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IT Funding & Finance
Balancing Dollars & Demand
9/1/2007
CT: So what advice can you offer a peer who is looking to create a firstclass IT network with a limited budget, and limited manpower?
Stoner: My best advice is: Do your homework. A lot of us don't do enough homework, and there's always more homework you should do. Also, seek out best practices; that's one of the things that we've done. At the end of the day, good planning produces great results. If that means putting off the project for six to 12 months, you basically need to do that.
Engorn: My advice would be: Collaborate. Talk to other people at other institutions who may have done the same thing, or may be doing the same thing. We're not doing anything that is all that much of a secret. I meet monthly with all the local CIOs of both public and private institutions and we talk about everything. It's like a therapy session in many ways: If one of us has a question about our direction, there's nothing to hide. If someone's done something, we get the benefit of what they did right and what they did wrong. So to me, the collaboration with my peers is crucial.
Laus: Preparation or prior planning prevents you-know-what. Look at your options; look at what you really need to do. If it doesn't fit with the technology that you have, hold off on that project until you have all your ducks in a row. Another thing we try to do is standardize on things like our network equipment and some of our network setup. Because we have such a small staff, we don't have the time or the ability to learn a bunch of switch operating systems or anything else that we need to do with different vendors and different software, so we try to standardize on equipment and network setups and just try to replicate that across campus so that we can keep our scope very limited and be good at what we're trying to do.
Gatewood: My advice is twofold: First, strategic planning is essential, because if you don't plan, you will end up somewhere, and it may not be where you had hoped. And second, you need to network. Get out and talk to people of like-size institutions, maybe even some that are larger or smaller. Read reports and work with people, because none of our networks are islands: If we all connect to the internet, we're all in it together. I'll bet you we all have the same issues with networks, systems administration, and politics, not to mention the budgets we're talking about here today. Just get together with people and share. You need to learn from them.
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Charlene O’Hanlon specializes in technology reporting and is based in the New York area.
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