Information Technology Optimized Service Team (IT OST)
Penn State IT is fundamental to every University activity, providing access to education, research and collaboration for faculty, staff and students. The critical work of the OST will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these operations, improve customer satisfaction of University stakeholders and develop clear and fulfilling career pathways for Penn State’s IT professionals.
Current and past work
Project Overview
Every single day at Penn State, 1,200 dedicated IT staff experts enable the University’s mission of teaching, research, and service. However, in the current state, they are also constrained by institutional red tape, duplication of efforts, and inconsistency throughout units.
By creating a transformational future state to address these challenges, the IT OST will empower Penn State’s IT staff to deliver the highest level of service to the entire University community and unlock strategic advantages for our teaching, research, and outreach.
Key Partners
Taking a collaborative approach to these changes, the IT OST is incorporating our community’s perspectives, insights and experiences to develop our future state. The following units and organizations have actively contributed to and helped shape the OST workstream:
OST Leads:
- David Horton, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer
- Chris Lucas, Deputy CIO, Associate Vice President, Academic Technologies and Customer Experience
Participants:
- The OST has, is, and will continue to be meeting and working with all units across University IT.
Phase 1: Information Gathering on Current State
In 2022, Penn State identified IT as one of the first shared services to utilize an OST. In the summer and fall of 2023, OST team leads and staff members engaged 64 units across all campuses to create a current state report that inventoried existing IT systems, personnel and contracts. The report detailing this work, which can be accessed below, was delivered to University leadership and shared with IT personnel and the Academic Leadership Council in December 2023.
As part of this process, the OST hosted several drop-in listening sessions with IT staff to collect their feedback and gather considerations and hosted a town hall for IT staff. In addition, progress and findings were presented to the University IT Executive Advisory Council, Academic Leadership Council and Faculty Senate.
The Applied Research Laboratory and the Pennsylvania College of Technology were not included in this assessment.
Current State Report
This report is the culmination of the OST’s Phase 1 work. It provides an overview of Penn State IT and its staffing, services, customer satisfaction, contracts, and spending.
Phase 2: Developing Future State Recommendations
In the spring of 2024, the IT OST workstream engaged third-party consultant PwC to analyze the current state report, identify and collect any missing data and engage with key University stakeholders.
Building on the current state report, the OST and PwC took an interactive approach to help develop future state recommendations. They surveyed more than 220 IT leaders, held nine open sessions in which 150 IT staff members participated, and interviewed more than 30 students, faculty and staff stakeholders.
In preparation for the next steps and the creation of the 2026 budget, salaries for IT staff in the OST-purview units were transitioned to Penn State IT’s central budget for fiscal year 2026. This change did not apply to the Applied Research Laboratory or Pennsylvania College of Technology.
Consultant Recommendations
Using the current state report and additional information gathering led by the consulting firm, PwC developed 17 recommendations that will help guide the future state of Penn State IT.
The IT OST Planned Activity includes:
- Implementing of governance framework
- Establishing a cost-based financial taxonomy for IT
- Adopting lean portfolio management
- Defining University-wide data strategy and governance
- Adopting a balanced scorecard framework
- Defining IT’s operating model
- Conducting workforce assessment/planning
- Activating organizational changes and restructuring
- Developing interaction models for IT processes
- Maturing service desk operations
- Establishing an enterprise architecture function
- Forming communities of practice
- Standardizing contract management
- Conducting application rationalization assessment
- Streamlining identity and access management processes
- Standardizing solution design and delivery
- Establishing change management strategy
Phase 3: Implementation of Future State
The IT OST began Phase 3 during the summer of 2024, considering the PwC recommendations and synthesizing this work into a viable and promising future state.
Aligned with the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program for Commonwealth Campuses, personnel and salaries for IT staff at these locations transitioned into Penn State IT on July 1, 2024. This is a significant step toward unifying technology resources and enhancing service delivery.
The goal of these efforts is to enable a smooth integration process that respects the unique needs and strengths of each Commonwealth Campus while fully leveraging the broader capabilities of Penn State IT. Previously, each campus was fully responsible for the salaries and fringe paid to employees in these positions. By centralizing these employees into the OSTs, the positions become part of the general overhead budget, which will result in further savings for the Commonwealth Campuses.
The OST will pursue the rest of the PwC recommendations as Phase 3 continues.
