What Is An “IT Commons”?

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology

Home > What Is An “IT Commons”?

Current News

What Is An “IT Commons”?

10/22/2003

By Terry Calhoun

Coordination mostly through 'command-and-control' edict of hierarchy
No shared context for decision-makers
Locally-optimized, with little synergy
Shared capabilities, entirely central
Common capability as low-level infrastructure (e.g. fiber)
Inconsistent (perceived unfair) pricing

New Ways

Collaborative, shared purpose can be identified
Shared understanding of technology mission & decision-making
Locally tuned
Shared capabilities, sourced from best-in-class provider
An organizational architecture that fosters both independent & shared capabilities
Resources allocated through clear budget process and services offered at cost

Source: University of Michigan, http://www.umich.edu/itcommons/.

As Hardin noted about the Cold War situation he was addressing, there seemed to be "no technical solution" that could be imposed by a central authority. Indeed, at the University of Michigan, the vision "d'es not include mandatory centralization of services" http://www.umich.edu/itcommons/3dmemo.html.

The hope is to "realize cost savings that can be redirected toward unmet, discipline-specific needs." And the means for accomplishing that is to establish incentives that encourage collaboration in IT planning and its merger with other, existing planning processes, such as budget planning, position requests and searches, and unit and university-wide strategic planning.

It is likely that Hardin, who could be fairly irascible, would have loved to point out that what we referred to above as "incentives" he would call "mutual c'ercion, mutually agreed upon" a much less palatable phrase. Hardin, in fact, was something of a fan, overall, of fairly dictatorial management processes except perhaps in a select-population, resource-rich environment (which, maybe the University of Michigan is). And it should be noted that the University of Michigan d'esn't reference "The Tragedy of the Commons," anywhere in the IT Commons site, choosing instead to provide as related background reading such materials as Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly University, by Margaret Wheatley, 1992, and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell, 2000.

How is the IT Commons working out for the University of Michigan? Time will tell. Among the cross-unit collaborative teams currently at work are groups addressing authentication/authorization, directory, network middleware services, and massive data storage model definitely work best done in larger collaborative groups with proper incentives, rather than addressed by splintered, unit-based research groups. We asked Rich Boys, manager of computer systems services, School of Information, at the University of Michigan about his take on the IT Commons so far and he said "It's been a really positive experience so, and what's nice is that it's gaining momentum on its own," so clearly the participants find value in it.

What I like most about all the documents I read in researching this article was this statement from a "Next Steps" Summary: "Don't take it personally if you're left out of a process or meeting crash it if you want to". Whatever you say about the name, "IT Commons," that's certainly the right attitude and I may well be taking advantage of the offer!

About the author: Terry Calhoun is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP). You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here. View more articles by Terry Calhoun.