Colleague Connection: On the Move with Betsy Faxon

Betsy Faxon is the quality and process manager reporting to Dave Carr, associate vice president for Cyberinfrastructure (CI). Over the past eight years at Northwestern, she has been instrumental in many IT projects—most recently, the 1800 Sherman renovation and hot-desking initiative. We caught up with Betsy to learn about her work in IT.

Tell us about your role in Cyberinfrastructure.

In my role as the quality and process manager in CI, I focus on things like communications, service delivery, and project and portfolio management. I helped shape how CI uses TeamDynamix (TDX) in support of service delivery. When we knew we were moving to TDX, we developed a program to ensure we could get the biggest value out of the data in those service tickets.

We identified key metrics and developed supporting reports that let us know, for example, if we haven’t responded to a new ticket in a timely way.  We have the survey functionality turned on in TDX and ask CI managers to review customer feedback weekly. If appropriate, the manager will contact the customer to address the situation. We get some very constructive feedback that has helped us improve our services and customer interactions. I’m happy to say that overall, our customers provide positive feedback – 98 percent!

I’m responsible for the project management process within CI, and also for working with project managers and CI leaders to maintain our project portfolio. I worked with Steve Christensen, director of IT Communications, to develop a communications toolkit we introduced to each CI team. It provides both tips and templates for our operational and strategic communication.

How did you come to Northwestern?

I lived pretty close to Northwestern and used to admire the campus on my frequent walks. I always thought this would be a cool place to work, and I had some friends who worked here. One friend in particular would reach out to me anytime a position was opening.

I had retired somewhat early and wasn’t sure about returning to the workforce. One day, I got called for a position that sounded interesting. Although I didn’t get that role, I was offered another opportunity to come to Northwestern IT as a contractor, working with Steve Kwak and his Platform Services team.  

Soon after, I began working with Dave Carr more broadly across the CI leadership team and occasionally worked on projects across all IT. CI doesn’t have formal project managers; most of our engineers take that on unless there is a large, complex, and disruptive project, like moving from Box to OneDrive and SharePoint, a transition I led. I helped form the program when we began implementing MFA broadly. Most recently I tackled the 1800 Sherman renovation project.

You are located at 2020 Ridge. How did you get wrangled into leading the 1800 Sherman renovation/hot-desking project?

(Laugh.) Occasionally I have the opportunity to engage in projects with impact outside CI. The 1800 Sherman renovations, along with the staff transition to hot-desking, interested me because I had a similar experience at another organization.

The renovation impacted a large portion of IT. Can you share more about it?

The 1800 Sherman move to hot-desking and the renovation in support of that resulted from an overall space plan project of the building led by Facilities, which impacted multiple groups and floors. I worked with two Facilities project managers, the architect, and the construction team during the design and construction phases. Along with Sean Reynolds, vice president and CIO; Steve Beck, director of Administration and Finance; and Steve Christensen, we represented the needs of the IT organization with input from an IT staff working group.

I also met with representatives from HR and Budgeting and Planning to address common building issues and bring them to Facilities. You may have noticed the furniture in the 1800 Sherman lobby and the vending machines in the building’s rear entrance. Those additions were the result of one of these meetings.

I want to thank Sue Nardini, business administrator 2, who was instrumental in keeping things moving along throughout the project. Several IT teams also worked tirelessly to get things done.

The Endpoint Device Management team was instrumental in recommending hot-desking standards and tirelessly moving and deploying desktop technology, even while moving themselves multiple times.

There was an awful lot of cabling work that needed to happen, as well. Kathi Dal Santo, senior network and communication services specialist, worked with us and continues to work with the other groups moving into new spaces in the building.

Trevor Musolf, manager of audio visual design and support in Media and Technology Innovation, and his team assisted to acquire new technology, test it, and deploy it in each meeting space to ensure users have a consistent experience.

Much of the focus has been on 1800 Sherman work, but at the same time, we're wrapping up some changes at 2020 Ridge. Lockers have been installed, along with some additional workspaces. We hope to be ready for hot-desking there in a few weeks.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I love travel and have been fortunate to see many parts of the world either during work trips or for pleasure. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in France and the neighboring countries. Hopefully I'll make it to Greece soon.

However, my travels don’t always have to be far away. Nearby trips like tracing Route 66 from Chicago to St. Louis, a college friend’s weekend in Kohler, WI, or a planned trip to Milwaukee to show my father how it has changed since it was part of his sales territory 40 years ago are just as fun and a great way to unwind.

I also enjoy reading and look forward to reading SPLINTER EFFECT, Andrew Ludington’s new book!