ITS Staff Meetings
Jun. 20, 2006 by ravishan
So, what do you all feel about the ITS Staff Meetings?
Add your comments and let me know if you want the comments to remain anonymous…
Once in while asking this question is useful. The last time we asked this question, it was a fun exercise and a group activity which resulted in the new format. Basically we agreed that each Director will provide a short update on the heppenings in their group and this will be followed by a presentation on a selected subject which is optional. I would say we kept to this format for the most part, but we have deviated from this format several times. Once in a while one of you would point this out and we will remind ourselves of the agreed upon format and get back to it.
So, I ask this question again…
What is an ideal staff meeting in your mind (The answer cannot be “No Staff Meeting at all”)?
In looking around, I think it is instructive to ask ourselves a few questions and I have added my answers to a few of them. Please suggest other questions:
- What is the purpose of the ITS Staff meeting?
I would say it is to keep all the staff members informed of what is going on in ITS. One could argue that we are a small enough department and that we already attend a lot of meetings so we all know most of what is going on. I don’t think this is generally true, so hearing first hand about certain interesting projects that are going on and how it relates to what you do is important. For many of us, a few items discussed here may be a repetition, but that is unavoidable. We should collectively design these meetings so that overall the return on investment is optimal.
- How should these meetings be structured?
I like the agreed upon format. It would be great if you all can suggest topics for the latter part rather than typically the Directors. May be a few times we should invite other functional offices or faculty members or students to talk to us about how they are using technology or show us technologies that they use that are interesting that we don’t necessarily support!
- How often should these meetings be held?
I like the idea of holding the monthly slot for these meetings and canceling them if there is nothing new to report.
- When should the meeting be held?
- What advice would you give to the presenters?
Sometime the presenters (including me) assume that the audience knows what we are talking about… Especially acronyms – SNMP, SMTP, BMAPS, Merlot etc. etc. May be we should use the clickers as a way to inform the presenters secretly that they need to explain the topic a little more – the amount of click should indicate how much
Please add your valuable comments to this discussion and we will then take this up for discussion soon.
a topic for brief presentations might be productivity and knowledge management tools/methods, followed by discussion of their utility and appropriateness for faculty and staff. Those that make the cut could be shared on the ITS site and/or collectively featured in a training session. for example, social bookmarking managers. who uses them in ITS? are they useful, useful enough to recommend?
Continuing to have four brief presentations from each of the four areas is a good idea. It might be useful to post links in advance (via the wiki) to allow those who want to learn more to do so. I’m also in favor of having an optional topical presentation. Perhaps we can poll ourselves as to what topics we would like to see presented?
I do like the occasional presentation from someone from outside ITS to allow us to understand overall university strategy, or particularly relevant initiatives.
– mike