ITMF: Charter

The Information Technology Managers Forum (ITMF) provides a means for campus IT managers and directors to define campus requirements, communicate, collaborate and give feedback on campus IT services, and provide leadership for campus IT forums (SIGS, UCCSC, Micronet, ITMF subcommittees, and an annual ITMF retreat). The ITMF is sponsored by the Berkeley campus Chief Information Officer and functions as an advisory group for campus technology committees such as the Campus Technology Council (CTC) and the Information Technology Architecture Committee (ITAC), and distributed campus departments.

Objectives

• Communication: The ITMF provides a collaborative forum for campus IT managers and leaders.
  The ITMF builds consensus among member departments to form a unified voice, and shares technical information and solutions among its membership. The ITMF contributes to implementation of IT initiatives (e.g., Minimum Standards) by creating a conversation between IST and campus departments, thereby injecting local departmental operational intelligence into the campuswide decision-making process. The ITMF provides a place for departments to raise concerns, vetting IT policies before implementation takes place at the campus level. The ITMF keeps abreast of the campus calendar, and all IT projects and initiatives in progress. It reviews service implementation projects for lessons learned, and provides feedback.
• IT Service and Policy Collaboration: The ITMF defines service requirements and provides feedback on existing and new campus services and policies.
  The ITMF provides leadership on IT service definition, serves as a feedback mechanism to ITAC on services being proposed, and gets buy-in from local departments on campus technology objectives. The ITMF defines and develops campus requirements for IT services. The ITMF provides feedback and evaluation of existing campus IT services and policies. The ITMF may do this through hearing external or campus speakers. The ITMF reviews candidate architectures and provides transparency for campus departments.
• Leadership: The ITMF provides leadership for campus IT forums (SIGS, UCCSC, Micronet, ITMF subcommittees, annual ITMF retreat)
  The ITMF champions IT initiatives for the campus as a whole. Because ITMF membership is at the local level, the ITMF has some influence over local IT groups. The ITMF can coordinate leadership for these groups and ownership/coordination for SIGs (special interest groups) as well. In addition, the ITMF provides a venue for visibility for other steering committees. The ITMF provides feedback on campus budget decisions, encouraging better local budget decision-making. The ITMF is alert to, and arranges for, strategic training for IT managers. The ITMF may form subcommittees and working groups that bring together technical experts to study particular topics in depth, prepare reports, and make recommendations to the ITAC.

Membership

• Open to managers or directors of departmental campus IT units.
• Composed predominantly of campus departmental IT leaders.
• Membership may overlap with other campus committees.
• Individuals from the campus IT community are encouraged to participate in meetings, mailing list discussions, subcommittees, and working groups.

Meetings

• Meetings are held bi-semesterly.
• Meetings are held during business hours, excluding the hours of 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm.
• Meetings are 90 minutes in length.
• Occasionally the meeting format will vary (e.g., day-long or half-day format)

Leadership

• Two people will serve as chair and co-chair (One person will be from an administrative central campus unit, one person from a campus academic department.)
• Chair or co-chair will be an ex-officio member of the Deputy CIO Council.
• Co-chairs will serve overlapping two-year terms.
• Co-chairs will receive a stipend for service to the campus, which is provided by the CIO's budget.

Role of the CIO

• The CIO acts as sponsor for ITMF, attends meetings as invited, provides staff or funding support as needed, reads ITMF reports and responds appropriately.