MSU IT All Staff Meeting
With. Their team members. Because. That. Is. Mustangs. Students. Research. Applause. For us. Mainframe. Migrated. Typically. What happens is you buy the brand new thing you buy a brand new mainframe, put it put it in the new data center and then you migrate the data we actually took mainframe. And migrated, across campus, and turn it on and everything worked again, thanks to all of your work so it's you. Guys have to realize how huge that is overall, the data center project continues, to go very well you, know right on schedule if not ahead of schedule. More. And more systems being moved in and more, and more units asking for tours to look at it everybody, that sees it is blown away. Candidly. I think that they were expecting, a University. Data room or. Another, building, that was repurposed to be a data center instead, of a purpose-built, one so when they see a purpose-built one it just blows them away now, if you go to any, typically. Fortune 100 data center you'll see the same thing but, in a lot of cases we don't do fortune 100 quality. And all over so it's, amazing for people to see this and it's turned out really well, Spartan. 365. Again. The very creatively, rebranded. Office 365. That. That, continues, to grow and it's in huge demand we. Had a lot. Of wins there over, the past couple men months. Six. Point seven six point seven million. Files stored in Spartan Drive and. In. My mind and even bigger win here which didn't make the decks it just happened but the. Deans. Multiple. Of you've heard me talk about this already but that's that's how, important it is the. Deans all, of our Dean's reached, out and said can. You please get us at Microsoft, teams site. Up immediately so we created, a Dean's Council team, so, that the Dean's could collaborate these. Are the leaders of our academic institution. So. This is gonna quickly explode, if our Dean's are using it all of academics, wants to use it for. The most part of, course I'm generalizing but. Everybody. Wants to use it and is submitting. Their class to this this platforms really taken off just like we wanted it to. Security. Security. We deployed a new endpoint, protection platform. Or basically. Just an update to sup for those of you that know it but, this. Has already come up huge it's it's more efficient, and, and it's more effective so it's finding, things better it's finding things sooner it's stopping them and, unfortunately. It's already come in use a number, of times since the upgrade the. Upgrade went fairly flawlessly. So we're getting better at these every time we do them so, that's great as well. Student. Systems, again. A tiny little project, there we've. Talked about it before financial. Aid can. Anybody, say. How much we process through financial aid besides. I'll. Do I'll defer to Fred if nobody else can guess. Fred. Do you know the exact number it's like nine. Yeah. So. That's. I, heard. I heard over 750, this, year though. Oh. True. True that's where the number is different yeah so. But regardless. Hundreds. Of millions of dollars processed. Through this system and, the. You, know you have to realize what these do so I think I think too often we just look at these as IT systems, right and and we get laser, focused on our job and, it's. Just an operating, system you. Have to realize the impact this has this is how many, students, afford, to go to school without, this they wouldn't be able to get an education so. Realize. How connected you are to, ensuring. That somebody's, getting education, this is this is a big deal if this, fails, if, this even fails for a week at a certain time, that could mean a student isn't coming to school if, it fails for a month that could mean that. That, will mean students aren't coming to school because they just don't have the money right, so this, this is this is a very big deal. Academic. Information technology, so the scoring office implement. A digital desk so that improves, how. We do the the grading the the score processing, I guess would be the best way.
If. You've seen. The. Scoring office if you. See it around testing time it's. Jam-packed the. Amount of score. The tests that exams, that we process anything. We can do there to make it more efficient and easier for professors is a big deal obviously, directly tied to education mission d2l. We're. Gonna constantly, improve that just. Moving to the the d2l hosted platform was a big step now, as they're rolling out changes, we're adopting them and it's it's gonna follow you know this is kind of our platform, approach it's gonna follow the office 365, whereas, new features are released we're gonna get them to our customers as soon as possible. Analytics. And data solutions, so you. All should be well aware of, student, success and the, go. 15 campaign, you know this initiative. To heavily. Consider, taking 15, credits a semester that's, what your default should be and then if you have reason to you. Know downscale it but that's where your mind should start not, at 12 credits which is the minimum for a, full load so a, lot. Of that data excuse. Me a lot, of that data came out of a student success data hub so the student success data hub, again. We could spend a whole day on this alone but it brings in all these different data sources and more and more every day combines, them and allows the. Leaders of our institution. You. Know from, from a historian, to physics. Professor, - all, over these, people to analyze the data and. Help us drive, better student success improving. Graduation rates our our goal is to go from 79%. To 82%, or. We're. Getting there and we're making progress because of some of the data we get out here and. Lastly. The billing process, so, we're you know we're always looking for continuous. Improvement right so, as we find things that are slowing us down we talked I think it was just last time maybe it's maybe as two times ago - all steps ago but, I was, previously having, project. Management, generate these manually. Generate these powerpoints, for for project management updates. They. Came and said you know what that's causing an extra burden why don't we just use an auto-generated, one so immediately, you, know we made that change so now they can get to actual. Value at work of project managing and not doing a PowerPoint for Rob so, we're. Constantly looking for these this is another example for that where that seems small but it has large impacts this is in our financial system so, this. Is just going to require less Corrections, by our fiscal, officers our financial officers so, the less Corrections that they're doing then they can get, back to actually doing financial management which is what we need so, thank you for that. Any. Questions, it's been quiet it's. Early we usually do these in the afternoon. No. All. Right so. Now the, org chart so, I can't remember who guessed that but you're just slightly off. So. We have a couple, quick updates. We. Usually include these in our newsletter. As well we. May or may not be able to fit it in just because the newsletter so long so I wanted to at least get it in front of you here this. Isn't anything ground shattering and these are already in place so you're probably used to them already, but just want to get them in front of you so.
