IT Action Plan
Charge Letter
Kyle J. Cavanaugh
Senior Vice President
for Administration
October 6, 2008
| TO: | Mike Conlon, Mike Corwin, Faculty Representative (TBD), Tim Fitzpatrick, Chuck Frazier, Joe Joyce, Bernard Mail, Mark Orazem, Jan van der Aa, Fedro Zazueta |
| FROM: | Kyle Cavanaugh, Senior Vice President for Administration |
| RE: | Service on an IT Action Plan Task Force |
This academic year UF will be putting major focus on improving Information Technology. President Machen wants to be sure that we have a strong foundation for core UF IT services as he moves forward with a plan to hire a CIO to oversee UF IT. Most of you know already that I appointed Chuck Frazier as Interim CIO effective August 1. I asked Chuck to return to duty to help lead and facilitate the development of a short-term IT action plan. The purpose of having a short-term plan is to shore up some foundation issues before moving ahead with a national search for a CIO. President Machen has directed some changes that will be announced soon. The process for developing other aspects of an action plan will involve two main working groups. The first group is the IT Action Plan Task Force. It will be comprised of the nine people listed above and will be chaired by Chuck.
The charge for this group will be to develop a set of actionable recommendations that will structure UF IT to operate under a CIO and build a firm base for further development. I will ask you to look at issues such as sustainable funding, efficiency and performance measurement, IT governance and priority setting, combining like functions and services, and cost effectiveness. Your task is very important and the work will not be easy. Further, I will ask you to begin soon starting on October 10, 2008. Your specific charge will be to develop and recommend actions that can be either carried out immediately or near-term and that can positively impact UF Core IT and UF-wide IT services. The deliberation process has to be transparent, inclusive of stakeholder and administrative leadership input, and fast. I will ask that a draft task force report be completed by the end of the first week in January, 2009. Your task force will meet twice a week for one and a half hours until the draft report is completed. Sub-groups with different or additional members may be appointed and charged as appropriate.
A second group has been established by President Machen that will work closely with your group. It is called the IT Steering Group. The members of the steering group are as follows: Doug Barrett, Frank Bova, Kyle Cavanaugh, Jimmy Cheek, Matt Fajack, Joe Glover, Win Phillips, and Ed Poppell. Chuck Frazier will be ex-officio and will work back and forth between the two groups. Having the two groups work in consort will assure alignment of priorities, goals and commitments. The IT Steering Group will review and approve task force recommendations and will forward a final report to President on or before January 31, 2009.