This session will explore the ‘soft’ side of operating an enterprise technology service unit across both a vast geography as well as numerous organizational boundaries. We will explore approaches in staff engagement, partner management, relationship building and sustainment.

The Faculty of Medicine (FoM) is UBC’s largest and most complex Faculty with a budget of $700+ million, more than 700 full-time, 7,000 part time clinical faculty members, and over 1,900 administrative staff. The Faculty is geographically distributed throughout the province of British Columbia, with four university partner sites, 15 major Clinical Academic sites, over 85 minor clinical sites, and is under the jurisdiction of two Government ministries.

MedIT provides the Faculty of Medicine with information and educational technology services and tools that support medical education, research and administration. This province-wide approach is made possible through federation (and cooperation!) of disparate organizational IT environments where the FoM’s faculty and staff work across the province.

Despite first appearances, MedIT isn’t exclusively made up of UBC staff. MedIT is actually comprised of a mosaic of staff from partner organizations across the province: UVic, UNBC, UBCO, all six health authorities as well as BC’s Clinical Support Services Society. Managing a distributed team of ~100 direct and indirect staff for such a complex and distributed organization brings with it a number of challenges. At the heart of alleviating those challenges is a two-fold focus: the organizational mission and its people.