I can always appreciate having a team around that sees and clarifies what I don’t. Sometimes leaders of comprehensive initiatives are simply too close to the situation or tunnel vision-focused on the end goal. Even the highest of achievers often step back to evaluate their communication efforts and sometimes realize they maybe did not communicate as well as they thought they had along the way.
Much like Wile E Coyote chasing the roadrunner off the cliff and not realizing it until he looks down…..too late
I was sitting in a meeting last week discussing consolidation and it was obvious my audience was not following. It was brought to my attention that we have two consolidation efforts underway at the State of Nebraska (IT Consolidation and Data Center Consolidation) and the audience did not understand which one I was talking about. The goal of both Consolidation efforts are to make state government more efficient. Both of these two initiatives address the same issue: Decentralization, but that is where the similarities end.
IT Consolidation – Addresses Resource decentralization
Data Center Consolidation – Addresses Infrastructure decentralization
IT Consolidation
Many State Agencies manage their IT functions as an independent department within the Agency.
This decentralized approach comes at higher expense as IT fails to optimize resources across the enterprise and fosters the duplication of applications and disparate infrastructure technologies.
I would encourage you and your staff to continue to visit the FAQ page on the OCIO website.
https://cio.nebraska.gov/it-consolidation/index.html
Data Center Consolidation
This is how the OCIO is objectively working to unify the IT Infrastructure vision, and accomplish the Governor’s IT Consolidation goal for Nebraska.
The role of IT needs to evolve from the current practice of single Agency focus to an Enterprise focus, which brings new growth potential for employees. IT employees will have the opportunity to become skilled in a wider range of technologies and services via this new Enterprise focus. Agencies need to leverage and train State employees to assume the roles of many of the contract employees, thus eliminating our dependency on contractors. These efforts will Free-up agencies to focus on their primary mission and core competencies. And this will allow us to leverage industry best practices, such as Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), when developing the new end state model.
Thanks for your continued service to the State and the Citizens of Nebraska!
Ed