Welcome 9:00-9:15am – IT Professionals Conference co-chairs David Berg and Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting will provide introductory remarks for the conference.
Keynote 9:15-10:15am – Lois Brooks, the the outgoing CIO at UW–Madison, will deliver the keynote address.
Keynote Description:
In “Change is the Only Constant,” Lois Brooks explores how transformation in higher education IT requires both resilience and intentional adaptation. Drawing from her 40-year career in technology, Brooks shares insights on understanding institutional resistance and navigating in times of change. This keynote offers a candid look at lessons learned through major transitions—from pandemic-driven pivots to strategic realignments— with emphasis on the human elements that ultimately determine whether initiatives succeed or fail.
In 2021, Sara Hagen presented about the challenges of “Inbox Overwhelm.” Now, she’s back with the most effective solutions to manage the constant influx of emails based on The Stack Method. In this session, you’ll learn how to apply this method to streamline your email management process and boost your productivity.
Attendees will learn:
The fundamentals of The Stack Method and how it can revolutionize your email management
Practical tips for implementing The Stack Method in your daily workflow
Strategies for prioritizing and categorizing emails into action-oriented folders to ensure nothing falls through the cracks
Techniques for maintaining a clutter-free inbox and reducing email-related stress”
In this session, you will learn how to have productive conflict in your conversations by analyzing your interactions and adapting your approach to achieve your goals. By examining real-life examples and your own conversations, you will gain valuable insights into improving your communication skills.
Attendees will:
Analyze an example conversation and identify areas for improvement
Learn techniques to adapt future interactions for better outcomes
Examine one of their own conversations to apply the lessons learned
Understand the importance of productive conflict in conversations
Gain insights from the book Agile Conversations to enhance their communication skills
In this session, UW–Madison Libraries staff will share their experience and lessons learned from a recent partnership that extended the Libraries’ digital collections infrastructure to meet the needs of the Chazen Museum of Art. Join us to learn valuable lessons from a successful cross-campus collaboration, and take away strategies to effectively engage in large, complex IT projects with external partners you can apply to your own work.
Attendees will:
Learn how the Libraries’ existing architecture, built from loosely coupled components, ensures that new features automatically become available for future collaborations
Discover how project partners can take advantage of selected components that best suit their needs
Understand how sustainability features of the core infrastructure are automatically applied to new partnerships
Gain insights into standardized, flexible project management techniques that contribute to successful collaboration
Explore ways to engage with stakeholders with varying levels of expertise and resources to gather requirements, meet usability goals, and participate in the design process
This session will provide valuable insights and tips to make the onboarding process efficient and painless for new IT users, including admin staff, faculty and student workers. Discover best practices for communication, essential apps and critical documents to ensure a smooth transition. Learn how to create a better onboarding experience to set your new users up for success.
Attendees will learn:
Strategies to streamline the onboarding process for all involved parties
Effective communication techniques and essential tools to facilitate onboarding
Methods for creating a welcoming environment and gathering feedback for continuous improvement
This session offers a pragmatic examination of common inefficiencies and obstacles that can derail IT projects. Whether you’re a project manager, team lead or individual contributor, this session will provide you with insights you can use to overcome common project challenges.
Attendees will learn:
Strategies for improving communication and collaboration within project teams
Welcome 9:00-9:15am – IT Professionals Conference co-chairs Sarah Lien and Elizabeth Kraege-Soechting will provide introductory remarks for the conference.
Keynote 9:15-10:15am – Dr. Joe Sanfelippo, the nationally recognized superintendent of Wisconsin’s Fall Creek School District, will deliver the keynote address at this year’s IT Professionals Conference.
Keynote Description:
I’m just…It’s a phrase we hear all the time. I’m just a sysadmin, I’m just a security analyst, I’m just a instructional designer….the list is long and is often followed by reasons why something CAN’T happen. Leadership is an action and it starts with you. Leading with INTENTION creates purpose. Leading with CONNECTION creates momentum. Leading with DIRECTION creates collective efficacy. Leading with all three in mind will build your capacity and foster an environment where everyone in your organization has the best opportunity to lead from where they are.
MERIT library combined its Library Service Desks and IT Service Desk into a one-stop shop in fall of 2021 when we re-opened our Public Service space and everyone returned to campus. This is the story and lessons learned of our first year and half as a one-stop shop. Hear about the human and technical aspects of our process, successes and challenges.
We found that:
There will be things you don’t think about in advance, even when you think you got it all.
The first year may not always be pretty, but change provides great opportunity.
It is best to prepare methods for feedback to monitor the adjustments in progress.
Have you ever sent an email to someone only to have them ask you all kinds of questions that were answered by the email they said they read? This session will help you improve your emails to reduce your readers’ confusion and still say what you need to say.
An introduction to data and information management process mapping as a needs analysis tool for improving research workflows and cyberinfrastructure.
Participants will learn:
I am a new consultant on campus to help with research cyberinfrastructure
Basics of Process Mapping – Purpose, Capability, Use
Growth Mindset- You don’t know what you don’t know. Be Open to Curiosity and Change. Encourage opportunities to reduce redundancies, inefficiencies, and gaps as well as increase reproducibility, repeatability, and replicability.
