EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 1 Pitter & Quiner Copyright Keiko Pitter/Michael Quiner, This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non- commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author."

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta Building the Raft While Going Through the Rapids Keiko Pitter Chief Technology Officer Michael Quiner Director, Administrative Technology

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 3 Pitter & Quiner

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 4 Pitter & Quiner So what’s this presentation about? It’s about implementing a new administrative information system It’s about changes and expectations It’s about team work and communication It’s about our experience at Whitman College…

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 5 Pitter & Quiner population 30, hours from Seattle and Boise 4 hours from Portland WALLA Washington

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EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 9 Pitter & Quiner Governance Structure Board of Trustees President Dean of Faculty Chief Finance Officer Dean of Students Chief Technology Officer Dean of Admission VP of Development

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 10 Pitter & Quiner Legacy System Bi-Tech –Business Office, Payroll Home Grown COBOL System –Admission, Financial Aid, Registrar, Residence Life Manual System –HR, Dean of Faculty Millenium –Development, Alumni Relations Bi-Tech –Business Office, Payroll Home Grown COBOL System –Admission, Financial Aid, Registrar, Residence Life Manual System –HR, Dean of Faculty Millenium –Development, Alumni Relations

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 11 Pitter & Quiner Problems included: Redundant, disorganized structure of database. Inaccuracy in data and information. Difficulty in reporting and sharing of information. Heavy dependence on manual process and human interventions. Difficulty in providing seamless customer service between Financial Aid, the Business Office, and Development. Difficulty complying with the Department of Education and other federal requirements. Heavy dependency on the computing center staff for new reports or changes to the current system. Lacks capacity for process improvements.

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 12 Pitter & Quiner Timeline February 1998 – started the discussion May 1998 – distributed RFP July 1998 – selected finalists July/August 1998 – site visits August 1998 – on-campus demos September 1998 – vendor selected October 1998 – Board of Trustee December 1998 – signed contract

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 13 Pitter & Quiner wcts.whitman.edu/ais/

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 14 Pitter & Quiner Implementation Kickoff Feb 1999

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 15 Pitter & Quiner Systems Implemented … Offices Involved Financial System –Business Office (8.75 FTE) Student System –Registrar (5 FTE) –Admission (16 FTE, mostly admission officers) –Financial Aid (3 FTE) –Residence Life (4 FTE) HR/Payroll System –HR (3 FTE) –Payroll (1.25 FTE) –Office of the Dean of Faculty (2 FTE)

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 16 Pitter & Quiner Reporting Structure

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 17 Pitter & Quiner Initial team organization

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 18 Pitter & Quiner What we ended up.. Admission Task Team Financial Aid Task Team Residence Life Task Team Finance Task Team Registrar Task Team HR/Payroll Task Team Steering Committee Core Team Overseer Committee PROJECT MANAGER Chief Technology Officer

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 19 Pitter & Quiner Walter Froese, Controller Started as a member of the Project Development Committee Occasionally attended Core meetings. Denise Mann Associate Controller Member, Core Team Leader, Financial Task Team Jenny Miles Associate Registrar Member, Core Team Leader, Registrar Task Team Stephanie Johnson Exec Asst to the Dean of Admission Member, Core Team Co-leader, Admission Task Team Tony Cabasco Director of Admission Co-leader, Admission Task Team Mary Luckstead Administrative Assistant, HR Member, HR Task Team Barbara Barlow Programmer/Analyst, WCTS

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 20 Pitter & Quiner Issues during implementation People’s role The Project Manager Challenges and frustrations… Resistance The Chart of Accounts Training Process re-engineering

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 21 Pitter & Quiner “my” role… Walter - Member of the Implementation Project Team Stephanie - Leader of a Task Team, reporting to the Core Team Mary - Member of a Task Team

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 22 Pitter & Quiner the Project Manager wcts.whitman.edu/about/jobs/projmgr.html “The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator” Edward Gibbon

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 23 Pitter & Quiner Challenges… Frustrations…

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 24 Pitter & Quiner Resistance?

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 25 Pitter & Quiner … and the Chart of Accounts

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 26 Pitter & Quiner Training

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 27 Pitter & Quiner Process Re-engineering Stephanie – Admission Office Mary – Human Resources/Dean of Faculty Walter – Payroll and Human Resources

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 28 Pitter & Quiner what else did we do?

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 29 Pitter & Quiner 8/16/99 Personnel module LIVE 1/4/00 Payroll module LIVE 2/16/00Admission module LIVE 3/6/00Faculty Information module LIVE 3/28/00Curricular Management module LIVE 3/31/00 Residence Life module LIVE

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 30 Pitter & Quiner 4/3/00 Academic Records module LIVE 4/3/00Student Accounts module LIVE 4/14/00 WebAdvisor LIVE 4/17/00Registration module LIVE 6/30/00Financial module LIVE 9/14/00Campus Organization module LIVE

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 31 Pitter & Quiner 9/25/2000 Director of Administrative Technology suddenly left the college 11/15/00 Contract for the ½-time Project Manager ended 9/27/00Financial Aid module LIVE 11/8/00Degree Audit module LIVE

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 32 Pitter & Quiner November, 2000 – IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETED

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 33 Pitter & Quiner IMPLEMENTATION: What did we do right? Top level support Workable team/committee structure Adequate budget –A “competent” Project Manager –On-campus training sessions Plenty of time for implementation (from IT point of view)

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 34 Pitter & Quiner IMPLEMENTATION: What could we have done better? A “full time” competent Project Manager (more money) A permanent resident expert (on-going money) Off-campus training for core staff (exposure to other institutions) More time for implementation (from end-user point of view) Celebrate at the “appropriate” time and “appropriately”

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 35 Pitter & Quiner 01/01/2001 Mike Quiner joined the team as the new Director of Administrative Technology 01/01/2001 Mike Quiner joined the team as the new Director of Administrative Technology

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 36 Pitter & Quiner Post implementation issues Challenges Addressing those challenges Good things… The importance of communication

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 37 Pitter & Quiner Post-implementation challenges?

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 38 Pitter & Quiner How did you address challenges? wcts.whitman.edu/ais/duck/

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 39 Pitter & Quiner wcts.whitman.edu/ais/duck/

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 40 Pitter & Quiner Notice anything good since the implementation?

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 41 Pitter & Quiner The importance of communication

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 42 Pitter & Quiner POST-IMPLEMENTATION: What did we do right? Kept on paddling! Taking the system one step beyond (e.g. customization, Web) DUCK (continual training) Hosting the regional users’ meeting (exposure to other institutions and peers)

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 43 Pitter & Quiner POST-IMPLEMENTATION: Things we could have done (and still could do and are doing) Celebrating at “appropriate” times and appropriately Re-instituting the “core team” meetings Locating experts on advanced use and providing more advanced training/consulting

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 44 Pitter & Quiner Final remarks?

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 45 Pitter & Quiner KEIKO MIKE

EDUCAUSE 2002, Atlanta 46 Pitter & Quiner wcts.whitman.edu/ais/ wcts.whitman.edu/ais/duck wcts.whitman.edu/ais/ wcts.whitman.edu/ais/duck