First In the chief of staff area we, have undergone. Communications. Human Resources and training facilities. And MSU. Technology store so. Those are all undergone as chief of staff. We're gonna distribute these slides so you don't have to take a picture you're welcome to if you want to but you, don't have to take a picture of what we'll send these out as well, we, will post these on the website, as well we'll post a higher level one so you can as you as you've requested. Then. We have Fred again, we, already. Was. That just last time or maybe was that was two times ago right to all staffs ago so. Obviously, chief operating officer, so. The major change there is actually. Having a dedicated, operations. Arm and then a project management arm project. Management is is under Fred and then the operations. Team with, Katherine and team they're listed. So. Just want to get those in front of you we're, trying to do a better job of communicating our, changes. All. Right no. Questions, and we'll move on to the next topic. Wow. All. Right so, we'll we'll, play a quick video, while, EJ. Joins me up here or I guess down there. I will. Do it live so. We. Are tight on time so we'll just talk through this so. If we, get it playing well we'll cut to it but otherwise. EJ. Do you want to. Yes. Yes. Do. You want to build, on a little bit the you. Know the background I gave them capstone, what the purpose is what our goal was and of course do the introduction. Yes. Sure. So, the. Computer. Science capstone project is every. Semester this. Is something that all engineering, students do computer, science hears in the college, of engineering. Engineering. Students, do a capstone course where, they it's. Kind of the culmination of, their, their. Degree where they do. Projects. That are not contrived, and are kind, of a real world experience, in computer science the. Students do projects, for companies. Like Amazon, Microsoft General. Motors Ford, Spectrum. Health. TechSmith. And. Then of course also. Michigan, State. These, projects are, done. In teams from four to five students, who, are, all you know really fantastic, the the work, product that they get. To at the end of the semester is really really. Impressive in. Addition, to kind. Of being a project sponsor for from Michigan State I've judged. Through the capstone project for a number of years and they, just keep getting better and better every year and. From. A technology standpoint, the, technology, is available to them you. Know it used to be they'd spend a month building out a server and now there are cloud services, and the. Kinds of things they're able to accomplish in the course of the semester are really, impressive and it's really just from, an overall trajectory of the IT world really a fun. Thing to watch so. So just to. Kind of emphasize something EJ mentioned is those, company names so every, semester we have Microsoft, well Microsoft doesn't hear every semester but we have the Microsoft we have the amazons we have. You, know the world pulls the GES the GM's the Fords all of these ginormous companies. A lot of fortune 10 companies. Coming. Here doing projects, and now MSU is doing projects so, to. Me that's pretty cool right seeing our brand right next to them what's even. Better is, I. Don't, know I don't, know if this was meant to be public but since I know the information it's public now. The. MSU, project, was the most, in-demand project, so. The students wanted to work on that that's, how exciting, this this mobile app was so, the, students are do, you want to ya know the students so I mean every semester the students select which projects they want to be on and. Well, actually gave Scott we should let you introduce yourself I asked you rather than me speak for you so, if you could introduce yourself and maybe that'll be your first question is what why why did you want to work on this project sure, yeah so I'm, Scott Swarthout I'm a senior, computer science major and I took the class, last semester, and.
The. Project. Was. Very compelling to me and the, rest, of the students who worked on it because. We, saw it as the one that would have the most impact on, stuff, that we could, see so a lot of the projects, even, with the more higher profile, companies it's. Something that might be internal, or maybe not, used or. Changed. Significantly and this one and it, was not immediately clear what they impacted, be for us personally so. For us it, would be this, Club this project, was. Great because we were able to use our creativity. Use, our shared. Student. Experience, to improve the product and really. Use, it and see, the. Other students use it when, we were done and we saw to be a cool. Way to leave a legacy and, take. Ownership of our project better. So. I'll I'll tell a little bit about the project at a high level of maybe you want to give a description of it more specifically, and. The way we'll do it is I'll say, what we asked for and then, you can tell how you guys kind of resolve that into something so at the beginning of the semester you know I typically. It. Ranges, but the the sponsors, come to the students with you. Know hey, we need this and and, usually. It's it's pretty defined what they want we need XYZ. We'd like it to do this we'd like it to interface with this system. We're. A bank you can't have access to that system so they can fake version all those, sorts of things, we, came to them and we said you. Know as a team at MSU we're moving into, mobile. We'd like to build a mobile app for the University one, of the challenges we have in addition to the technology, and connecting. It to things is. What. Do we even want that to be what's in it what's not that's. A that's a huge challenge for us continues, to be, but. We we said your. Students, you're, the users of the app build, into it what you want which, I think kind of actually annoyed them a little bit at first I think they were a little bit like well just tell us what you want so we can start coding isn't that why we're computer science students we just want to write code, and. It's you know as I told them you've got to put your designer cap on as well you, got to put your product manager cap on as well you know you're not just responsible for the code you're responsible, for the, quality of the whole product. So. Then why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of what you guys decided to build and and, why and, you. Know maybe what you what you wouldn't wanted to put in if you couldn't that, you didn't have time for yeah. So um, we. Took. That idea and we. Kind of took. It under the frame of what. Services, do we use the most and what services, do we use them around the go so and, also. Focusing, on what current. Students use and also, focusing on what, new students use because that is very. Important, for an app like this and so. We tried to go back to like freshman year what we would, really want so the, big, features, that we implemented, and we thought would be very valuable would be cafeteria, information, we, all like look up the eat at state website all the time see. What's, going. On especially when, we were living on campus so. That was a high, level, feature that we really wanted to shoot, for. Also. We were looking for. Navigation. And like building information to more easily find classes, and navigate, to a building, that you've never heard of and, then. We. Also looked. Into using. It doing events. Stuff. So. Integrating. Sports, events, campus, events. Like. Social, media, events. All, that stuff to find new things to do on campus so at, a high level those are the things you're shooting for we, also work. To integrate stuff, for the. The. Faculty and. Staff on campus and. Also. Just general information like. Phone. Numbers and, email addresses for relevant, campus. Services. And a. Few. Other things like grades and schedules. And stuff like that so yeah, but we we focused on what would be most important to us tre, we really liked to. Build it and do that design there's a little bit of bike shedding at first but in. The end I think it was much appreciated to have that flexibility. Rob. You can cut it at any time. So, I was gonna ask a. Couple more generic questions put you on the spot didn't. Tell you I was gonna ask you these so we'll. See how I do what. What. Would you say we. As the IT team for MSU now that you know a little bit more about, us working, with us what, would you say, we. Could focus on most. To deliver or improve the student experience it's. A big question. So. The. I, think the mobile, app is a great, step in I think. Sometimes. We, have like access, to these services but maybe the like, knowing. About them or accessing, them it, could be improved so like maybe. One aspect, is that website. That I know about and a lot of other students don't know about is the dag Neve MSU. - edu I tell, my friends all the time like, you can use that to see how you're going in your classes.