Among those recommendations is an application rationalization assessment, which should reduce the complexity and redundancies within IT applications the University uses. This recommendation was guided by insights from 100 IT leaders from 62 different units across Penn State during a series of workshops.
Over the span of 10 weeks, the workstream analyzed a portfolio of more than 1,700 applications used by the University to identify opportunities for enhanced efficiency.
As key partners in their efforts, PwC helped facilitate the workshops and University IT employees proposed nearly 200 optimization activities. Meanwhile, the OST identified 40 additional opportunities, including pathways to better support hardware and software inventory management, governance and event management software.
Teams to work on seven initiatives in first half of 2025
The IT OST’s third engagement with PwC begins in January 2025 to make progress on seven IT OST initiatives. This effort will build on the application inventory work completed by IT units in summer 2024 and the two previous PwC engagements.
Members of the Penn State IT Senior Leadership Team and University IT directors are co-leading each workstream. Approximately 60 UIT staff volunteered for open roles on the teams and were matched based on the skills and competencies needed for the work.
The workstreams are expected to complete their projects in June 2025.
The teams are as follows:
Conduct Application Rationalization Assessment
Shuchi Nalepa – Co-Lead
Mark Campbell - Co-Lead
Eric White – Co-Lead
Josh Gleim – Business Analyst
Abbey Espigh – Business Analyst
Lee Bishop – Business Analyst
Daniel Craig – Data Analyst
Jeff Minelli – Data Analyst
JJ Murphy – Support Analyst
Claudia Naciff – Project Manager
Implement IT Governance Framework
Chris Lucas – Co-Lead
Anthony Anderson - Co-Lead
Rob Malinich - Co-Lead
Haig Douglas - Dashboard Developer
Yvonne Wurm - Dashboard Developer
David Stucky - Data Analyst
Shireesha Ravi - Data Analyst
Caley Glasgow - Business Analyst
Danelle Del Corso - Project Manager
This workstream may include an Advisory Committee that will be named at a later date.
Establish a Cost-Based Financial Taxonomy
Ben Battaglia - Co-Lead
Fred Haberberger - Co-Lead
Yu Tai Chung – Co-Lead
Jerry Krawczyk - Support Analyst
Mark Beers - Support Analyst
Todd Litzinger - Financial Analyst
Matt Deadmon - Business Analyst
This workstream does not have a dedicated project manager. After this workstream meets, we would ask team members to do basic PM work such as tracking and reporting.
Adopt a Balanced Scorecard Framework
Dave Gindhart - Co-Lead
Mike Stedelin – Co-Lead
Lindsay Wood - Co-Lead
Laura Sabolchick - Change Management Support/Analyst
James Parker - Business/Support Analyst
Gage Wagner – Support Analyst
Mike Morris - Business Analyst
Andrea Harrington - Business Analyst
Matt Gourley - Project Manager
Establish an Enterprise Architecture/Engineering Function
Mike Stedelin - Co-Lead
Mark Campbell - Co-Lead
Gary Barb - Co-Lead
Gretchen Paules - Support Analyst
Robert Snyder - Support Analyst
Gregory Murphy - Support Analyst
Ricky Wert - Support Analyst
Andrew Arvin – Project Manager
Standardize Solution Design and Delivery
Shuchi Nalepa – Co-Lead
Dan Coughlin – Co-Lead
Matt Dunmire – Co-Lead
Phil Wigfield – Solution Architect
Rich Cropp – Technical Architect
Rebecca Shakespeare – Technical Architect
Brendan Bagley – Project Manager
Dominic Pugliese – Project Manager
Paul Edwards - Solution Architect (panel participant)
Michael Cooper – Solution Architect (panel participant)
David Horan – Solution Architect (panel participant)
Dan Raffetto – Solution Architect (panel participant)
Dennis Shafnisky – Solution Architect (panel participant)
Ellen Thorne – Solution Architect (panel participant)
Matt Harter – Business Analyst
This workstream does not have a dedicated project manager. After this workstream meets, we would ask team members to do basic PM work such as tracking and reporting.
Establish Change Management Strategy
Kari Williamson – Co-Lead
Lloyd Painter – Co-Lead
Ed Zuech – Co-Lead
Mark Belkowski – Support Analyst
Patty Rees – Support Analyst
Jason Schrag – Support Analyst
Megan Van Orden – Business Analyst
Anita Woodman – Project Manager
For questions or comments on the IT OST, please email ITOST@psu.edu.