Kindness and Gratitude through Grief

- Posted by Cindy Leavitt

Two weeks ago, the merger of MSIS with MCIT was officially announced. This has been anticipated for months and I fully support the reasons for the change, and know that it has the potential of being a really good thing for the health system, university, and MSIS.

However, when the announcement happened, I experienced strong feelings of loss and grief. The job that I have loved for almost five years no longer exists and I am not sure what my role in the new organization will be. The group that I spent so much care and energy shaping will be changing. Of course, I am not alone in feeling the loss of identity and group.

In January I read and participated in a discussion on the book, “Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes,” written by William Bridges with other UMHS leaders. The book emphasized that when you are moving to something new, even if it is better, the first step is always an ending. Knowing this helped me to understand why I was experiencing such strong feelings of grief.

This loss brought back powerful memories of other losses in my life and the lessons that I have learned going through them. Some of the most profound lessons I learned about dealing with grief were from observing my incredible sister-in-law, Julie, and her husband, Ron.

On Mother’s Day in 2007, Julie was driving her three youngest children far from home, when she dozed at the wheel and her SUV rolled several times. Her two youngest children, 8-year-old David and 10-year-old Carrie were thrown from the car and died. Julie and her 12-year-old son, James, were injured and rushed to a local hospital where James’ crushed leg was saved by a skilled surgeon.

As we gathered together as a family for the funeral, I was touched by the kindness extended by friends and work colleagues to the family. More memorable was the kindness that Ron and Julie extended to our family in the midst of their deep grief. Both Julie and Ron inquired about our oldest son’s transition to college and offered to help. We all noticed their thoughtfulness and kindness and commented on how amazing it was.

Even more profound was the gratitude that Ron and Julie expressed in spite of their grief. Ron spoke at the funeral and talked about how grateful he was that Julie and James survived. At the time, I remember being in awe that Ron could feel and express such deep gratitude and focus on what he still had instead of what he had lost.

Several months later, we received a letter that Julie wrote that I have kept. I pull it out to read it when I am deeply sad or just want to remember. Here are a few sentences from the letter. “Thank you for your prayers, gifts and service to our family. We feel so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends. I have put this letter off for so long because I know that there is no letter that is adequate to express our deep love and gratitude.”

I know that the kindness and gratitude did not stop the feeling of deep sadness and loss that Julie and Ron went through, but they did help them get through it.

Of course, remembering this story brings perspective to the grief that I am experiencing at work, which cannot be compared to the loss of your children. Ron and Julie’s example gives me a framework of how to approach this loss in my work life.

• I started by accepting the kind support from colleagues and friends.
• I am actively reaching out to others in kindness and support since many people are experiencing similar loss and worry as things are so rapidly changing.
• I have taken time to reflect on how grateful I am for the opportunities and lessons learned and impact that I have had in my job over the past five years. 

These steps have helped me work through my loss and let go of what was, so that I can be part of creating something new. We are in the neutral zone between the old and the new. I am continuing to do the things that need to be done to keep the department running smoothly and our projects moving forward, knowing that my leadership and optimism are more important than ever.

My challenge for each of you is to take time to reflect as you approach any change in your personal or work life. Remember that in order to embrace the change, you have to accept what is ending. This may mean you need to allow yourself to fully acknowledge your grief with kindness and find ways to reflect on what you are grateful for.

This will allow you to embrace the change as an opportunity.

What’s recently changed in ZenDesk?

-- Gray Carper (gcarper@med.umich.edu) 

Our Change Management process produced two small adjustments to ZenDesk last week that I’d like to draw your attention to...

"Solutions Center" Removed from Email Subject Lines

Up until late last Friday, [MSIS Solution Center] prefixed all emails sent by ZenDesk. This has now been shortened to [MSIS] because ZenDesk has become the standard platform for managing all MSIS operational work (not just the work of the Solutions Center).

