New wine in old skins, or, was all this ferment really necessary?
Authors: Sally Webster
Venue: Proceedings of the 16th annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services (1988)

Until five years ago, with one exception, the organization of Syracuse University's Academic Computing Services had been stable for many years. The user services unit had likewise been stable, both in staff and in tasks. In the fall of 1983, a new unit of Academic Computing Services, called the Microcomputer Resource Center, was formed. Looking back, it is easy to see that the creation of the Microcomputer Resource Center and the perturbations it caused were telltale bubbles of the reorganization ferment that began in earnest in the summer of 1985 and continues to this day. In the last five years, Academic Computing Services has instigated or has been affected by more than a dozen reorganizations, the goals of which have been to bring together staff members from different groups who were doing the same kind of work, to take advantage of the special skills or interests of staff members, and to create new units or rearrange old ones to offer new services. In July 1985, the University created a new administrative unit, Information Systems and Computing, headed by a Vice President, to which both administrative and academic computing units (among others) report, and the rate of change intensified after that. Five years ago, Academic Computing Services' major units were Operations, Systems Programming, Telecommunications Engineering, Library Support, and Academic Services (the user services group). Academic Services' major services were teaching, consulting, and writing local computing bulletins and computing newsletters. Today Systems Programming, Operations, and Networking are no longer a part of Academic Computing Services, but have moved to a new organization called Computing Network Services, a unit formed nearly three years ago to pull together technical staffs from the administrative and academic computing organizations. Academic Computing Services retains the library support and user services functions, but they have changed drastically. The present Academic Computing Services units are Director's Office (contains mainframe account service and HELP Line); Instructional Computing Services; Research Computing Services; Library and Database Services; Faculty Assistance and Computer Education Services; and Office Technology Services. Just naming units in the organization at two different times of its life cycle does not give an accurate picture of the intermediate stages, which mimic not so much yeast in the wine making process as The Wars of the Amoebae with units budding, dividing, and being devoured in turn by units or fragments of units which themselves budded from other units or were the products of other divisions. To get a flavor of the frenetic reorganization activity, look at the fate of the Microcomputer Resource Center: Created in the fall of 1983, the Microcomputer Resource Center (MRC) at first had two full-time staff members, the assistant directors for Academic Services (user services) and for Systems Programming. It reported to the Director of ACS. Another new unit, called Mainframe User Services to further emphasize the existence of a unit devoted to microcomputers, contained the rest of the of Systems Programming and Academic Services groups. Mainframe User Services reported temporarily to the Director and then to an assistant director hired several months later. In November of 1985, the MRC split in two, and some of its functions went to Instructional Computing Services (which had been itself created in October 1985 from the former Academic Services component of MUS), and part went to a new group called Computing Facilities and Office Automation (CFOA). The part of the MRC which went to Instructional Computing Services was (still) called the MRC. In July 1986, the MRC moved from ICS to CFOA. In July 1987, some functions of the MRC moved from CFOA to ICS, and some went to Faculty Assistance and Computer Education Services or FACES (which had been itself created in late summer 1986). In August 1987, the MRC as a separate entity was dissolved. This litany hints at other reorganizations, the histories of which are preserved in a series of organization charts. Even we who watched it happen are hard pressed to list all the changes. I said earlier that ACS now has mostly a user services role and that that role has greatly changed. The &ldquo;traditional&rdquo; user services functions of teaching, consulting, and writing documents are a large component of overall ACS services, and now all ACS units write, teach, and consult. In addition, ACS offers new services which have been absorbed by &ldquo;old&rdquo; units or by new units which have bubbled up. Nearly all the new units and new services were begun &ldquo;skinny&rdquo; by staff members from other units, and very few old services were discontinued. Some of the new services or activities and their associated units are: We plan, build, and manage microcomputer classrooms and labs (Instructional Computing Services) We host faculty and student advisory groups (Instructional Computing Services and Director's Office) We carry on advertising and public relations efforts through new publications (all units) We carry out extensive research projects to measure