Business Challenge
Transforming Solutions, Inc. (TSI) was engaged by a southern flagship institution to ensure that appropriate mechanisms were in place to meet the needs of the University community for the modernization of its student information systems, which included the four University institutions. The project was driven by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in collaboration with the other three campus CIOs.
To support the broader priorities of the CIO for improvement across IT Services and the University, a Portfolio Management Office (PMO) was established. TSI, in collaboration with the PMO team, was tasked with training and mentoring the PMO staff in business process improvement (BPI) methodologies. Additionally, TSI spearheaded the process improvement initiatives across the four campuses to assess the current state of readiness for change, opportunities for improvement, pain points, requirements for a new student system, and collect data about student, staff, faculty, and administrator experience across the four institutions through constituent experience sessions.
TSI’s Approach and Role
Approach
To accomplish the identified goals, TSI engaged in the following:
BPI Training and Mentoring
TSI was asked to provide in-depth training in TSI’s BPI methodology. With varied experience levels of PMO staff, TSI chose to implement its’ I DO, WE DO, YOU DO approach to training and mentoring. This approach provides a deep dive exploration of the 6 steps of the methodology followed by hands-on implementation of the concepts learned. It also allowed each individual in training to progress at their own pace. With the I DO phase, the TSI facilitation team led the facilitation and documentation of the current state, analysis of current state, and future state sessions and developed the deliverables for each session. The facilitators-in-training observed the methodology in action during the I DO sessions and reviewed the process of creating and finalizing the deliverables.
In the WE DO phase, facilitators-in-training were actively part of the facilitation team for current state, analysis of current state, and future state sessions as well as for the development of deliverables for each process area. Collaborating with the TSI facilitation team, the facilitators-in-training took the lead with mentoring, guidance, and feedback as needed. Once a desired level of competencies were achieved and communicated, the individual continued to the YOU DO phase. In the YOU DO phase, each mentee took the lead for the facilitation team for all stages of the process improvement and developed the deliverables independently with review and feedback from the TSI team. TSI was present to provide feedback and assistance as needed. For each session, pre-session planning and post-session debriefing meetings were held to share best practices for preparing for process improvement and gathering feedback about implementation of the methodology and engagement with stakeholders. Additionally, for each WE DO and YOU DO session, verbal feedback and written feedback in the form of a rubric with comments were provided to each individual. The rubric included competencies such as preparedness, meeting management, methodology implementation, and soft skills. Competency development was rated with the following scale with detailed feedback for each:
- Exceptional – ready for next phase, shows full development of competencies, no further need for co- support
- Proficient – Evidencing growth and development of competencies, may need more co- support but showing strong progression.
- Developing – not ready for next phase, needs to receive feedback and mentoring for further development, still needs co- support.
BPI Train-the-Trainer
Once each PMO staff member evidenced mastery of each competency for BPI development, they were engaged to serve in a collaborative role with other mentees, observing, co-facilitating, and providing constructive feedback. Additionally, they were engaged to facilitate the training presentations for different topics to staff within the PMO, IT Services, or other stakeholders across the University. To modify and evolve the training content, PMO staff collaborated with TSI to add relevant examples, develop case study content, and track delivery. Each mentee received feedback, suggestions, and coaching throughout their trainer development.
Process Improvement Sessions
TSI created a visual representation of business processes that identified the stakeholders responsible for the process, to what standard it should be completed, and how the success of each process should be determined for critical entities with direct influence into the Student System: Recruiting and Admissions, Student Records, Student Accounts, and Financial Aid. These student-focused units were assessed independently at each of the four institutions to document the similarities and differences of the current state business processes.
As part of the I DO, WE DO, and YOU DO phases of BPI training, Business Process Analysts (BPA) worked collaboratively with TSI team members to manage the process work in order to appropriately plan for, staff, and map out processes for all functional areas across the University that worked with the current student system. This included all functional areas that touched Recruiting and Admissions, Student Records, Student Accounts, and Financial Aid such as Athletics, Bursar, Financial Aid, Registrar, Advising, International programs, the Graduate School, and others. After a pilot phase of process improvement through the current state, analysis of current state, and future state, the University decided to expand process improvement to all four campuses. This decision was intended to align system requirements and processes across all four campuses to align needs for a new system and ensure all campuses needs were met.
