Led by IS&T’s vice president, John Charles, the ambitious reorganization began in February 2015 and aims to spur innovation through agile software development practices adopted from industry. Charles emphasizes that this is not a typical reorganization, but rather a complete transformation of MIT’s IT department.
Meanwhile, a number of current and former employees say the transformation has fallen short of improving the organization, and has instead created considerable turmoil in the work environment. This has resulted in roughly 20 percent of nearly 300 staff members leaving since February, instead of the average 8 or 9 percent annual turnover.