IT Leadership Team recap - April 28

April 29, 2021

The ITS Leadership Team met on April 28 and discussed the following topics.

FY22 Budget Update 

Mark Manton and Courtland Stretton recently submitted and presented the FY22 budget to the Budget Advisory Group (BAG). Led by Provost Scott Strobel, the group consists of a mix of administrative leaders and faculty who oversee all university budgets. On April 16, the BAG formally approved IT’s budget. The next step will be for the Yale Corporation to look across all submitted budgets and offer their final approval in the coming months.

The budget speaks to our strategic investment prioritization and underscores our agreement with the rest of the university around where they want us to spend our time and energy. -John Barden

In comparison to last year, ITS’s portfolio has doubled in size and is projected to be 10M over FY21. Mark mentioned that it is understood that many approved projects come with “an operating tail—meaning (for example) that there will be ongoing subscription costs and we’ll need to increase our budgets in subsequent years by those tails.” John Barden shared that the increased FY22 budget is largely in support of the Next Generation Network (NGN), Public Safety projects, and related activities—the increase is not a doubling in projects.

Now that we have tentative FY22 Budget guidance, John encouraged teams to begin to prepare by following PMO practices, so that we have clear spend plans and ensure that operational work is lined up for July. John reflected that “the budget speaks to our strategic investment prioritization and underscores our agreement with the rest of the university around where they want us to spend our time and energy.”

Yale Workplace Survey Initiative: Employment Practices, Retention & Culture

Based on Workplace Survey feedback from staff, a team was assembled to ensure that ITS continues to strengthen its commitment to being a “Workplace of Choice.” More specifically, the team (including Hadar Call, Amy Keach, Taber Lightfoot, and April Tiddei), was asked to gain an understanding of the employment practices, retention strategies, and culture of the high-tech sector and to understand how those learnings can be applied for ITS staff. They started this process by:

  • Defining a problem statement: A roadmap is needed to address culture, retention, and employment practices. The roadmap should be based on Workplace Survey Initiatives, research, and ITS priorities.
  • Writing a vision statement: We envision a future where ITS has established a culture of psychological safety, where employees are encouraged to be curious and empowered to own their work, resulting in effective teams that are connected to the Yale mission.

To support this initiative, the team conducted extensive research, including interviews with executives from Google and other major industry peers. The research indicated that an employee experience (EX) model could be a good way to approach engagement. EX involves prioritizing, focusing on culture, offering employee-driven opportunities, and measuring sentiment. 

As they move the project forward, they will consider how to organize efforts in a way that will help drive an improved employee experience; how to prioritize and focus on what would be most meaningful; and how to communicate the effort to all levels of the organization.

At the IT Leadership Team Meeting, the team sent staff to breakout rooms and asked that they share their thoughts on EX and other recommendations from the report. Reporting on behalf of her group, Cheri Ross contributed that “it will be important to give managers the tools they need to promote these types of conversations” when establishing an EX, and that it is helpful to “celebrate our failures and learnings” to promote psychological safety. Julie McEvoy reported that her group discussed the need to “get buy-in from HR Leadership and staff, to ensure that employees are heard and supported.” 

Next steps for the team include aggregating the workshop feedback, focusing on prioritization, and evaluating the timing of this implementation.

Ask John Anything

No questions were asked, but John commented on the influx of questions we received at the last IT Town Hall related to the return to campus. Responses to these questions, where possible, are provided in the Town Hall Q&A recap. Additional information related to Returning to Yale is being collected and will be posted on It’s Your Yale as soon as it is available.