| | 8 August 2017HIGHERReviewIN MY VIEWIT TRENDS SHAPING THE GROWTH OF HIGHER EDUCATIONBy Anne Kealley, CEO, CAUDITHeraclitus, a Greek philosopher of the late 6th cen-tury BCE, said the world is identified by `an on-going process governed by a law of change'. Even if we look at just the last 50 years, we can see that change is an essential and natural part of life. It follows then, that to remain relevant, IT in Higher Education must continue to adapt and where possible, lead the way in order to help institutions meet the demands of future students, researchers and administrators.With funding increasingly focused on successful student progress and completion, along with the achievement of competitive research outcomes, it is essential for IT to play its part in determining technology investments to deliver key services, enable digital capabilities and provide a com-petitive advantage. The ability to deliver effective services in an agile, time-sensitive way is predicated by IT being en-gaged in conversations at a strategic level with the organiza-tion's leadership, staff and students and aligned to support the institution's goals.Collaborating IT for a New `Direction'The push-pull between centralization/decentralization, budget pressures, and provision of reliable infrastructure and the need to be seen to be responsive and delivering val-ue in a timely way have been common themes throughout my 20 years in higher education. We need to know, with fair a degree of detail, who our stakeholders are and who is likely to be impacted by the implementation of a new initiative or a breakdown in service and build relationships with them before they are impacted. Collaboration needs to be our normal way of thinking, operating and making decisions. A good example of this is the implementation of a new ITSM tool in a university with decentralized IT sup-port. By including all of the IT Managers from the faculties and research schools as members of the Project Management Group from the very beginning a successful implementation was achieved. And while some things could have been done differently or better, this phase of the project provided a good foundation for further development and other projects.
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