Component Field Set for VPN, Duo, and M-Token Tickets

Late last year we introduced a Component ticket field that’s pre-populated with an initial list of applications, products, services, and general technologies that we support.

When set, the Component field enriches our ZenDesk data so that we can better see where our operational effort is spent. See, for example, our Adobe Connect demand since introducing the Component field...



To explore this yourself, login to ZenDesk, navigate to the Solutions Delivery KPIs dashboard, select the Capacity Worksheet tab, and use the Component drop-down chooser to see statistics for each component. (If that link doesn’t work for you, navigate to Reports > Insights and click the Get Started button. Once Insights initializes, you should be able to use the link.)

The Component field isn’t required yet, and as such it isn’t used consistently, but our goal is for it to be set on every ticket so that we have better data to support decisions in areas like hiring, effort planning, emergency response, project governance, performance improvement, and service level commitments.

In the meantime, as a stop-gap solution, we’re creating ad-hoc triggers to automatically set the Component field when specific keywords are found in the text of new tickets. Case-in-point: We set up these triggers last week…

These Keywords	Set this Component
vpn VPN anyconnect AnyConnect	VPN - AnyConnect
mfa MFA duo Duo DUO multifactor Multifactor MultiFactor multi-factor Multi-Factor Multi-factor	MFA - Duo
m-token M-Token M-token mtoken MToken Mtoken	MFA - M-Token

The resulting data will expose demand in VPN and multi-factor authentication (MFA) support, and that will help the Multi-Factor Authentication Steering Committee make and adjust plans.

Why not just create triggers like this for every component? Because the process is prone to error. The data is very likely to contain false positives (“VPN” might appear an all sorts of tickets that aren’t related to VPN support) and related tickets could be ignored because they didn’t include the right keywords. We can use triggers to take educated guesses, but we need humans to validate those guesses and make corrections.

Before you close your next ticket, then, take a moment to see if it fits into a Component we’ve identified. If it does, set it. If it doesn’t, submit a ticket to Performance & Improvement Management and tell us what’s missing so that we can expand the list.

Happy ZenDesking!

- Submitted by Cindy Leavitt

Several people have asked me why I started writing this blog. The short answer is that it is a small way that I can help develop virtuous organizations and leaders, which is my ultimate personal purpose. I cannot do this unless I am working on myself to be a virtuous leader. This blog is one way that I recenter myself each week and, hopefully, do it in a way that is helpful to others.

The last year has been a transitional one for me as a leader. I spent a lot of time studying leadership and organizational effectiveness. One of the recurring themes is around stories and how they affect our effectiveness. Our stories actually create our reality and how we feel about the world.

Last May, I had the opportunity to hear the Co-Founder the Human Performance Institute speak and the message really energized me. Jim Loehr talked about managing energy, not just time, as the key to excellence.

Jim’s research and practical experience have found that individuals excel when they focus on the physical and spiritual dimensions of energy. Physical energy is tied to fitness, nutrition and sleep. Spiritual is tied being aligned to purpose.

It takes a lot energy to be fully focused and engaged. I really loved his definition of full engagement as “the acquired ability to intentionally invest your FULL and BEST energy, right HERE, right NOW.”

We are constantly telling ourselves stories that shape how we feel. The stories he shared from the top business leaders in the country who lived in fear of failure and needing to pretend to have it all together resonated with me. I could relate.

I knew what kind of leader that I wanted to be, but it was clear that my stories and many of my habits were not consistent with my ultimate mission.

Jim described the process that they use in their program, having the participants truthfully look at what has been getting their best energy and their stories.  He described it as hard and soul-searching, but critical to high performance and to being joyful.  Below is a diagram of how individuals and organizations can move from defining purpose to using their energy to establish habits that help them achieve their purpose.

After hearing this talk, I assessed what I was doing as an individual and as a leader and where I was spending my energy. Many of my stories were around not being good enough and having to constantly prove myself. I viewed myself as a failure in some parts of my life because I felt that I wasn’t good enough to make things perfect. I found that I was in constant competition with others and spent lots of energy harshly judging myself, and others, instead of being supportive and collaborative. I was worried about looking bad. It was a stressful way to live and it continues to be painful and humbling to be honest with myself. I am viewing this a a journey, not a destination.