So. Like stuff like that. Can. Be. Useful. If like those, things are more forward, or just, maybe more, integrated, so things like that so. Making it obviously. Deploying new services like the mobile app but also making. It easier to find those resources because they're. Kind of all over the place yeah, and it can be a combination of both like one thing that I think. Is cool about them lap is the a platform. So we added are the features we thought would be relevant but the more things can be added to that as well yeah. Is, it fine, and. This one's completely. You, were probably you. Never saw like a sea mail did you you were an office 265 from the start. No, I, was, on the old system, as a freshman, good so how great is office 365 as. Much I couldn't I can use it on my phone now we just use the outlook app it, gets much better yeah, unfortunately. Most. Students coming in don't. Realize. Where we came from so, our. Offices our mail and collaboration, teams don't get as much appreciation, as they deserve but that. That was actually a huge effort to, migrate so we're, still talking about it for years later. So. I, guess. But before, I'm gonna try and play the video again but I dove you have any any closing thoughts and. And you you now have a platform, to talk to all of IT that, supports, this university, I know you're a senior, so. It may not impact you as much if you get us to improve but obviously, you care about Michigan State and and the. Students behind you so any. Any closing, statements you want to make. Yeah. Nothing too profound but I just like I had a great time working, on this project and, I, think. It'll really make a difference so it is hopefully, this gets shipped as soon as possible. I'm. Looking for thank. You for coming thanks, for taking the students. Still. No go. That's. True yeah well, we'll send out a link via, when. We follow up. When. We follow up with the meeting, minutes and the recap will, we'll, send a link to the actual video. Alright. So coming up next is our, pulse survey so again, you, all should be familiar, with us but if you're not this. Is the second, survey we've done pulse survey meaning, kind. Of taking the pulse, kind. Of taking the pulse of everything and. Trying to get a wide, view of how, the team thinks we're doing areas. That we need to improve on or areas that are going well that we need to continue so, we. Want, to get the results in front of you again these are fully. Anonymous, what. We do is we boil these up to trends, so, we want to present those to you and some, initial thoughts or some missile actions we're taking to address the feedback you've given us so I'll hand it over to dawn to cover, this topic thank. You rob good morning everyone can, hear me okay good. All. Right so, to. Talk about the pulse there's a ton of data that we can review but. While we're together I'd rather talk about some, of the results, and the actions that you can expect from IT based on what we've seen here and then, spend some time when you're looking through the side deck at the specific, data sets that I'm happy to answer any, questions you might have or the director of your organization, as well. I'll. Use this alright so in total I think Rob has summarized, how we expanded, the survey this year to include the total IT exchange, community, thank. You as well. As expanded. It to include a, few questions about doing business or doing working, with I teen what that experience is like so. No, good excuses, this survey did place take place in October but, part of the reason is that we had so much data to go through is why it took a little bit longer to get to the results the results to you so, we had 532.
Total Respondents, our, response, rate for MSU IT which in this survey is meant everyone, in the room, exchange community went, down just a bit but also our population, has grown in the past year so it's a little bit bigger of a population, slightly. Lower response rate industry, average for survey responses, that's excellent, the. IT exchange, a little less so about thirty one percent but still engagement. And great feedback from that population as well. Alright. The first two questions of, the survey we had a different, scale in 2016. Than we did in 2017. So the results might look a little bit different at the same time they tell a very positive story which is why I want to talk about those so. The first one is how would you rate your knowledge, of MSC whities goals strategies and, priorities, and as, you see even the IT exchange, community, had a very high response. Rate or a very high understanding. Of that which we found very positive, and a, big increase for MSU IT as well so we saw that as a positive story, as. Far as how well MSU IT leadership, communicates, this is another success story there was a lot of effort put in place in the past year to do better through, outreach through, open, houses through different ways of engaging the community and that showed in the results so 66%. Of MSU IT employees, thought that, MSU. IT is doing a good job communicating, to, its employees always room for improvement, and will continue to do that but that's a pretty dramatic increase. So. What are we going to do in this space on each slide you'll see these check boxes so. That you keep us honest, every time we're presenting, these we'll let you know how we're doing on them, so. As far as the first one about knowledge of goals strategies and, priorities, we're, going to continue to closely link the projects, you're working on in the programs, that you heard about this morning to, the three strategic pillars, of the boulder IT strategy, so let me pause there how. Many of you know what those strategic. Pillars of the boulder IT strategy are. -. What. Are they just just holler. Them out. Edu. Don't count. Not. In that way but. Anybody. Else I got, strength in a line. Innovate. Thank you very much so strengthen align and innovate you're gonna hear a lot more about those because, we do make decisions based, on those different strategic pillars, it's how we align our work and we want you to have more transparency into how we make those decisions, we'll, continue to reinforce the IT annual, goals you saw those a bit earlier we, want to keep those in front of employees there's, several different areas of focus for the year and in, the next fiscal year they'll change again but, meantime there's a lot of work to be done by the entire organization. To make sure we're successful on what, we said we were gonna do last July. And. Again, communications, when we send emails when we do different things we will be tagging those strategic pillars so when we communicate. To a client about an upgrade in service or something that's changing we're gonna tag it to one of those strategic pillars, so they know why we're making some of the decisions we're making. How. Old is MSU IT leadership, communicate, we're gonna continue the newsletter, continue. With these all staff meetings, you've. Probably been looking for the newsletter you haven't seen one yet this year one, reason is we're expanding it to the total IT audience, on campus, not, just exchange, not, just this group but every IT person, on campus and in, doing that we had to change the content, in the format just a bit so it's taking a little bit longer to make sure that's prepared, for its initial launch to all of campus IT. All. Right the next one in the past year I've developed professionally. In my job a very positive story, here overall, a few, dips and changes from last year but for the most part everyone feels they're developing, professionally. At the same time when I read through the comments and it was 50 pages 30 pages for our team and then another 20 from the exchange, community, so lots, of material. To read there but, despite what this graph says the comments, actually said to some degree the opposite, people don't feel they're having, development, opportunities, either on the job or formally. So. At this one I very much feel this is a shared responsibility. There. Are so many development, resources, here at the University, in Jen for, IT people. Are traveling, and engaging in networking all the time there's, there's no shortage, of opportunity. To develop it's. Much, up to the individual, to take that first step and identify what they like to do and then we can start the conversation if you wait for others to come to you with a great development plan you might we'll be waiting a while so it's worth taking it into your own hands.
