A Year of Strategic Subtraction: BYU Implements Gartner's 'Application Undertaker' Role

The IT profession is inherently focused on solving problems through addition: More features, funding, products, and people. We're so focused on "more" that we say the confusing cliché "less is more" when our additions are small. This pervasive, institutional focus results in a cluttered context for higher ed IT professionals, where inefficiencies abound and legacy applications become zombies that bite us. In this session of EDUCAUSE, you'll hear from a peer in a new role intended to counter the clutter. Gartner nicknamed the job the "Application Undertaker," a catchy but morbid title. Joe Hadfield prefers to think of himself as the "Marie Kondo for IT" at BYU. Whatever the title, we are eager to share how things have gone in this first year of intentional, strategic subtraction. This session will present three mini-case studies. The first will demonstrate how three process checklists guide the work of retiring and removing services and applications. The second will show specific efforts to build an organization-wide culture of decluttering. And the third will identify and illustrate the skills someone needs to succeed if you try this at home.