I am now choosing to live differently. I want to be generous and kind and supportive and brave and vulnerable. I want to see others thrive around me and to create a safe environment where that can happen. I have learned a lot of lessons along the way.

These weekly blogs are a habit that I am trying to establish that will increase my energy and focus on my ultimate mission. I am finding tremendous joy in sharing my stories and experiences and hope that they are beneficial to you as well.

My challenge to you this week is to honestly assess if you are spending your energy and attention on your ultimate purpose. Who do you want to BE?

MSIS part of team that takes top prize at “Hacks” 2016

By Stephanie Dascola, sdascola@umich.edu

Sponsored by U-M CIO Laura Patterson, Hacks with Friends is a spirited two day event where participants are encouraged to break out of their normal routines and have some fun forming a team, building a project (a.k.a. “hack”) from beginning to end, and showing it off in a fun, friendly competition.

The winning team of Drew Montag, (MSIS), Mark Champe, (LSA IT), John Gallias (LSA IT), and Raden Tonev (MICHR), developed a hack called Term Report. It’s a script that aids users in submitting help requests more efficiently. It gathers environment information, and allows users to demonstrate the problem, capture the command line interaction for replay by the support team. They even gave a live demo of the working script during their presentation—very brave!

More from the Hacks with Friends 2016 event on the MSIS Flickr photo stream.

Congratulations to Hacks with Friends 2016 Winners!
(L-R) Drew Montag (MSIS), Mark Champe (LSA IT), Raden Tonev (MICHR), and John Gallias (LSA IT)!  

My Personal Restorative Ecosystem

- contributed by Cindy Leavitt

I made it through last week using my personal restorative ecosystem. The glow of my fabulous recent vacation quickly faded as I plunged head first into our budget preparation. We have had a lot of turnover in our financial team and I found myself working with two new analysts who were helpful, but had no experience with our complex operation and were also responsible for supporting several other departments. This meant that I was working long hours and digging into details that I normally would leave to others.

As the week progressed, I could feel the exhaustion settling in and I started to get grumpy and resentful. I knew that the budget needed to be done and I was going to need to do most of it. I also knew that I wanted to remain a positive leader and that my attitude would be amplified throughout the organization.

Over the years, I have created foundational habits and established deep relationships that help me excel or just cope and they are particularly important during times of stress. I think of it as my personal restorative ecosystem. 

This is what works for me:    

●      I exercise every day. As my alarm goes off each morning at 5 a.m., I ask myself whether I will get more energy from an hour more of sleep or going to the gym. The answer is getting up. I can think better and I have far more energy when I exercise. My form of exercise has changed over the years. The more busy I am, the more important it becomes. When I started my weekend MBA program, I increased my intense exercise rather than cutting it out.

●      I pray or meditate every day. Recently, I have started guided meditation which allows me time to stop my monkey mind and centers me. I prefer to do this in the morning before anything else so I can refocus on how I want to be in the world.

●      I connect deeply with others. My family and friends are important to me. I often combine my exercise with connection time. My husband and I went for our first bike ride of the season last Saturday with one of our friends. In order to deeply connect with someone whom I am meeting for the first time, I ask them what they are passionate about. Earlier this week, I had a spontaneous connection with someone I just met over our mutual love of biking. The other benefit of this approach is that it allows me to remember names, which is hard for me.

●      I write in my gratitude journal. I don’t do this every day, but when I start feeling anxious and stressed, like I was last week, it is a concrete way to reframe my perspective.

●      I serve others. This works best for me when it is planned. My church has provided many opportunities. One that I cherish the most was leading the teenage girls in our congregation for several years. Or when I am stressed, like I was last week, I look for small things that I can do. Last week I remembered a friend’s birthday with flowers and a funny card that lifted us both.