We. Will likely, see I don't have pure decision-making, authority here, but likely for the next fiscal year we're, probably going, to see an annual goal focused on individual. Development of one, way or another to make sure we're. Putting it out there as an organization, we want to continue to learn and to grow that's, what information, technology, is all about so we should treat our careers in the same way. Next. I'm sure all of you have an annual goal plan right, everyone, has annual. Goal plan yeah. Everyone. Looks confident, and they're head nodding so I'll take that as a yes I don't, know if anyone's actually flipped, over that annual, goal plan do you know what's on the other side of it. Professional. Development the other side is professional, development I will, say in the many annual. Goal plans that I've looked at I flip it over and it's totally blank so. This is back to the shared responsibility you. Have your your goals and your work goals on the front flip it over is your professional, development if that section is blank I challenge. You to take the first step. So. I feel proud to tell people I work for MSU IT another, success, story I'd say we see a lot of improvement, over the last year. This. Is important, because how you feel about your employer impacts. Your discretionary, effort and discretion. A discretionary. Effort isn't just number, of hours committed, of course we're some some it might be and some projects, demand more than others but, this is the quality of your work the care you put into it if you see. An error or a mistake, do you stop to backtrack, and make sure it's right incorrect going out do you help your colleagues. Be successful, how you feel about your employer impacts, all of those different things that you do so, we care that you're proud to work for MSU IT and we put on a lot of activities, and do the best we can to, make sure this is a great place to work. Next. Rob highlighted. A few of these you, see them in our newsletter but, all those accomplishments that, you're seeing this is this is us this is what we do for the University this is our purpose of being here so, when you see the mission and vision you. See the reflections, of how we fulfill that in those updates, so, it may not be your team specifically, it may not even be in your unit, but if it's IT you're. A part of this team and you should feel very very good about the contributions, that we make to the University, and. Then. Finally just like with development, it's a shared responsibility we. Can put everything in place throw open houses, have great challenging, projects, if you, don't feel good about coming to work and if you don't feel proud of working, for IT there's. Probably some reflection, to do there as well so again shared, responsibility.
So. Now we transition, to four questions on the survey that we're new that revolved, around ease of doing business so to speak with IT so. In general what you'll see from the IT exchange, community, is they graded us a little bit tougher, than, we graded ourselves, which is not not unusual, they're the clients, but, actually in Scotts comments, I heard some echos of what we might see here as far as ease of finding. Tools. And communication. And I need, this how easy it is it to find it in your website. So to hear, echoes from a student just that quickly I think affirms, some of the data you'll see here. So. In general, offering. Services, and applications that are practical, and effective a positive, story the. Service Catalog continues. To evolve so, our portfolio, changes with, every single integration, with, every single addition of a new tool and as well with your feedback with IT governance, so it's constantly, changing, at. The same time we know we need to make sure it reflects, much more accurately, how our clients search for services, and look for offerings. Versus. The way we want to catalog them and then. Finally as I mentioned that was kind of teasing EJ because he was a part of that team but, I've just been a part of meetings in the past couple of weeks where. Decisions about what projects, we're going to focus on are being made based on those Boulder IT pillars. As well, as making sure it's routed through the IT governance, structure. So, we're not making decisions on our own at. The same time this is a organization, in a big university and we can't flip the offerings, that we we make overnight, it takes time resources, and you've, got to plan these things out but as. EJ knows we're making decisions based on strategically. Where we want to be. Identifying. And requesting. Services, provided, by MSU IT is easy this is a tough, graph to look at even. For, our own reflection, we know that this isn't necessarily, one. Of our strong areas, I think Scott represented, that here on the panel as well, some of the comments, just to be stark said when, I request, something about it's like it goes into a black hole so. That's, that's the feedback our clients are giving the good thing is that our art self-assessment. Is pretty accurate so. We as well know we have opportunities. To improve, well. Go, much more into detail, into this when we present some of this data to IT exchange, but.
