ Third , create agility in the institution by redesigning business processes , using technology to resolve points of friction and solve specific problems .”
190 April 2024