Todd Lutz is the Vice President for Finance & Administration at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. The majority of his experience in higher education is in the information technology environment. He hopes that he will be able to assist in the successful outcome of the project by adding his expertise in the technology and change management aspects.
Mr. Lutz supported the decision to move forward with FAMIS over some of the other options that The Texas A&M University System considered. Although “technical debt” around legacy systems is always a concern, the extensive review of FAMIS and its associated systems had some fairly clear indicators for the benefits of modernization versus a complete replacement. By replatforming the existing code on top of newer infrastructure platforms, the budgetary savings were obvious and worth the risks involved.
As the project progresses and the project team moves into the modernization and enhancement phase, Mr. Lutz looks forward to the reporting aspects of the project becoming a highly visible aspect, leading to greater user self-service and satisfaction overall.
Although he is new to the executive sponsor role as a Chief Information Officer, Mr. Lutz is impressed that the project milestones are being met, and the budgetary aspects are being well managed to date. He wants the stakeholders to know that this project is on a solid foundation and appears to be staying on track in all aspects. Once in place, Mr. Lutz feels that the substantial effort to keep change management aspects in mind for the end-users will be a big win for everyone and will lead to relatively small migration concerns for most stakeholders.