During the stressful time, I was more aware of how my attitude was affecting my behavior and I purposefully used my restorative ecosystem to increase my energy and positivity. I was not always the leader and person I aspire to be. I expressed my frustration and was distracted at different points in the week. I am confident that I can learn to be better because I am more aware and open to change. 

As you go through this week, think about your own personal restorative ecosystem and which habits you could develop that would allow you to be more of the person you want to be.  The habit I need to work on next is going to bed earlier!

How well is MSIS serving you?

-- Gray Carper (gcarper@med.umich.edu) 

Performance & Improvement Management has launched the latest round of MSIS' quarterly customer and staff survey and we want to hear what you think. Tell us by following this link...

http://msis.med.umich.edu/feedback

Only the first question is required, so if that’s all you fill out, it’ll take just a few seconds. Any additional questions you see are optional and should take about five minutes if you choose to tackle them. What you share with us here drives our own improvement efforts, and we see how well those are going by reissuing this survey from time to time. If you’re curious, feel free to read about why and how we do this or browse previous results reports.

Please take a moment to make yourself heard and, if you have any questions, just send a note to msis-pim-questions@umich.edu.

Announcing a new MSIS Billing Service - Hamilton!

by Michael Warden and Lyn Victorio

MSIS is rolling out a new monthly Billing Service that allows for an improved experience for customers who we charge for MSIS services.

Customers are often not aware of the details of what we are charging them annually.

Historically MSIS billing happened through Service Unit Billing once a year, which only shows up on a units statement of activities and has to be manually checked to know they are paying for anything. Customers have not been able to follow-up on those charges in an easy way to find out how much they are being charged or for what, and MSIS staff can’t look up this info easily. Many customers continue to pay for VM and Storage infrastructure though they may not use it anymore, which uses up our capacity and puts unnecessary financial burden on the department.

We are implementing standard monthly invoices and aligned support processes to improve their experience.

As an improvement, we are now billing monthly and sending out invoices electronically that detail what customers are being charged. We are using Zoho Invoice and Rundeck to run our monthly process for VM and Storage services. A/V and M3 billing use Schedulon and Shortbill to support billing. The MSIS invoices detail the services they are using and allow them to call the Service Desk to ask questions. In our first tests of this system, many customers have already started to respond that they were unaware of the billing and wanted to make changes.

We are also able to do invoices for one-time purchases and pass through costs, coordinated by our Service Operations Specialists.

We can also now do one-time invoices - available to Service Managers to coordinate a more professional looking record of their costs. If you have questions on the invoicing or how to get things set up, please put in a ticket to PIM. If you would like to generate a one-time invoice, please put in a ticket to PIM who can help to coordinate your requests.

For a fun introduction, check out this video introducing Hamilton: https://voice.adobe.com/a/BaGG4/ 

Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, especially Lyn for her tireless work to see this through!! 

Field Agents, Depot, Dispatchers - oh my! Transforming our Device Support Teams

- Michael Warden

Today in Zendesk you will start to see the implementation of a set of changes to how our Device Support Agents (DSAs) do work on Med Campus through some group name changes.  Last summer we began a process to empower our DSAs to define their own 'future state' - changing how they organized and received work, putting in place a competency matrix to help guide their careers, and quarterly check-ins to improve their interaction with management on performance adjustments and professional growth.

One of the major changes that was recommended we are now beginning to implement: the move to a common queue for Field Agents.  Our DSAs used to have all work go through the same process, whether re-imaging a computer, procuring and receiving computing supplies, or troubleshooting a hardware issue at someone's desk.  We now have three different roles supporting work:

• Field Agents:  Field Agents are the DSAs distributed out to the customers and performing their work 'at the elbow'.  The Field Agents are distributed, empowered connections to MSIS support, spending their time in the labs, out in our customers spaces building relationships and finding and solving incidents.  
• Depot Technicians:  To help keep the Field Agents out in the field, we implemented a standard workspace known as the Depot to help process the backups, new computer builds, re-imaging, property disposition - all of those valuable back office functions that are necessary for a high-functioning Device Support team.  
• Dispatcher:  The Dispatcher is a role that coordinates communication between the Field Agents, helps to supervise the Depot, and provides a single point of contact and escalation with the Service Desk. 