the penetration of computing technology into the various curricula and its effects on teaching and learning (Instructional Computing Services and FACES) We increased services to faculty members integrating computing into coursework. For example, we formed the Faculty Assistance Center and Faculty Loaner Program (FACES) and we take computing instruction in non-computing classes (ICS) We began new programs to find, evaluate and fund existing instructional software or encourage its local production (FACES) We added support for research faculty using supercomputers and other computers not on our campus (RCS) We added support for research faculty needing special graphics and printing capabilities (RCS) We added consulting support for research faculty and graduate students, using in particular statistical and data analysis software (RCS) We added support for research faculty using large internal and external data bases or producing their own data bases (RCS) In addition to new services, some old services have changed significantly to meet needs of the new sort of client we serve. For example, the ACS Publications Office maintains a collection of 130 technical bulletins describing idiosyncrasies of Syracuse University's academic computing resources and services or act as a bridge between the user and the not-always-readable vendor manuals. We have begun reorganizing and rewriting the part of the collection aimed at beginning users. In the past, our users wanted to know how operating systems and compilers worked. The new breed of user is more interested in the computer and software as tools to accomplish specific tasks. In addition to writing &ldquo;task&rdquo; documents, we are rewriting the &ldquo;primers&rdquo; for each operating system and editor (or word processor), so that most users can train themselves. In parallel, we have rethought the content of our computing workshops. In the past, we stood in classrooms and lectured to ten or twenty people about specific commands of specific packages. Now, however, students are coming to the university with some computing experience, so we think we need only give them a start rather than lead them through the ins and outs of every package. Now we give a two-hour orientation to a larger number of users and send them out into the public clusters with self-instruction manuals. (The new documents and teaching methods are an experiment, and we will evaluate their success at the end of a year. If we planned correctly, more users will have been well-served by the same number of staff.) Looking back from today, I can see that several things happened in the early 1980's which catalyzed change. The advent of microcomputers required a shift in resources of all kinds so we could evaluate hardware and software, advise faculty and students who wanted to buy microcomputers, and teach, consult, and write about them. ACS teachers, consultants, writers, and technical staff all scrambled to learn about the new way of computing while still supporting the old. The formation of Information Systems and Computing, with its Vice President, in July 1985 caused another ripple of reorganizations and redefinitions of service, because the new Vice President could combine and rearrange staffs from two computing units (administrative and academic). Furthermore, the Vice President convened a campus-wide committee of faculty and staff members who within nine months had published a five-year plan for academic and administrative computing with specific goals and recommendations. The pressure of all these events (influx of microcomputers, reorganization of the University, and the increasing participation in computing decisions by the faculty) fostered the evolution of academic computing services and the reorganization of the units which delivered those services. Both the academic computing support staff and the users have been affected by the changes. The number of reorganizations and service changes in so short a time has both confused and delighted users at different times. Once most users understood which unit delivered which service to which group, they began to use and appreciate the new services. In the five-year plan, the faculty, under pressure from their colleagues in other universities and from their students, asked ACS to pay them more attention in every way. They asked for better access to computing equipment, consultants dedicated to them, special equipment and software for researchers, special training for those who had little computing experience, and so on. We responded by creating Research Computing Services and Faculty Assistance and Computer Education Services. The faculty asked for more support for incorporating computing in their coursework. We responded by adding tasks to Instructional Computing Services which in addition to writing, teaching, and consulting, builds and manages public computing labs some of which are reserved for classroom instruction; shares computing bulletins and teaching materials; takes computing instruction into sessions of non-computing courses; and maintains consulting centers for students using computing in coursework. The faculty asked for more participation in academic computing decisions, and we responded by forming seven advisory groups which we consult regularly and whose advice we take seriously. The faculty asked for more information about