4 Higher Ed Collaboration Tips

Assign a project manager. Having a designated person to coordinate meetings is essential. Aouie Rubio, an information technology services project manager at the University of San Francisco, organized the VDI project using a blog to post updates and conference calls. “It was really essential to have a project manager in place,” explains Jeff Solomon, systems administrator at Loyola Marymount University.

Get buy-in from school leaders. Getting the CIOs to support the project kept it a top priority for the participants. “The critical factor for me was that the respective CIOs placed a high priority on the project,” Rubio says.

Set a short timeline. “If you stretch it out for years, it probably won’t work,” says Michael Ong, director of Enterprise System Infrastructure at USF. Weekly meetings keep up the momentum, he adds.

Create a realistic, narrow focus. “I would say with any project, having a clear scope was helpful,” Rubio says. This means that the project should not be too large to accomplish within a few months.