The board of SNT is working on a new strategic plan. When this plan is finished it will be published here. The previous version of the strategic plan can be found below:
Preface
The strategic plan provides a number of focal points that the association can focus on and on which points the association will focus. These points indicate why the focus is on these points. It is not a strictly documented document, if insights change, this document should reflect that. It is also the intention that the document serves as a guide for both the current board and future boards. Target audience
SNT has historically always been focused on representing the interests of campus residents and students in the field of ICT, supporting this group and offering IT services to student associations affiliated with the University of Twente (UT). In addition, SNT wants to offer a good learning environment for its active members and to maintain good cooperation with LISA. Active members
SNT is primarily for its active members. They make the association the lively body that it is and SNT's task is to let them get the most out of their efforts. An important part of this is offering a practical learning experience with network management and setting up and maintaining IT services. In addition to the sense of satisfaction that can be drawn from this, SNT is also in a unique position to offer an important sense of meaning: we do not only do SNT for ourselves, but also for the users of campusnet and students in the campus network. general.
But the social part of club life is also important: with the sense of meaning, the sense of belonging to a unique group of people, who work together to improve the IT life on campus and the UT. In order to stimulate the solidarity of the association, lunch is provided weekly, a loft evening is organized every two weeks and social activities are also regularly organized. SNT members are also the first to hear about new IT developments within the association and at the UT through the monthly newsletter.
By continuing to offer these unique activities to active members, SNT must become an attractive association for existing and new active members to commit to and feel at home. Offering a sense of meaning to new members is something SNT will have to work on. It is not always possible for new members to connect with existing projects and committees, which means that we have no challenge besides a sociable association. Working with small projects must ensure that activism becomes more accessible than it is in the current form of committee. This is necessary because recruiting new active members, among other things because of new rules regarding the study and the financing thereof, appears to be more difficult. Students and Campus residents
SNT chooses to serve as a point of contact in the field of ICT for all UT students and campus residents. SNT is familiar with the organization of the UT and can use this knowledge to explain the current procedures to users with ICT questions or quickly refer them to the right UT employee. When SNT signals that the applicable UT policy and the associated procedure conflict with the interests of students or campus residents, SNT can present the identified problems at the right place within the UT organization and promote their interests.
For this target group it is important to know what people can expect from SNT and what they can turn to for SNT. SNT chooses to actively inform users of this by providing information letters with the welcome packages at both the Kick-In and the study enrollment, but also by creating brand awareness by regularly emailing all members with ALV invitations which also include an update on the state of ICT at the UT can be given. SNT also wants to offer its services to individual students, which will stimulate word-of-mouth advertising among students.
With a view to the desired, positive image, SNT chooses to play an educational and informative role towards students and campus residents. We do this by means of a Help Desk, where people can go with all their ICT questions, but also with an Abuse department, with which we point students to their responsibilities on campus network when they have escaped their attention. Help desk
The SNT help desk wants to focus on the following points:
SNT offers high-quality support to end users at the help desk. We want to make optimal use of knowledge from our helpdesks and we choose to automate all tasks that can be (partially) automated - with the ultimate goal of creating (time) space for the helpdesk to provide people with better personal assistance and, where necessary, more intensive service to be.
SNT chooses to be particularly helpful from the help desk. This makes the costs of extra hours deployed subordinate to better customer support.
SNT wants professionalization in terms of agreements, image and communication. Appointments must therefore always be honored and transferred to colleagues with sufficient explanation if necessary. This professional appearance also includes clean work clothes (SNT polo and hoodie), courtesy of the help desk and cleanliness of the help desk counter. Communication from helpdesks must be of a sufficient level. Because the helpdesk employee is a part-time position, lively communication between employees via IRC and regular, periodic meetings to achieve the professional image are of great importance.
SNT does not have the ambition to take over services from the ICTS Service Desk. We want to focus on what we are good at: home connections, wireless network, e-mail and the IT interests of students. In this light, we also want to offer high-quality manuals for each of these services.