Our Client services, organization, all the directors, are behind making this a better experience, and part, of that is going, to where our clients, look for our services. On tech dot MSU edu, and aligning. It to that Service Catalog so as a Service Catalog changes, is it easy to find those services, just, coming through the front door of tech dot msu, dot edu so, trying again to think from the client perspective. Finally. In our annual goals if you've looked at that sheet we, have an entire pillar dedicated, to the customer experience both. Timeliness. Of response service, level agreements, using external measures so there's a lot there there's the focus is there but, now we just need to build the momentum and, actually improve our performance. MSU. IT is easy to work and collaborate with. Generally. A positive, story but there's a lot more in the neither agree or kind of a non-committal, pillar, as well. As the somewhat disagree for IT exchanges. Is pretty high so another area for opportunity, I don't want people to feel down about this, data at all I think it's a reflection obviously. Based on MSU, IT responses. Of what, we already knew however. It is important, that we see this and we're actually taking steps to address it. So, one of the first things happening, again reflected, in the annual goals is that the service delivery managers. Are leading service level agreements, with clients, it's very, difficult, to have a collaborative, relationship if, you don't have a baseline of what they can expect from you because, then the the, bar is constantly, changing so, if you have a threshold through, an SLA of this is what you can expect from IT then. You have a basis, on which to really partner so, they're setting that standard for us as well as simplifying the service, portfolio again. From the clients perspective rather than our own. MSU. IT is responsive, to enquiries trending. More positive, but a lot more on the either neutral or somewhat disagree space, for our IT exchanged, colleagues, again. Talking about that annual goal pillar that we have dedicated to, customer expectations. And the, service delivery manager, is playing a very strong, role in helping, to prioritize, and manage client, inquiries, not just the Service Desk ones but, the big ones were asking, for services, or new technologies, they're, helping to Shepherd that through the IT organizations. So our clients don't have to. Finally. A summary, of the, comments, I'll let you read through those the ones at the bottom would. Be viewed as being areas. That that aren't necessarily, of great strength moving, up to the top those, are very much. Where echoed, as being great, progress people enjoyed them do more of them. So. Just in summary again I'll focus more on the IT side, we'll look at the IT, exchange, side when we speak to that community, in about a month, but, mark, your calendars, save the date we're gonna have an open house on March 27th, I'm moving, way ahead of the team so I'm sure there's some folks, who that might make uncomfortable, but mark your calendars there'll be more communications. If the date changes, will of course communicate, that as well but, we do have that open house coming the first one was a hit, we had a lot of not only IT folks, but also folks, from outside of IT come to see us this one will be at Crescent Road we won't visit the data center but you can look out the window and admire it and of course we'll have lots.
Of Things to, talk about as far as the data center. Continuous. Improvement of communication, so absolutely. Count on us to continue to take, that to the next level trying, to get in front of things make our communications, more transparent. Expanding. The newsletter was one step as well, as broadcasting. This all staff meeting for those who can't necessarily make, it to Kellogg for the meeting so we, are taking both large improvements. And not not, missing the the small opportunities, to improve. Work. In life management this was a tremendous, comment theme that, doesn't come out in the graph so there's a lot of concern in MSU IT about work-life balance I, don't, think anyone's ever mastered, this and it's a very personal story of what that means to you however, what we can offer as an organization. Includes. Comp, time flexible. Arrangements, working, from home arrangements, however, everyone has a different schedule and different need and different bargaining contracts, so, what's important, is as an employee to find what's important, for you and then, talk to your leader about what options you have so. We have lots of options it's just again a matter of bringing that conversation, forward knowing, that not all the time will your work from home day work, out maybe you'll have to come into the office but. In general, there's a lot of flexibility, offered here it just, may look different to paste on the team that you're on. Finally. If you find that you're working a ton of hours, consistently. I'm, assuming, you're already using ppm, to log that time because. If you're not logging your time in ppm nobody, knows you're working all those hours there's nothing we can do about it so please use ppm, to make sure that data is in there again, if you find that over time it's a constant, that you're working many hours talk to your supervisor, about it there's that everyone, here is willing to make. Your work-life balance better, but you've got to take those first steps. Training. And development I'll just say what's. In your development plan and then we can have the conversation but please take that first step and, finally. Mitigating, technical, debt that is part of our strengthen. Pillar in the boulder IT strategy, and I, think you'll see renewed focus talking, about technical, debt matt is smiling and securing. A more bolder more bolder a bolder, path forward, for MS use information. Technology, starting. With moving, from legacy, mail to the Spartan Mail for example, or the sis project we're gonna hear about in just a minute so it's, happening all the time but let's talk about it that is a success, story for IT that. We want our clients to know and we want all of you to know as well. So. I move through that really quickly please. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions ask your director, they've seen this data as well and they've probably read all the comments the. Slides will be made available to, you and then we will go. From there. But. Just. Wanted to, recap. A little bit there so, as. Don said some of the things that we showed, we. Can call them areas of improvement but they were bad right if, we just call it what it is some some of those were bad why, are we showing that it's it's not to, demoralize. You it's not to say you're not doing a good job I mean if we talk about IT. Requests, go into a black hole whose. Fault is that thank. You whose, fault is that I, actually. See it as my fault and. I'll tell you why, we. Went through just, about a year ago now a little over a year ago we went through and we we, started our resource management right, which is very important we. Went through and we tried, to use industry, metrics, and where we didn't have those available we use guesstimates, to, make sure that we had enough time allotted, for operations, so that we could continue to operate this, place so. If we set a team had 20% operations. That, means we did 80%, of that team could do 80%, of their time could be allotted to projects, right turns. Out our custom, in our industry data was off it was the best we had at the time but, that in my mind is a large part why some, of our class go in a black hole because we just don't have the time I tell, you on one hand I don't want you working all these hours and, then on the other hand you might see that we assign you all these projects and operations, that's it's, not that were you.
Know Competing, with each other or we're saying one thing and meeting another it's that we didn't have good data so you. Know we we caused that problem I caused that problem with, that set I need your help in solving it so, I need you to use BPM I need you to use the resource management we, now went back and and many of you were involved in this and I won't say that it's done but, we use last year's data to now adjust our operations. So that now it's more realistic because it's based on a year's worth of data that's. Only as accurate as you logged your time so that's why the time is so important, I don't, use that time to check, up on you or anything I just use, it to be more effective in our delivery so the more accurate you do it the better, then. There's also that request of or. That survey. Of it's. Hard to request services, that's. On me as well, we've been consolidating, our platforms, switching. Our communication, protocols, switching. Our mechanisms, our vehicles, right so. We. Created that or I created, that that hurdle. Ideally, now that we're on the CA platform. And we're gonna continue to leverage it more and more and optimize, it we. Can do better but, again I need your help so, I need, you to pitch in as you see issues, don't just point them out and say, that products bad or this is annoying and move on let. That team know just as you would want to know right let, them know that we, have this area improvement, and you'd like to help fix it don't, just throw something over the wall so I take. Accountability for those problems but I need your help solving them. We'll. Skip the video what, will include these as much as I love the videos that we produce as everybody knows really, cool this. I'll, just give an explanation of what this is but we'll send it out in the email so. We, this, was another urgent request. That came in this one came in from one of my bosses one, of the two executive, vice presidents, of the university city, sued paw so, he. Wanted, an ideas platform, this came in, Fred, keep me honest but November, or October, November. November. They wanted, you. Know I'm waiting under selling it here but a digital request, box right so, you could go online and submit an idea and then people could vote on it and, we had to deliver it in one, or two weeks it wasn't longer than two I know that two weeks, so. That included, signing, a contras I, know contract, and making it live including single, sign-on and everything, else so. That obviously spans, multiple teams, and on top of that we have all of our regular works that was a fire drill that. I authorized, and created, we. Did it because the large impact so he then, announced that to all of the deans directors and chairs at, and a two-weeks, and. Ms uit got a lot of recognition and accolades but. Moreover ms, you started getting some really good ideas so that's where our eSports.