The Depot queue has existed in Zendesk for a while, but the Field Agent queue is brand new today.  This queue combines the old Device Support: Research and Device Support: Admin queues into a common set of work.

We'll communicate more as we activate more changes to the way DSAs perform their services, but as we go, I'd like to recognize the vision and \contribution of JD Jordan, Bonnie Thomas, and all of the Med Campus DSAs have played in helping to create and bring about this change.

Announcing the NBME Exam Support Service (aka: Elf on a Shelf project)

The NMBE Support Service, formerly known as the Elf on a Shelf project, improved the way that MSIS delivers and supports the 3rd and 4th year medical students as they take their end of clerkship exams.

The National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) provide assessment tools to certify core competencies in healthcare professionals.  NBME exams are also known as "Shelf" exams, due to their history of sitting on a shelf, until needed.  The assessments are performed at the end of 3rd and 4th year clinical clerkships, and are high-stakes exams with little room for failure.

In the 2014-15 academic year, the examination process was converted from paper to computer-based.  The online process was piloted to determine if the managed computer labs in the Taubman Health Sciences Library were capable of facilitating the exam.  Upon that success, it was then expanded to the 7 clerkships in August of 2015.  Things we learned:  

• Weekly updates of the computer loadset had the capacity to disrupt the exams.  We have developed a process to test updates up to 3 days before the exams, in order to identify any compatibility issues.
• Certification of computers is required before the exam can be run on the computer.  Certification is resource intensive, and takes between 10-20 person hours to complete.
• Exams cost up to $12,000 for an exam week, depending on number of students, and occur every 2-4 weeks in the THSL computer labs.

MSIS provides support to the exam through the Help Me Now Voyager role.  Staff provide certification, assurance, set up, tear down, and proctor support during exams, as well as facilitating the reservations through Schedulon.  The Help Me Now office is across the hallway from the computer labs, and is the first line of support for the facility.

I would like to thank all MSIS staff who have provided assistance with this project, but especially Jason Engling and Sean Quinn, who have been integral in developing the processes, assisting proctors, and providing the knowledge and support necessary to make this project successful.

Documentation and details can be found here: https://wiki.umms.med.umich.edu/x/T4NCCw

regards,

Roger Burns
Service Manager of Customer Experience
Medical School Information Services

SUI visual indicators have evolved!

-- Gray Carper (gcarper@med.umich.edu)

Through our Subsequent Update Interval SLCs, we’ve committed to writing public updates once a day for Incidents and once every two days for Questions/Tasks. When we first rolled the SLCs out, though, ZenDesk wasn’t capable of displaying accurate visual breach status indicators based on these definitions. (We cobbled together an approximation by using ZenDesk’s Next Reply Time, which tracks the time it takes us to reply to a submitter comment, but  that doesn’t cover cases where a submitter never writes a comment.)

That has been corrected today. Thanks to a new feature in ZenDesk, which measures exactly what we want from SUI SLCs, you’ll now see visual indicators on individual tickets - and in Views with a next SLA breach column - that accurately inform you when your next ticket update is due.

If you have any questions, please contact PIM.

Tramping through Water

- Cindy Leavitt

My husband, Mark, and I chose to complete the Routeburn Track based on our desire to see the amazing vistas advertised on the web site and our belief that it would be fairly easy. “Tramping,” aka hiking, is very popular across New Zealand. There are campsites and bunk houses one day’s journey apart throughout New Zealand’s national parks that are used all year long. We chose to do the guided hike, which meant that we would be staying in private lodges with beds, electricity, warm showers and excellent food. All we needed to carry was a daypack with our clothes and essential personal items that would be needed for the three days that we would be hiking.

