What's Going On? IT Status Communications: Challenges and Lessons Learned

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Communicating IT system status, notifications of updates, ticket progress and other technical updates in ways that are meaningful and timely is an increasingly important opportunity for IT teams to engage with the university community.   Beyond basic email notifications, communications need to be crafted to be meaningful for a variety of people and delivered or presented in a timely way to offer the most benefit.  Additional channels such as Slack or dynamic status web sites provide excellent tools for reaching out - and with additional complexity, IT staff are challenged to manage such communications consistently and openly to provide effective messages and also to provide avenues for discussion, feedback and questions.  Adopting a more complex technical communication strategy includes addressing organizational culture as well as implementing technical tools, resulting in unique challenges for IT organizations.  A traditional view of IT status communication relies on the notion that if everything is working correctly, IT should be silent.  This traditional view is challenged by increasing complexity and dependencies across systems, and in the nearly total reliance on online systems for effective learning, teaching, research and general operation of the university.  This session will focus on the opportunities, challenges, and lessons learned as an IT organization adopts more robust communication strategies.  Participants will hear of one organization's journey, and will have the opportunity to share stories and make connections with colleagues to continue communication and engagement practices.