services and suggested ways we could more effectively communicate with them and with their students. We responded by adding a range of information programs, from new informational brochures, to computing handbooks, to letters and flyers mailed directly to faculty members and students, to new newsletters to users of specific services. Perhaps these new services could have been absorbed by existing ACS units. However, it seemed important not only to listen and to change but to point out in dramatic ways that we had changed. Reorganizing and renaming were visible signals to our clients and to the university as a whole that we had heard what they said and were responding. Even though there were good reasons for the ferment, it was a stressful time for the computing support staff. Computing services people are used to rapid, continuous hardware and software changes, but they are little better than other workers at adapting to rapid, continuous changes in job titles, responsibilities, reporting chains, project deadlines, priorities, and expectations. In the thirty-six months since I have been in charge of Instructional Computing Services, I have seen at one time or another, to one degree or another, in nearly everyone in the unit (including myself) confusion, resentment, physical and mental fatigue, burnout, minor and major stress-related illnesses resulting in three and four times the usual amount of sick time, frayed or snapped tempers, temporary mental lapses, marital problems, drug and alcohol problems, precipitous weight loss, insomnia, and depression. One person left Academic Computing Services as a direct result of the constant changes; several others came close. But some people discovered new talents and have blossomed with new responsibilities. Some professional and personal friendships have died and others are crippled. But new working and personal relationships have been distilled. The rate of change has now slowed and the organization seems temporarily stable. It is useful to look back and evaluate the experience of the last five years to see what we have learned. Much has been written about the necessity for hiring different kinds of people for &ldquo;new&rdquo; user services roles or for retraining and refocusing long-time employees. A commonly expressed gem of wisdom is that long-time user services staffers know too much to talk to the new breed of user. I have never understood this comment. It implies that a trainer or consultant who is very good with hardware or software is necessarily poor with people. Or that we have for years hired people who can &ldquo;talk to machines but not to human beings.&rdquo; Or that the new users are so frightened, so fragile, so traumatized by computing that they would rather talk to people with little more than a wonderful telephone technique than to trained consultants. I disagree that we have to make wholesale changes in personnel. User services organizations have traditionally hired people with strong commitments to their clients, with strong &ldquo;people&rdquo; skills, and with an interest in imparting knowledge. Therefore, in general they are still the right kind of people to work with the &ldquo;new&rdquo; clients. The old wine, long distilled, aged and mellowed by experience with many different kinds of hardware, software, and people, is a treasure which we do well to appreciate and nurture. We many need to decant the old wine into new skins, however. In the last few years, more people from more different academic units, with more diverse experience are using computing in more different ways than ever before. User services staff may have to brush up on certain skills, such as problem diagnosis, and re-evaluate training consulting, and documentation practices to suit the new users and new uses. Furthermore, as computing becomes a useful tool in varied academic disciplines, user services staff must be more aware of course content and the ways in which computing can advance the goals of the faculty. In addition to keeping abreast of hardware and software changes and understanding the ways in which our students and faculty use computing for academic projects and personal productivity, user services staff must suggest ways to add or change services. At Syracuse, in addition to changing the way we write computing bulletins and teach computing workshops, we have made several other important changes. We deliberately paid special attention to academic units, such as the Writing Program, the English Department, Human Development, and Education, which thought of themselves as &ldquo;have-nots&rdquo; with regard to computing. For more than a year, the Faculty Assistance group traveled in turn to many to these departments with equipment, workshops, and consulting. We also brought in speakers to talk to faculty in those departments about instructional software used elsewhere. Because we decided it was not enough merely to have good services if nobody knew about them, we added an advertising component to our publications effort. We produce new publications, such as brochures, handbooks, newsletters, and campus computing maps (all of which focus on general information about computing resources and services), and we devised new ways of disseminating computing information, such as mass mailings to new students; mailings to all faculty members; information fairs