College of Notre Dame of Maryland - IT Staff Augmentation
Empower a small IT department is to support the College’s diverse and growing needs with limited resources.
Project: Ongoing IT Staff Augmentation, Custom Development
A “go-to” partner: When building a highly skilled application development team on a limited budget became problematic for the College’s IT Director Warren Szelistowski, he realized that IData could augment his stretched-thin staff with the requisite skills. “We are extremely selective in choosing IT partners that have the specific talent to move us forward in a dynamic marketplace,” Szelistowski. “IData is one of those go-to partners.” Since February 2007, IData has been assisting the College with a full range of IT services, from programming and systems integration to project management, reporting and general problem solving.
All the right skills:
Szelistowski describes his team’s relationship with IData as “between extremely good and excellent because we share a common bond.” He explains that IData’s higher education background, toolset focus and forward-thinking approach are aligned with his needs. As important, Szelistowski says, “IData people are customer-focused, outcome-oriented and flexible. In my 33 years of experience, I have found it extremely difficult to find partners with the right domain knowledge, the right people skills, and the right headset. IData has them all.”
Whatever it takes:
Augmenting staff with IData enables the IT department to get the skill sets it lacks but does not want to acquire. For example, “I don’t need on-staff script coders because we’re moving to a Microsoft environment,” comments Szelistowski. “I can turn to IData for expertise in both legacy and new technologies.” IData services for the College have included everything from line-code changes to project administration. Examples include:
- Datatel WebAdvisor installation and configuration
- Datatel Envision custom programming
- DMI installation and configuration
- CollegeNET R25® project management and technical assistance
- Middleware issue resolution
- Third-party integrations
- Process re-engineering
- Reports and extracts
- User Demos
- Project planning
- Testing
- Technical and user documentation
- Degree audit
- Financial aid award letter modification
- Account statement
Total team effort:
Because IData operates as a team, talking to one member is like talking to everyone at the firm. According to Szelistowski, the staff are honest in knowing their strengths and limits, and do not hesitate to call on colleagues to bring different expertise to the table. What this means for the College is access to a larger, more diverse pool of skills and knowledge.
Results:
By playing the “utility infielder” role to provide whatever IT support is needed at any given time, IData helps the College’s IT department reduce training costs and complete tasks more quickly. In addition, by providing its knowledge of, and even custom coding from, other projects, IData also enables IT to “go live” faster and save significant time and resources versus starting from scratch.
PDF version of this case study: CND IT Staffing Case Study (PDF)