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“Hitting the Ground Walking”
7/11/2005
And while that process unfolds, indeed, I need to grab some low-hanging fruit and use the things I have learned to make some quick-scores. But I do so to get the larger ball rolling, rather than to start crossing things off a to-do list of CIO initiatives. I don’t want to run headlong into implementing a strategic vision before the campus has articulated from that vision a plan for me with particulars. And of course, a major concern for me is that if I would take the option of the fast run out of the gate, I’ll end up just like Patton in France in August-September of 1944 – I’ll likely run out of gas (funding) and be stopped in my tracks. But by having a plan, I hope to articulate with my administration a funding strategy needed to implement that plan and pace the campus to make steady progress over a reasonable period of time (5-6 years).
I suppose a final relevant anecdote I can tell is from my early days here. Someone asked me, given all that needed to be done and with a scarcity of resources, how did I intend to prioritize my actions? My response was that this was the wrong question. The right question was: How do we go about getting the resources we need to do everything that needs to be done? I believe if I simply prioritize, and just get done what I can by running down my list of initiatives until I run out of money, after a few years (like maybe two if I’m lucky), I’ll be let go for not delivering on the non-prioritized things. And then my university will search for the next CIO, and the recruitment ad will focus on the need to do the things I didn’t get done during my tenure here, in my wild rush to get the prioritized set of my own initiatives tackled as fast as I could … before I ran out of gas!
So no, I didn’t want to hit the ground running. Never intended to! I wanted to come in at a good steady walking pace. I want to understand my new campus community, and what it wants in terms of IT enablement. I want to work with my campus as a member of the community (not as an outside consultant with insurance coverage!) to get things planned out, so we can get the funding we need to do all the things that need to be done over time. You know ‘time’ … that period after lunch on Friday through the end of this decade. And yes, I also want to make some progress along the way as I walk, so as to prime the pump for more progress later.
Wish me luck.
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