Idea Was posted, I'm looking for Jeff otter because he posted that one. Sick. Ok, glad, he's not here Jeff thank you for joining remotely. So. You'll. Hear more and more about eSports as we get into it but, there's a lot of ideas coming through there another, really good idea and some of these are they, they're, so obvious, but we have so much work that we don't take the time to see them so having, this kind of crowd-sourced, idea platform, is really helpful another, one came in that. Said we should have a single repository, for, policies, and standards so you could go to as an example policies, MSU, edu, and then, find the, link to HR policy so you don't have to try and navigate so back, to Scott's issue of where it's just hard to find things so, a, lot of good ideas are being posted around there and, then a really cool video that our team, made that kind of reviews it so we'll. Send that out so, next I wanted to hand. It off to our, new university, registrar that joined. Us going. Over the student information system, so Steve, Shaolin joined us, over. A month ago now right. Around 30 days. He. May not realize. This but he was he was heavily sought after so. We were very, heavily recruiting, him due. To his experience I'll, let him give you a quick background of where he comes from but. We really couldn't have ended. Up with any better of a candidate especially, given what we're trying to do right now and his experience with student information systems, so, who, better who more experienced, and the University, Registrar to explain how, important, this initiative, is and how, important. All of you are in, delivering. It and helping deliver it so, thanks, tomorrow yeah thank. You. Hopefully. You'll sill, apply at the end of my presentation. I'm just Eve Shabalin as Rob, mentioned happy. Punch key day for all of you out there just. A, little bit of background about myself I've. Been, registrar. Probably, most of my my, adult life in fact probably, were 35, years I recently, was, at Oakland, University for. 19 years and before that at, Wayne State University. And. One. Of the interesting facts I'm not sure if you know this but Oakland. University was, founded as, a branch campus of Michigan State back, in the day and so I really have a special, affinity. To. Michigan. State I've. Had the opportunity. Challenge. Experience. Of implementing, to student information systems. One. At Wayne State and then also one. At Oakland, University so. Needless. To say a. Student, information system. Involves. A team it, involves, the team not only of users, but. Also of the technical, folks all working together to, implement a. System, that our students. Faculty and staff can use. Unfortunately. John Gabriel, was supposed to do the welcome, couldn't. Make it and so I'm just jumping, right into that as Rob mentioned I've, been here he was right on today's, my thirty business. Day here, at Michigan, State so, I'm, experienced. And ready, to jump in so. What. Is an. RFI. We, are in the process of, going. Out to vendors, and again working. As I mentioned with the team Scott, premier, Matt, and also, Brendan have, worked very closely with the, user. Team. To, put, together an RFI, and so what we're doing is looking what's, out there in the market what a vendor is using. In terms of student information systems. And then. We also want develop is that sis, replacement. Master. Plan that we can use that, will have our business functions, we'll have those solution, options that are available to, to. Us as we look to implement and sis, and. Why, are we doing this well, as Rob mentioned our, mainframe. System has been in effect for. Over 25. Years and. There. Are opportunities. And more efficiency, and. Additional. Initiatives. And, systems, that can really help us in. The area of student experience. And student success also. Our service, improvements. As we look many. Of our systems now we can have them up 24/7. 365 and. With, our mainframe system we do have to take that down and, to. Run batch processing. So we don't really have those service improvements, that we really could utilize. And leverage in, a, student information system. And then. Also the concern about our business continuity and some of the technical risks that are involved in, our current mainframe, and system. Who. Is responsible, for this project, this. Initiatives, being led by academic. Affairs in, support. Of IT, and, in, addition, we have a significant. Number of offices. That are really involved in the student information system. When, you think of a student, information system. It's, all of those processes and. Technical. Advancements. That we use for admitting students for, student enrollment for, financial, aid for faculty grading.