during Parents Weekends, registration, and spring visits; and distribution of computing publications at Teaching Assistant, Resident Advisor, and new student orientations in the fall. We have streamlined our software support: we fully support fewer packages so that we can support them better. Rather than try to help all users with all software packages (and do it indifferently), we chose about a quarter to support to some degree and declared that all the rest are &ldquo;use at your own risk&rdquo; packages. Several of our advisory committees concurred in this, one of them published the results in a booklet mailed to every faculty member. To help us decide on the need for starting new services or revamping existing ones, we carry out a thorough program of market research. In one thirteen-month period between February 1986 and March 1987, we conducted thirteen surveys of various groups of clients to monitor different services. We regularly survey faculty, freshmen, undergraduates, users of our computing clusters, and faculty teaching in our computing clusters. In addition, we monitor the kinds of computing tasks our clients are performing and the load in the clusters. When rapid change is called for, necessary, inevitable, user services staff members, particularly those in consulting roles, including undergraduate students at Syracuse, are in the position of having to make the changes and having to explain them to faculty and students. Therefore, they need extra support from management. The basic tenet of change management is that to move people from the old way of doing things to the new, you must make it harder and less rewarding to perform in the old way and easier and more rewarding to perform in the new way. Good communication between management and staff is absolutely necessary, especially since the staff will perform better and be more effective at explaining changes to clients if they themselves are comfortable with the changes. Good communication requires honesty, compassion, a sense of security, active listening, and effective talking. Good communication takes time, and in the midst of rapid change, time is short. However, I believe time taken for good communication is repaid many times over in a better understanding of the goals, in group cohesiveness, in productivity, in morale, and in dedication to serving clients. Here are Sally's Seven Suggestions for Saving Staff Sanity in time of rapid change. Explain the reasons why a change is or may be necessary. Be as honest as you can without telling any secrets. Involve the staff in as many decisions about goals and objectives as you can. Management texts describe ways to do this, any many working managers already understand how to do it. I leave it to you to figure out how you can do it. Point out the positive consequences of the changes for them and for the clients. Don't exaggerate or use Doublespeak. Be clear about the goals, the objectives, and the deadlines. As much as possible, these should be the product of negotiation with the people who have to achieve them. Unanimous agreement is not necessary; a consensus is valuable. Listen to their doubts, frustrations, and fears without taking it personally. Listen with the attitude that you can benefit from understanding why they are upset. Asking someone to change is sometimes interpreted as criticizing their performance. Often just listening will be enough; sometimes you have to reassure someone. You will always learn something about the person's values or working habits, and you might be alerted to a potential problem. Make it safe for people to talk to you. If you punish people for telling you what they think, you will cut yourself off from valuable information and from necessary rapport with your staff. As always, you can go overboard here and allow yourself to be lobbied indefinitely by someone who would rather talk than work. When that happens, you can invoke the consensus and the deadline. Pay attention to the mental and emotional condition of your staff. If you aren't very good at this, find someone on your staff who is, ask for help, and pay attention to the reports. Be prepared to shift job responsibilities if you see trouble; insist that people take vacation and sick time when appropriate. You don't have to become a therapist, but it will pay you to be extra sensitive about stress-related problems during a period of rapid change. Give credit for ideas and performance where credit is due. Managers get paid extra for being facilitators, not for hogging the glory. Save as a last resort (and avoid if at all possible) threats and appeals to personal loyalty. In my opinion, these are the professional equivalent of a spanking. If you have to resort to them, you have failed to communicate effectively and to involve the staff in decisions. Loyalty cannot be compelled; it must be earned. Woe be to you if you have not earned enough loyalty when you find yourself in a yeasty period of change when you need help and support from the people who work for you. The Chinese character for &ldquo;change&rdquo; is made up of two other characters: one for &ldquo;danger&rdquo; and one for &ldquo;opportunity.&rdquo; Periods of rapid change, particularly those which accompany the inclusion of computing technology in higher education, are manageable and can be exhilarating if you remain open to the opportunities.