The many benefits of cultivating a community among IT staff

Abstract

In decentralized environments it is more difficult to realize economies of scale, both in terms of development opportunities for IT staff and in terms of knowledge-sharing between IT units and staff. At Penn State, we are a distributed environment with multiple campuses and colleges - each with their own IT staff. We are essentially a collection of separate small-to-medium sized organizations. Today, budgets are increasingly tight, and the need for technical training is increasingly vital. While there are common problems and needs, the decentralized nature of the environment makes it difficult to address them with the strength or efficiency of a large institution.At Penn State, we have established an community of IT staff -- organic in that that it exists apart from organizational boundaries and requires very little management overhead. This community is supported by a multi-faceted set of community driven services, designed to accommodate geographicallydistributed audiences. Processes, functions, and offerings regularly leverage the collective knowledge of IT staff, who frequently view sharing their work and knowledge as opportunities for personal growth and professional development. Advances in collaborative tools have made assessment, communication, and planning much easier, which has resulted in significant reduction in staff training expenses by aggregating needs and bringing vendors on site. In some cases, we are able to provide training for the community using in house knowledge. Looking forward, with federation services, it is entirely possible that we could see such communities like this being established between universities and businesses.