And. Then running all of our enrollment reports. At the end of the semester so it really entails a very, wide range of. Constituencies, and. Also. Our service, points throughout the university, and these. Are the offices that are evolved, in that that RFI. Along. With any process. Or any initiative, communication. Is really key and how, we communicate. All, of the advantages. All of the initiatives, all of our progress, in that is really, key as we implement this at Michigan. State University, and. Why. Not why, an RFI, rather than go to an. RFP well. Right now we are in that stage of, we're. In the preliminary, phase of the SIS integration. And so we're not ready yet to, put. Out that that RFP, we. Also are. Vendors are looking, in. Implementing. Cloud solutions, and many of them are not quite there yet but they're moving very closely and, then. Also really, key from the user perspective is, are. We documenting, our business processes, and that's going to be so critical in a new student, information system. Why. Now, well. Pier. Projects. Indicate that there are viable implementation. Paths that there are multiple ways to, implement, our student new student information system. As. I mentioned the emergency, of cloud. Processes. Or not our nearing, readiness, and also. Our legacy. Systems, has limitations, as, we talked about earlier, in. Addition. Our remediation. Costs in maintaining and keeping up that mainframe. Is, significant. And so. Also the importance, of our process, mapping has not been done yet and we want to ensure that we, provide in our business, processes, the, opportunities. For accuracy. And efficiency, which, are so critical in, a, new implementation. And. Then. Also there, are other pending, decisions, I, think you all aware may not be aware that there are other, processes. And other initiatives, that are going on in addition, to, looking, at a new sis. For. Example arc our health colleges, are, looking to implement a new medical sis. We. Have also within my office and within the advising, community, we're. Looking at a new degree audit, and academic, planning. Initiative. That, is also going, to leverage. With our new student information system. And then also admissions, office is looking, to implement a new, constituent. Relationship, management software. So. These are really all other initiatives. And projects, that really. Leverage. In a work with, the, student information system. As we begin to. Really. Hone. Up in, this implementation. So. This is the project timeline, are currently, right now we've, had some. We sent out the RFI, we. Received, all of the. RFI. Vendor, proposals, on Friday and Scott. Has already been up reading. Those those. Proposals. A hundred and forty pages of some of those he's, been doing a lot of bedtime reading, just. Going through them and and and looking at all of the functionality, and so really that team that RFI. Extended. Team is is looking not only at the, sort. Of the technical requirements, of these RFI, proposals. But, also the user community, is working. Very closely and. And, delving, into all of the those functional, requirements. That, these RFI's, will. Have and so. What we plan to do is, by. March, 31st, is, have. Where. We have the planning, letters that are due at the University, is to, provide, a proposal, to the executive, team that. Will identify the. The viable vendors, that. That. We could use to request a new RFP. And. So, just those remaining milestones, we we talked about vendor responses. We're, doing those reviews, that are due by March 5th. And then, we have those spring. Planning, letters, submitted, by March. 31st, and, so. Again. That's my contact, information, I do, answer, my emails I do answer, my phone if you, have any questions, or. Any. Concerns or, I. Look. Forward to to. Hearing, from all of you about our, new student information system, very, exciting, times for for, Michigan, State University. Our. Students. And faculty and staff really, deserve the. Best that we can we can offer here and I believe, implementing. Such a student information system. Will be, one of the many initiatives that, we're doing here at the university to, reach, our goals and accomplishments, so I. Open. It up to two, questions that, you that you may have. Okay. Thank. You well, thank you. Really. Surprised there's no questions, I can't believe it we, can't do these in the morning anymore. But. Yeah this this is an example of how we. Do successful, projects, so. I'll sing crossing, the university and. This is also an example of us enabling, the University so many.
Of Us have wanted, to replace the. Student information system, for a, decade, probably longer. And. Some. Of that maybe just because it's old technology and we like new, stuff right, that's, not why we're doing this though we're doing this because it's actually holding back the university, it's, holding back Student Success it's holding back our associate provost it's holding back our deans we're, doing this to enable them so. With. That said we also can't lose sight of and. Some of the people are still here, somebody. Built a system that, was able to be run for over 25 years that's, that's. Pretty impressive as well so, also don't take any of this as a critique, or that system is bad I think. Any of you would be short-sighted to say that systems anything but amazing, for running over 25 years at an institution, this this, complex, in this diverse, it's. Just time for us to evolve. And move to the next generation, so, really, no questions. All. Right we'll. Move on to the next. Topic as. I said, sathya's going to give an overview just. Just, kind of I think, a walkthrough of how, incidents. Security. Incidents, are handled, and. Also. Open it up for questions again our, purpose of this is, to. Often you only get to see one side of it now that a lot of information can be shared it's, all very quick it's very disruptive to your day so. Hopefully, this can offer an opportunity for, you to see the bigger picture. Thank. You can you all hear me. All. Right in the back, two-minute. Warning little hand wave I promise I won't think you have a question. All. Right so this this is, by. The way for those of you who haven't met me it's not that dirt cheap information, security officer, here I recognize. Almost every face in this room which is either a really good or a really bad thing. With. That said really what I wanted to do with this this, presentation is significantly, different than usual, ones that I give. First. There will not be a single slide. On the, security baseline, your welcome right. Now. So. Everybody in here is aware we are actually at a hundred percent coverage. For our externally. Facing systems, regarding, the security baseline for those systems that can install it so. Of course appliances. Things like that that can't do the security baseline, can't.
Do The security baseline but, but those that can, do, that are facing the outside world so, that's that's a huge accomplishment that's, ahead of any other unit on campus and, of, course the largest number of units on campus as well so. With, that the whole goal of this presentation is really to. Peel back the lid on the black box of security a little bit to give you an idea of what, goes on what. We do why you get an urgent phone call from our team at weird, hours of the day or night what. That fits into is a larger scale etc, but really honestly this is this is mostly a shout out presentation. This is this is mostly me thanking. All of you for your help this, isn't me telling you what security, does and the inner workings this is highlighting, all the things that each of your teams are already doing that help enable this to happen in the first place. So. Really. There's there's there's four big stages to how we approach the large-scale. Security response and when I say large-scale I mean originally. This was a presentation. On specter and meltdown but, it kind of got bigger than that and a hurry so think those things that make nightly, news when my grandma is able to call me and say hey what's would that meltdown thing I know it's a big deal right. So, hopefully. I know about it in advance which I did in this one but the, point being. There. Are larger, scale items right that that we have to respond to as a university, across the environment now there might be specific, vulnerabilities, we find that are only in things that we have or are, only in one particular area of the university, or maybe it's small and not widespread, something. Where you have to patch anything, with a processor, that's, kind of a different story and so, I really wanted to give a perspective of what that looks like there's really four stages that we break it into as a team, first. We we have to figure out what's going on how big is it how public is it what is. Overall, impact, at MSU then. How on earth do we detect whether or not it's exploitable. Then, how. On earth do we protect the thing that is now exploitable, and of course when we fail and, we will we'll miss some things how, do we get back on our feet how do how do we figure. Out how to to keep that from happening in, the future right. So. Specifically. In the. Area of of identification. Often. Security. Isn't going to know the. Exact brand make and model of every processor, on campus for instance with specter and meltdown right we. Shouldn't, we can't there's no way to do that so, in. Particular help in this particular round was of course infrastructure. Including. VSS, networking. You know our, OS teams App Services, was a huge help. Actually, desktop support as well in finding, rare, hunters some of these devices were tracking, them down especially computer, labs people's. Desks, etc to get these things patched. SCCM. Was of course a big help in that and identifying, devices, and figuring. Out hey what level of patching was something at at. The same time there. There are a million nuances. To does, a device need to, be patched because, it has a processor, a variety, X right, so this. Happened this had to happen at multiple layers right you can't only talk at a OS. As good you're also thinking at the way of level of firmware you're thinking at the level of your virtual system that's presenting, the processor, up to the you.
