iTech Guiding Principles

Technology should act as a catalyst for innovatively leveraging technology to advance and accelerate the quality of teaching, services, research, and economic development at the University of Southern Mississippiwhile providing superior customer service.

• We all must focus on three dimensions of technology application for success. Simply put, success means completing all our deliverables on time, within budget, and with a level of resources that is acceptable to our stakeholders and to our department. We must always keep our crew members’ attention focused on achieving our goals.
• Planning is everything – and it is ongoing. On one thing all strategy and operations texts and authorities agree: The single most important activity that we can do as managers is to engage in solid planning. Detailed, systematic, team-involved plans are the only foundation for our success. When real-world events conspire to change the plan, we must collectively take time to reflect on these changes. Planning and re-planning must be a way of life for every crew member.
• We all must feel, and transmit to our crew members, a sense of urgency. Because our daily efforts are finite endeavors with limited time, money, and other resources available, our crew members need to be kept moving toward completion. Since every crew member has lots of other priorities, it is up to everyone to keep their attention on deliverables and deadlines. Regular status checks, meetings, and reminders are essential.
• Successful IT departments use time-tested, proven life cycle processes. We must know what works. Models such as the standard ISD model and others described in various texts, and lessons learned through experience, can help ensure that superior standards and best practices are built into our processes. Not only do these models support quality, they help to minimize rework. When time or budget pressures seem to encourage taking short cuts, it is up to each of us to identify and defend the best life cycle processes for the job at hand.
• All deliverables and all activities must be visualized and communicated in vivid detail. In short, strategy, content, marketing, the project manager, and the iTech team must early on create a tangible picture of the finished deliverables in the minds of everyone involved, so that all effort is focused in the same direction. Vague descriptions are to be avoided at all costs. Spell it out, prototype it, and make sure everyone agrees to it.
• Deliverables must evolve gradually, in successive phases. It simply costs too much and risks too much time spent in rework to jump in with both feet and begin building all our deliverables. We must build a little at a time, obtain incremental reviews and approvals, and maintain a controlled evolution.
• Planning requires approval and sign-off by all stakeholders. Clear approval points, accompanied by formal sign-off by stakeholders and other team members, should be demarcation points in the evolution of deliverables. It is this simple: anyone who has the power to reject or to demand revision of deliverables after they are complete must be required to examine and approve them as they are being produced. Our directors facilitate this process to improve the quality of our deliverables and to ensure the compliance of all players.
• Success is correlated with thorough analyses of the need for our services. Research has shown that when results in deliverables are designed to meet thoroughly documented requirements, then there is a greater likelihood of success. Therefore, iTech directors and should insist that a business need for each component of IT processes is documented before we agree to consume organizational resources completing it.
• We all must fight for time to do things correctly. In our work with crew members, we often hear this complaint: “We always seem to have time to do the project over; I just wish we had taken the time to do it correctly in the first place!” We must have available enough time to “do it right the first time.” Every crewmember must fight for this time by demonstrating to everyone why it is necessary and how time spent will result in quality deliverables.
• Equivalent authority must match responsibility. It is not enough to be held responsible for our outcomes; we must ask for and obtain enough authority to execute our responsibilities. Specifically, iTech directors must have the authority to acquire and coordinate resources, to request and receive cooperation, and to make appropriate, binding decisions which have an impact on the success of university technology requirements. However, with this authority must come accountability.
• Each iTech crew member must be an active participant, not a passive employee. Each crew member at Southern Miss must rightfully demand to participate in all technology issues, either wholly or in part. Along with this responsibility to be an active participant in the early stages of our clients’ requirements (helping to define and redefine deliverables), we also have the responsibilities to complete reviews of interim deliverables in a timely fashion (keeping the development moving), and to help expedite the essential documentation required. If you are not an active participant, do not get in the way of those who are.
• Our efforts must be sold and resold. There are times when each of us must function as a salesperson to maintain the commitment to our stakeholders and to each other. With requirements in hand, crew members may need to periodically remind each other about the technology vision and strategy to ensure others that their contributions are essential to help meet university goals. That means every crew member.
• Southern Miss’ iTech team should acquire only the best people and then do whatever it takes to keep the garbage out of their way. Hiring managers at Southern Miss can often compensate for shortages of time or money, or other constraints, by choosing the right crewmembers. Every director should serve as an advocate for their crew members, helping them by protecting them from outside interruptions and by providing the tools and working conditions necessary to apply their talents.
• Each iTech director must actively set priorities. Today at a typical university, it is not uncommon for each crewmember to be expected to play active roles on many project teams at the same time. Ultimately, there comes a time when resources are stretched to their limits and there are simply too many requirements to be completed successfully. We need to be clearly focused and to conduct reviews of the university’s overall mission and strategies. This includes establishing criteria for goals and funding, monitoring resource workloads, and determining which projects are high-enough priority to be approved. In this way, we provide the Southern Miss leadership the information necessary to prevent multi-requirement logjams.
• We should communicate as a family. Communication is the fuel for intellectual growth and well-being. Our product at Southern Miss is intellectual property that is generated and fed by interactions with our crew members. The success of our department is determined by how well we communicate. Communication is not as easy as it sounds. We all need to stop daily and communicate as family. Each of us would be surprised by what we assume others know.