How Time Works in Higher Ed IT

Why Everything Feels Like a Priority in Higher Education IT In higher education IT, many projects don’t move forward or stop. They enter what I’ve come to think of as an orbital queue . The work isn’t abandoned. It isn’t stalled. It keeps circling. Once you notice this pattern, it becomes hard to unsee. Projects drift in and out of focus, pulled closer by urgency, leadership attention, or external pressure, then pushed outward again when windows close or another priority ec

Why Change Often Arrives After the People Who Asked for It Are Gone In the last two posts, I’ve been writing about why time works differently in higher education IT  and the human cost of operating inside a multi-clock institution. This week, I want to look at a discrepancy that quietly shapes many technology decisions on campus: The long memory of staff and faculty, and the short institutional memory of students. Two Groups, Two Very Different Clocks Staff and faculty often

Why “Just Decide” Is Rarely the Right Answer in Higher Education IT Last week, I wrote about why time works differently in higher education IT  — why decisions aren’t governed by a single calendar, and why speed is rarely the primary constraint. This is the second part of that conversation. Because once you understand that higher education runs on multiple clocks, the next question becomes harder: What does that do to the people making the decisions? When Time Stops Being Tec

In higher education, “When is the right time?” is almost never a scheduling question. It’s a risk question . Because there is no empty week on a campus. There is no moment when nothing matters. And there is no change that doesn’t outlive the maintenance window it happens in. The Illusion of the Perfect Window We’re often told to: wait until between terms wait until summer wait until after finals wait until “things slow down” But those moments are illusions. Students are still