Know Guest operating, system you're, gonna be fielding a lot of phone calls that the the support desk in other places you know when you're out in talking with units they hear about these sorts of things what, do I do what, am I supposed to do do, you have any instructions, for me all those sorts of things come into play so. When we start thinking in terms of this we have to first look at the severity so with respect her in meltdown you're talking the ability to see memory. On a device right, so. That's, bad if any other process can see other processes, memory but. What made this one particularly worse was the fact that there were proof of concepts, within the first eight hours those. Proof of concepts, leveraged. Trivial, JavaScript code meaning anybody going. Out onto the Internet could potentially, get hit with this right it could be a drive-by it wouldn't, be anything that hard. Hits and now we have to respond quickly which. Then means full-scale. Effort across the board and that's when you all of you or many of you get those, urgent phone calls from some member of the security team right. We. Of course also want to know the exploitation, method, are they do they have to be physically. Present at a machine did, they send things remotely, how do they do all of that and, now we. Get to the hurried up portion of this presentation, because I'm, dialing them on time so. After. We identify, it then of course we have to use many of you to help us figure out what tools in the tool bag we have available so we, had to figure out what we could identify via, SCCM, what SCCM would miss what sep would catch what. VMware. Tools could catch what all our different tools could do in, order to help us find this thing and find any vulnerabilities, we had across campus, how. To find you know scan and rescan and re rescan as many different ways as we could in, addition, to that of course we, needed all of you so to find out that we have servers that are using Honeywell processors, and no amount of patching from Intel is gonna help us that, was important, right but. There's no way again that our team would have known that without your help our support. After. That of course we try and build as many layers and defenses as we can we have to be prepared though for all those public layers of response I have to report up to my boss and up to many many, layers up above me specifically. When something makes CNN, or the nightly news I had to be we had to be ready with all sorts of of write-ups, etc, for Dean's director's, chairs, they're gonna get hit with these same questions, these same comments, right. Of well how do I know if it's fixed how do I know if it's better what does this mean for my unit in my college um. We tried to build as many layer defenses, as we could but, of course we also have, to bank on vendors for a lot of hours our defenses. Right a lot of these things are tools. That are run by a, vendor Athena is a good example or d2l those are not tools that we actively patch so, now we have to get at least a statement back from those vendors hey are you doing anything about this are you aware of this any. Of you know who've transferred, something off to a vendor now, you're in the business of vendor management as opposed to business of patching the system and it's just as much work if not more in some cases. So. The, outreach doesn't, stop there though either because we try and catch other IT units, which I help other units that haven't, dealt with these sorts of things yeah are fixed these problems either. And. Give them the expertise and point them to our teams who are already overloaded. Of. Course from there you're gonna miss stuff you've got to reprioritize you, might have to reshape things for those of you have seen the crazy, shuffle, of security projects, over the last year you know this has been the case you've seen us bounce. Things up to the top toss things on hold for a month bring him back up there's there have been reasons, and motives for all of that that, have been you, know really motivated, by what's the latest, greatest that people are trying to hit just.
What, Was it last weekend. Many. Of you worked patching. Over 1,700, flaws in a particular system. Worked. Throughout, the entire weekend, and one, or two very very late nights trying to get all of that fixed that was a reprioritization, we couldn't have planned for that but we didn't know that somebody, would suddenly start targeting. One particular webpage with incredibly targeted, attacks we, had we had to do something in quickly, I. Know. That does this doesn't leave me a lot of time to answer a lot of questions I, am available I do want to talk to all of you if you have questions if you see areas we can improve I want this to be a regular feedback loop of course I want, to hear from you if there are things that you think that we could do better always. Feel. Free to catch me afterward. And. We're skipping Empire. All. Right thank you so. We. Got to wrap up unfortunately, I, do, want to leave as much time for questions as possible, the, the one thing I'll say or the, closing that I'll say is that you. Know throughout, all of this the the one thing if you could walk away through with. One thing for this whole meeting is. We've. Already done, ginormous things, right if you look at what we've done in a year two years three years four, years five. Years, just. Just enormous things we're. Doing bigger things right how, many people told us that we'd never get a data center built and turns. Out it was built in record time and we're already using it and it's it's going amazingly, well, how. Many people say that we won't do a student information system, project and, we already have the RFI out and we're going through all of that we're, doing huge things we're gonna do bigger things it. Requires all of you and one, huge thing it requires is teamwork so you. Know building on sets presentation. Security. Does realize, all, of the impacts they have to your team. We. Need everybody to work together and realize that we're all in this in. The same boat right we're all in this together so when security reaches out to you they're not reaching out to you to cause you a bad day they're, reaching out to you ideally, to avoid a really bad day, those. Was at 1,700, or 700, I can remember. 1,700. Flaws and. I know some of you that worked on that I don't, know if you all know the impact of that that had, we not done that we were you, know it's hard to say minutes away but that.
Would Have been the size of our previous breach that's, that's what your work avoided, and that's, not hyperbole, that's that's real so, that that's what you were able to avoid I'm, not going to share the application please, don't because. That's not a value right it's picking on another unit that's not what that's not what we do but, that's, the work you're doing you can't always understand, the whole magnitude. Obviously. You can understand why that's not something I'd broadcast, around but, I do want you all to understand, that you know we are all in this together and the more that we can work together the better off we're going to be so, when you're annoyed by some tool that some other unit runs don't, just complain about it at the watercooler right reach out to them and say hey this, part bothers me a little bit and we prove that how do we work together better right so. We've. Already done ginormous, things you, have to look back and take pride in that but, also realize we're we're, gonna be
2018-02-18 14:19