By using real processes, the PMO staff were able to gain hands-on experience of the intricacies involved and flexibility needed in processing mapping. 350 processes were mapped across four campuses with two deliverables (current state process map and analysis of the current state document) produced for each process area.
| Institution | Processes Mapped | Sessions Held |
| Institution 1 | 191 | 47 |
| Institution 2 | 30 | 17 |
| Institution 3 | 49 | 14 |
| Institution 4 | 80 | 28 |
| Total | 350 | 100 |
As BPA’s mastered the needed competencies for independent process improvement, they took over leadership of process improvement for the PMO. After completion of the training initiative and the process improvement initiative across the four campuses, the PMO had 13 fully trained staff members to lead process improvement. Six of these staff members were designated as BPAs and continued process improvement projects throughout other departments on campus. The other 7 trainees had either switched roles or had continued on as trained project managers. Some metrics that were collected throughout the process improvement sessions included the total number of: pain points, opportunities for improvement, participating stakeholders, processes, and sessions held.
Stemming from the 350 process improvement sessions, constituent experience sessions, and supplemental requirements gathering sessions, 1119 unique requirements were gathered to support the broader system selection project.
Constituent Experience and Voice of the Customer
In order to assess readiness for change, capture unique needs of campus constituents, and understand the experience of faculty, staff, students, and community members using the existing student system, the University requested that TSI conduct Continuous Improvement Constituent Experience and Voice of the Customer sessions across the four institutions. TSI team members partnered with University staff members to facilitate and document these sessions and analyze the data collected as a result. University staff members were trained in the methodology for both facilitation and documentation. Some of the data surrounding these experience sessions included total number of: student participants, faculty, staff, and community participants, sessions held, unique requirements from each session, and existing requirements that emerged but already identified in another session.
| Campus | Student Group | # of Students | Sessions Held |
| Institution 1 | Undergraduate | 15 | 4 |
| Institution 2 | Undergraduate | 27 | 4 |
| Institution 3 | Undergraduate | 4 | 2 |
| Institution 4 | Undergraduate | 19 | 5 |
| Institution 4 | Graduate | 5 | 2 |
| Institution 4 | Vet School | 1 | 1 |
| Institution 4 | Law School | 4 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 75 | 19 |
| Campus | # of Faculty/Staff/Community members | Sessions Held |
| Institution 1 | 37 | 5 |
| Institution 2 | 30 | 5 |
| Institution 3 | 18 | 6 |
| Institution 4 | 55 | 11 |
| TOTAL | 140 | 27 |
| Requirements Origination | # of Requirements |
| New requirements emerged in the Student Experience Sessions | 45 |
| New requirements emerged in the Community Experience Sessions | 13 |
| Existing requirements that were discussed in the Student and Community Experience Sessions but were already documented in the master requirements database and other overlapping requirements | 87 |
| Total requirements identified in Student and Community Experience sessions | 145 |
Role
TSI led training and mentoring in Business Process Improvement (BPI) and constituent experience. TSI served as a project manager and lead for the BPI mapping initiatives and constituent experience sessions across the four University institutions. TSI served as a facilitator, documenter, lead trainer, mentor, and evaluator.
Results
Throughout the engagement data was gathered to support progress toward goals, effective implementation of methods, measure outcomes, and evidence a return on investment. Some of this data included:
- 20 individuals received deep dive training and mentoring in TSI’s Business Process Improvement methodology
- 13 individuals successfully mastered all competencies of the Business Process Improvement training and mentoring initiative evidencing mastery of facilitation, documentation, deliverable creation, and stakeholder engagement
- 6 individuals complete the train-the-trainer developmental coaching and now serve in the training role for the PMO
- Detailed feedback and coaching was provided and tracked for 20 PMO BPI mentees and train-the-trainers to ensure visibility and transparency of competency development
- 350 processes were mapped for the current state and analyzed collaboratively with TSI and BPI trained PMO process mapping analysts
- 46 Constituent Experience sessions were held across the four campuses
- 145 unique requirements were gathered from the Constituent Experience sessions
- 1119 unique student lifecycle requirements were gathered throughout the duration of this project across the four institutions
- Metric tracking was established to monitor total numbers of: pain points, opportunities for improvement, participating stakeholders, processes, and sessions held.
- Methods for tracking business processes and desired metrics that were developed with TSI for this project continued to be used for the PMO internal work within the PMO after completion of the project