I started the hike in a grumpy mood. It was raining and the forecast called for rain over the entire three days. I was feeling herded and not appreciating being part of a large group. I was using a borrowed rubber jacket and backpack with an orange rain pack from the touring company, which was helpful in keeping me dry, but made me feel like I was part of a giant orange turtle army. The first optional vista hike was so socked in by clouds that all vistas were hidden. And I was hot despite the weather, because I had purchased and was wearing an extra base layer that was suggested by the touring company. Generally I was feeling annoyed and uncomfortable.

The day got much better as the group split apart naturally and I adjusted my layers so I was comfortable. Mark suggested that we try walking meditation to fully appreciate the moment. That brought clarity to how blessed we were to be on the journey and allowed me to appreciate the breathtaking beauty. We were in the deep rain forest with vibrant moss growing on the trees and rocks. One of the guides walked with us for a long time and answered our questions about the plants, birds, and animals.

As we progressed through the day, I started to get very worried about Mark. Mark has limited mobility in his left ankle because of some nerve damage, and so uneven surfaces are painful for him. He loves to hike and be outside, and so is always trying to balance his desire to do these kinds of activities with how much pain he will be able to manage. As we started to descend into the valley where the lodge was located, the trail became much more difficult. It was very steep and rocky. Mark was in serious pain and I realized that we did not have a Plan B. We were going to need to walk out and we were only on the first of three days of hiking.

The hot shower felt miraculous when we finally made it to the lodge.  That evening, I nursed Mark with ibuprofen, good food and wine, massage, and a comfortable bed. The lodge had facilities to hand wash and dry our clothing, so we were dry and comfortable when we headed out in the morning. Mark’s ankle was doing well. The forecast called for heavy rain, but the group was cheered by the relatively good visibility that allowed us to see the mountains that surrounded the valley.

The “turtle army” made its way with relative ease to the first break point where we were instructed by our guides to don our winter hats and gloves. As we moved to the exposed face of the mountain, we were plummeted by stinging rain and gust of wind that threatened to turn our backpack covers into parasails.

We were soaked from the rain and spontaneous streams were springing up along our path. My favorite moment of the trip happened as I was studiously mapping my course over one of these streams, trying to figure out how I could avoid getting my boots soaked. As my gaze went to the other side of the spontaneous stream, my eyes met those of a beautiful elderly woman, whose white curly hair was poking out of her rain cap. She was smiling and said in a kind voice, “You might as well tramp through it, you are already wet!” 

I laughed and realized how much energy I had been expending trying to avoid stepping in the water when I was already soaked. I took her advice and from that moment on tramped through the water, knowing that the water was taking the easiest path that I could follow.

After lunch, we were rewarded with the most incredible view as numerous waterfalls cascaded down from all sides of the valley and fed the rushing river. The path became a stream and we sloshed through the water as we took our time enjoying the experience. The woman’s advice (and my wool socks) were allowing me to be grateful to be tramping through water in such an amazing and beautiful place.

The sun never came out, although we did catch a glimpse of a patch of blue sky and a rainbow on the final morning. My husband and I observed how many of our fellow trampers seemed intent on finishing on that final day, while we were focused on slowing down and enjoying our walk through a part of the world we may never be able to see again. 

My experiment of disconnecting for three full weeks went to a deeper level when I was on the track. There was no wifi at the lodge and so I was not able to write a blog or upload pictures to Facebook.  Our trip was not perfect. We dealt with injuries, rain, sand flies, and lost gear. I learned to listen to my body, accept the weather, and enjoy the journey. I was able to deeply connect with my husband and our traveling companions and came to love New Zealand. I feel renewed and more deeply connected with my husband. The positive effects of the trip have lingered all week as I have returned to my hectic work life. 

My trip of a lifetime is over.  My challenge now is figure out how to regularly disconnect from work and technology to make space to connect with the people and places I love. If you have something that works for you, I would love to hear about it.