Abstract
In an eight month period, the Computing and Network Services Department of the University of Alberta formulated a strategic plan and at the same time downsized and reorganized to meet financial constraints and to react to changing technology, especially distributed computing. Since then, the department has also picked up momentum to implement some large campus-wide projects.The circumstances that led to the metamorphosis of our organization seem to be common to many institutions. We describe the process used to accomplish the changes (involving senior University administration, users, and staff) and how it provided a smooth transition to a new department that is able to react to new technology trends and user requirements.We hope that other organizations will be able to profit from and build on our work. We have also learned from changes that occurred in other university computing organizations and are very grateful to other authors for having shared their experiences.