Thoughtful Leadership in a Time of Transition

From Nate Flesness, ISIS Executive Director
and Chris West, ISIS Board Chair

The transition between vendors for ZIMS has inspired a great deal of thoughtful analysis among ISIS trustees. The new ZIMS development plan is not simply to hire a different company to take over where the previous one left off. The new approach is very different: ISIS will directly oversee this final stage of ZIMS, managing the process in detail.

This changes ISIS responsibilities, and this moment in time needs clear-headed assessment. Starting today, ISIS will be working with an outside firm called Infotech (http://www.infotech.com/Guest.aspx) to assess our project management needs and capacity in three areas.

The first is the ZIMS project itself. The IT technical part of the assessment is, for all practical purposes, completed and has resulted in the new development approach to completing ZIMS. The ZIMS project is continuing to move forward and will not be unduly delayed by this assessment.

The second assessment area is to make sure that ISIS has the proper staffing to manage the immense ZIMS project while also providing routine services to its members.

The third assessment area is the deployment of ZIMS, which will now be different (4 planned releases) than under the previous ZIMS process.

In the next few months we will answer these questions and make adjustments to ensure that ISIS enters and emerges from this transition not only with a great ZIMS product, but also in solid shape for the long term.