Concurrent sessions with Facilitators and Location

Session

Facilitator(s)

Location

From vision to action: What’s next for the IT strategic plan?

Explore the roadmap, initiatives, and priorities that will shape the future of IT across Virginia Tech. We’ll discuss how the strategic goals translate into projects, timelines, and collaborative opportunities, and learn how your unit can align with the plan, contribute to its success, and stay informed as implementation unfolds.

Kyle Johnson

Latham Ballroom

Use of Gen AI in the division

This session will discuss how employees are currently using it, the guidelines that are in place, and how best to develop additional guidelines to manage our use of AI going forward. 

Alberto Cano Rojas

Assembly Hall

The division's expanded architecture capabilities: How will they benefit the university?

The Division of IT now has a business architect, an enterprise architect, an AI architect, and a technology architect! This panel discussion will introduce you to each of them, highlight what they’re working on, and share about their plans for working across the division.

Carl Harris

Renee Gray

Deepak Bhatnagar

Tajinder Singh

Solitude

ITOM, ITAM, ITSM, CMDB – Sorting Out The Letters

This session will help define how DoIT could blend IT Asset Management (ITAM) and IT Operations Management (ITOM) with the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to elevate our IT Service Management (ITSM) capabilities. The goal is a unified ecosystem where hardware, software, and services are intelligently tracked, relationships are well-defined, and support teams gain insights to enable service innovation

Karen Floyd

Joyce Landreth

Duck Pond

Career management: Ready to take the next step?

Explore how to strategically manage your professional development and position yourself for advancement. Learn what search committees and organization leaders value most when selecting team leads and managers—from key competencies and growth mindsets to communication and collaboration skills.

Minh-An Pence

Terri Pecora

India Eanes

Smithfield

Project Management & the PMO 

The Project Management Office launched a framework for tracking projects that includes four project categories, eight lifecycle phases, and new health designations, with a goal of ensuring that IT initiatives are appropriately scoped, governed, and aligned with institutional priorities. This session further explores this framework and discusses how to work with the PMO to manage and track projects.

Brian Brown

Cascades

Budget 101 

Have you ever wondered how money works at Virginia Tech? This session will help you gain an understanding of the university budgeting process, the university’s funding sources, and how the Division of IT is funded.

Lynne Caver

Ken McCrery

Drillfield

Everything everywhere all at once: Get to know DoIT's units

Representatives from each of our units share a quick rundown of what’s going on in their unit: the projects, the challenges, and the reasons behind it all. Then we talk about areas of intersection – it will be a good way to get to know the Division of IT better

Karen Herrington

Jay Smith

Dave Raymond

Kerry Johnson

Ken McCrery

Matt Brown

Joyce Landreth

Latham Ballroom

Employee well-being & workload management

What can be done to make my workload more manageable and prevent burnout? How can managers and the organization improve workloads to avoid over-burdening our teams? Bring your ideas on how we can address this ever-present concern. What can change, and what conversations should we be having? 

Paige Ghra

Lisa Sedlak

Assembly Hall

Security in Practice: Tools, training, and technical insights

Explore security essentials and discuss strategies, training, and tools. From ISORA assessments, to institutional tools to support data protection, to regulatory compliance, to technical topics including best practices for naming services, managing bulk email, securing endpoints, and limiting admin access without reducing productivity.

Marc DeBonis

Mary Stewart

Solitude

IT Governance in practice: What the new framework means for you

The IT Governance Executive Committee recently approved a revised IT Governance framework - this session will further explore how the new system is structured, how IT governance will function, and how it intersects with IT project management and IT procurement.

Kyle Johnson

Duck Pond

Staying connected with remote employees

We will explore effective ways to foster meaningful connections with remote employees, including strategies for building a solid working relationship, encouraging informal interaction, and creating inclusive virtual spaces that support collaboration and belonging.

Minh-An Pence

Jennifer Reed

Smithfield

Strategies for effective organizational change management

This session explores the principles and practices of change management and offers tools to help leaders and teams navigate transitions with clarity and confidence. Whether you're driving change or responding to it, this session will help you lead with purpose and support others through the process.

Ryan Wellar

Christina Mathai

Cascades

Using data to inform decisions

Often touted as desirable but rarely achieved, data-informed decision making seems to defy a clear, sustainable, and straightforward glide path toward implementation. How do we move past that and get to where we actually have a set of metrics that help us move forward?

Brent Kremer

Neil Sedlak

Drillfield