Designing an Operational Quality Framework for IT Delivery and Change (Separate registration required.)

As institutions adopt increasingly complex SaaS and ERP ecosystems, many universities still rely on fragmented and informal approaches to IT quality. When quality is treated as a final project checkpoint rather than an operational mindset, organizations accumulate reactive technical debt, misaligned implementations, and avoidable service disruptions. The challenge often continues after go-live, where technical changes and enhancements occur without coordinated quality practices or clear visibility. This workshop introduces a practical operational quality framework for IT delivery and change. Through interactive polling, guided discussion, and practitioner examples, participants will explore common institutional pain points and examine proven practices for requirements traceability, test management and user acceptance testing (UAT), defect management, and technical change governance. Participants will engage in a guided mini-audit of their own service life cycles to identify where quality gates can better align with technical change management. The session also introduces a practical quality toolkit, including sample templates and examples for requirements traceability, test management, and defect tracking that can be adapted to different institutional environments. The workshop concludes with a collaborative implementation discussion to help attendees develop a roadmap for shifting their organizations from reactive firefighting to proactive service reliability. Outcomes of this workshop: audit their institution’s IT service life cycle to identify gaps in quality practices, testing, and technical change management; apply practical templates and industry tools for requirements traceability, test management, and defect tracking in SaaS and ERP implementations; and design a right-sized operational quality framework that aligns IT delivery, testing, vendor governance, and technical change management. Upon successful completion of this preconference workshop, participants will be eligible to receive an EDUCAUSE microcredential. To earn this digital badge, participants must complete a brief workshop evaluation and share two key learning outcomes from their experience. On October 5, all registered participants will receive an email with instructions for completing these steps. Completion of both is required. To learn how to accept and make the most of the microcredential, visit the EDUCAUSE Microcredential website.