Marian Ford EDHE 6710 Dr. Baier

 Collegial Institution  Founded in 1890 by Methodist Episcopal Church  Established downtown campus in 1997 for School of Law  Fall 2008/Spring 2009 enrollment = 3202/2886  Programs include: dual enrollment high school program, eight graduate programs, law school  IT system used = Colleague or Datatel

 The enrollment is relatively small.  Consensus and shared power are emphasized with a common commitment, and leadership emphasizes consultation and collective responsibilities between the administrators and faculty.  There is informal communication and interaction. The system is very democratic in design and all administrators and faculty are considered equal.  The institution emphasizes thoroughness and deliberation.  Persons in the leadership positions are expected to influence without coercion and must establish trust and create customs that the institution can embrace.

 Overall lack of organization and decision-making regarding IT centered projects and issues  Only 3 programmers existed with no departmental or modular specialization.  There was no established training or documentation regarding procedures and upgrades in system.  No core group and no chain of command regarding workflow and project priority were established.

 Bottleneck created in IT department slows down efficiency and completion of current projects.  Consultants and training are needed because additional unnecessary costs and time were created.  Data integrity is not being upheld; processes are not being documented or followed.  There is a lack of strategic decision-making process for IT projects; this process is essential to the improvement of the University.  There is an overall lack of communication between departments ; this communication is vital to University success.

 Organizational chart complete with hierarchy created  New Chief Information Officer hired to oversee entire IT department  Additional Datatel programmer and other essential IT staff hired  Business Process Management Team created  Strategic Business Plans required for all IT projects  Datatel consultants brought on campus to provide training instruction and suggestions

PROBLEM 1 ADMINISTRATIVE CHALLENGE  Deciding on the specific programmer to be assigned to each department, based on knowledge base, specialty and pre-existing relationship  Cross-training at some level with programmers in case of turnover; monitoring of documentation  Still need chain of command and chart to illustrate the specific programmer that each department reports to  Need to eliminate bottleneck and accumulation of work assigned to each programmer

PROBLEM 2 ADMINISTRATIVE CHALLENGE  More training required because of high rate of turnover  Documentation responsibility needs to be instituted  In-house training vs. outside training, cost/benefit analysis and consultant needed to evaluate which departments require high level of training  Is IT primarily responsible for monitoring how current documentation is?

PROBLEM 3PROBLEM 3 CONTD.  Communication problems exist about decision-making; there is a lack of understanding of IT needs by BPMT.  Core Team should be created.  Membership needs to be expanded in Business Process Management Team (BPMT) because not all departments are represented.  Quick resolution with IT issues are non existent.

ADMINISTRATIVE CHALLENGE  Who should be included in BPMT? Too large a team will make for inefficient and fast decision-making body.  Duplication of members on new team and BPMT  There is a need to identify power users in system in order to create the new team.  Who does the new CORE team report to?

CHANGES PROPOSEDRATIONALE  There should be four Datatel programmers responsible for workload and inquiries should be assigned by departments.  Only designated person from each department should submit request and inquiries.  Projects that require more than 10 hours of IT work must submit project plan to Administrators Systems Director.  Bottleneck is occurring if all requests go through same programmer; programmer becomes specialized and more efficient in area.  Programmers should not be deciding priority of IT projects; projects need to go through BPMT.  Partnership and opportunity for training is created between programmer and manager of department.

CHANGES PROPOSEDRATIONALE  Central server or drive needed for documentation of Datatel procedures, training materials, updated manuals, etc.  Manager of each department should be responsible for ensuring updates and included in evaluation of job duties.  Time and costs will be saved when departments are cross- trained and documentation exists for work-flow.  Repeated mistakes and questions will be eliminated.  Resource will be available for resolutions and research.

CHANGES PROPOSEDRATIONALE  Need to evaluate membership of BPMT to ensure that all relevant departments are represented.  Create Core Team with members who have intimate working knowledge of system.  BPMT does not meet regularly enough to ensure quick resolution to IT problems.  BPMT does not have valid department members who are involved daily with issues in system.

 Core data is the information that the institution relies on to complete business processes.  Team should provide direction for institution regarding how to handle data in the system.  Data is shared between departments with those who work daily in system and understand ramification of projects and procedural changes.

 Mission needs to be created.  Ensure data integrity  Establish, document, and provide standard procedures  Create a forum for all academic and administrative departments to form consensus on data standards, communication and projects  Recommend and develop documentation for training of employees

 All members should be representatives of respective departments on BPMT but also should be power users with working knowledge of system.  Core team needs to meet weekly and upon demand to make decisions about issues.  All unresolved issues should be referred to BPMT for resolution.  Core team should be smaller than BPMT for efficiency; team can call on experts for specific help.

 Creation of Team with intimate working knowledge of system  Smaller, more efficient decision-making team  Power users of system that meets to identify and solve issues quickly  Helps Resolutions to Problems 1 and 2 work more effectively

 Birnbaum, Robert (1988). How Colleges Work: The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.