SNT does not want to support desktops with non-Windows operating systems, also in the context of the UT-wide policy, on a more formal basis than best-effort. For smartphones and tablets, both Android, iOS and Windows are supported. For other operating systems, best-effort support will be provided upon request, but will not be supported on your own initiative.Abuse
For abuse, SNT sees itself as the helpful family man: when there are problems with students, we want to deal with complaints smoothly and fairly and, above all, to clearly outline the frameworks of what can and cannot be done. We see the internet connections for students as a place where experiments are desirable, but this should not hinder other users. If there is evidence of intentional abuse, we will act hard by closing. For abuse, too, we want to make better use of the knowledge that is present there by automating trivial tasks where possible. Here too, professionalization in the same areas as the help desk (agreements, appearance and communication) is desirable.
Associations
In recent years, SNT has, by offering highly sought-after services at cost price, developed into the de facto standard for IT services for associations affiliated with the UT. Due to the service-oriented nature of our relationship with these associations, SNT often does not have the personal contact and the desired high esteem with these associations, since they only contact SNT for the purpose of problem solving. In addition, associations have an extremely fluid character due to the annual change of the directors of those associations. SNT therefore chooses to no longer focus on expanding its customer base, but on improving and intensifying ties with existing customers. This can take shape, for example, by sending an annual brochure to all customers with which services we offer and what we can do for them in the field of ICT. In this we can also express our knowledge of the UT organization, with which we also establish ourselves as a contact point in the field of ICT for associations.
To bring SNT into this position also with associations, customer contact must be smooth. Requesting, changing and canceling services should not entail unnecessary bureaucratic hassle for associations. SNT must organize its services in such a way that it is possible to respond quickly to the wishes of associations.
LISA
By resolving issues such as students themselves instead of having the UT organization come into contact with students or student associations, the UT is relieved and students are better helped. The services that SNT offers must also have a clear added value compared to what the UT could offer. All this is a reason for the UT to sponsor SNT financially. In addition, a good business relationship with LISA ensures that SNT has the opportunity to experiment with the latest techniques and can provide LISA with valuable information. LISA, on the other hand, can assist SNT in improving its services by providing access to certain network management elements. This shared knowledge and commitment makes SNT indispensable for the UT.
But in addition to pure technical knowledge, SNT can also offer clear added value in public participation opportunities for IT policy. SNT chooses to work as high as possible in the UT organization for the interests of students and associations. We do this, among other things, by actively participating in the ICT student consultation and having a delegate via that body on the newly established IT Board, which advises the Executive Board on the functioning of LISA.
It is essential that the independence of SNT, where participation in ICT issues is concerned at UT level, is guaranteed, despite the complete financial dependence on UT. We have chosen to guarantee this independence in the SUO (SNT-UT agreement). This agreement also stipulates that SNT may hold periodic consultations with various bodies within LISA, both technical and management. It is important not to act purely businesslike during these meetings, but also to invest in the personal relationship with LISA employees. If they know SNT on a personal level and trust them, people will sooner be able to value SNT's expertise and be prepared to offer SNT the space to be innovative. And this space is needed to offer SNT its active members the learning experience they expect from SNT. SNT therefore chooses to invest in the personal relationship with LISA employees, among other things through joint get-togethers during board changes and not to hesitate to talk to employees when they want to discuss something. Services
SNT chooses to offer a number of services to student associations. SNT has traditionally been an association where active members can work on projects, sometimes resulting in a new service. However, before such services are offered to third parties, SNT tries to minimize the management burden. This is to ensure that running these services does not detract from the pleasure that active members have in their active membership. Writing clear, complete documentation and the use of ready-made software where possible is necessary. SNT chooses to only develop its own services if there are no ready-made packages available that meet the requirements or if self-writing has significant benefits in the longer term. With an own design, a low management burden should be one of the starting points. Server park
Just as with its services, SNT chooses to keep the management burden of its server park as low as possible. By means of a virtualization platform - which serves as a backbone for SNT and the services offered by SNT - SNT is given the option of reducing the physical management burden of its server park. To guarantee the continuity of the virtualization platform, it must have high-availability storage, a high-availability database platform and offsite backups at at least two locations.
In order to also reduce the physical management burden for colos of student associations, having colos must be made unattractive. However, this is not possible without offering a fully-fledged and attractive alternative. SNT therefore chooses to strive for free colocation for student associations in its virtualization platform. By making it attractive for student associations to no longer use their physical server, SNT does not have to spend time giving the associations access to the server room.
In addition to the reduced management burden for SNT, the above-mentioned distributed computing solutions also ensure that SNT consumes considerably less energy, something that SNT does not regard as a starting point, but does aspire to be noble.
