GNU: Bridging the Gap

Facilitator: Carol Kassel

Attendees: Bobby Brill, Joanna Chmarzewska, Justin Bromberg, Harvey Brereton, Steven Lambert, Devin Nix

ITS Systems and Shift Work

  • Need 24/7 support
  • Staff we never see
  • Still need staff meetings, 1:1
  • Use videoconferencing
  • Moved meetings to accommodate different shifts (every week, different time; “share the pain”)
  • Right now, all in same time zone, but prep for having people overseas
  • Differences in roles between day shift/night shift
  • Need rigorous method of communicating between shifts
  • As go global, night shift work may change (e.g., more incidents)
  • Possibility of shared resources (e.g., night shift staff can do projects for other ITS teams)

Follow the sun?

  • Currently investigating issues in having NYU staff working in different locales (even within US)
  • Isolation an issue with shift work or different time zones?
  • People can feel removed from decision making
  • Managers need to become more flexible to keep people in loop
  • Need toolkit for communicating, holding virtual meetings, etc.
  • Constantly reinventing wheel

Generation gap

  • Baby Boomer manager making transition to shift work, telecommuting

Interaction between campuses

  • Not enough interaction within this group of people
  • Challenges in Abu Dhabi – differences in working hours, can add time to interactions
  • If problem, only gateway is Service Desk – if they don’t know who to go to, can be frustrating
  • Need more documentation and training
  • SLA says you have access to someone at night, but not sure who that is – can be an issue
  • Issues internally vis a vis where to direct tickets – black box to someone from another campus
  • SLA not brought into ServiceLink yet; once in place, may prove effective
  • AD: people are on-site 8 am-8 pm, so early morning calls can happen

Google

  • AD moving from Exchange to Google; support person there to handle Google support
  • Google Apps already in Shanghai – but you need to be on VPN
  • But differences between Google experiences on different campuses (e.g., no Google Apps on China’s network)
  • Lots of training for constituents of other campuses
  • AD needs lots of communication around changes to Google Apps – but Google doesn’t always communicate
  • Needs more formal establishment of communication channels (e.g., sending out info about appointment slots was complicated)
  • Global Communications Group – to which authorized individuals can send email. Need to identify group.