1. Using Metrics to Drive Research Administration Performance
NCURA Annual Meeting
November 2012
Marcia Smith, Associate Vice Chancellor, Research Administration, UCLA
Patti Manheim, OCGA Director, Research Administration, UCLA
Elizabeth H. Adams, Executive Director, Office for Sponsored Research, Northwestern University, Evanston Campus
Nate Haines, Senior Director, Higher Education Consulting, Huron Consulting Group

2. Agenda Introduction Benefits of Metrics Developing Metrics
Determine Metrics to Track
Collecting Metrics
Discussion (All)

3. Introductions

4. Benefit of Metrics

5. Benefit of Metrics Metrics Drive Performance Support Investments
Change Behavior
Drive Performance
Support Investments

6. Benefits of Metrics Drive Performance
Motivate teams to achieve desired outcomes
Increasing transparency can trigger positive culture changes and improve outcomes.
Using metrics to monitor business processes improves accountability so high performers can be recognized and bottlenecks addressed.
Define business processes and responsibilities
Implementing metrics requires an organization to identify its desired outputs resulting in defined business processes.
Use of metrics helps identify operational bottlenecks which can be a result of personnel having varied understandings of processes, roles and responsibilities.
Monitor the impact of new processes
As new processes are implemented, metrics provide confirmation that the change is working.
Easily identify bottlenecks
Help motivate team
Ex. Faster payment of clinical trial invoices is achieved by developing a process for tracking and follow-up of A/R.
You cannot manage what you cannot measure….and what gets measured gets done – United Quote.

7. Benefits of Metrics Change Behavior Manage stakeholder expectations
Metrics enable clear communication of process goals and current status to stakeholders.
Concrete information enables stakeholders to determine whether their needs are being met.
If an institution sets reasonable and clear goals which are communicated then customer perception of performance can improve simply through a better understanding.
Evaluate staff performance
Metrics allow leadership to objectively track staff contributions both individually and collectively against operational goals.
With metrics, personnel know their assessments are objective, why they are receiving their assessments, and how to improve them.

8. Benefits of Metrics
Support Investments in Research Administration Infrastructure:
Improve decision making and prioritization
Metrics provide leadership with insights as to where attention and resources are needed.
Concrete information improves decision-making and allows managers to better understand and identify opportunities to improve compliance, financial management, and operational performance.

9. Developing Metrics

10. Identify Greatest Opportunity
Operational Performance
Turnaround times
Workload Distribution
Compliance Management
Cost transfers
Effort Reporting
Expiring Protocols
Financial/Cost Management
Timeliness of financial reporting
Bottlenecks
Outstanding collections
Write-offs
Customer Perception
Turnaround Times
Taking a focused approach will allow you to more quickly implement successful, lasting, and measureable improvements

11. UCLA Case Study
Pre-Award Metrics
Post-Award Metrics

12. UCLA Case Study

13. Determine Metrics to Track?

14. Pre-Award Metrics Area Metric Proposal Submission
Average days complete submission received before deadline, missing/incomplete proposals, detailed metrics
Proposals/Awards Submission
Number and $$ of proposals/awards, detailed metrics by categories
Award Set-Up
Timeline for central office(s) to process set-up*
Award Set-up
Timeline for receipt of award document to financial account activation
Award/Outgoing Subcontract Execution
Timeline with central office
Timeline with internal Departments, Principal Investigator, Sponsor, Subrecipient
Advance Accounts
Number and how long they have been open

15. Proposal Submission
Add proposal submission – what are the bottlenecks – Why are proposals submitted so close to the deadline?

16. Award Intake Process (Pilot)
Award Set-Up
Award Intake Process (Pilot)
Turnaround time for Expedited Awards has improved by over 80% during the award setup pilot
Talking Points:
1. Business process change to establish an intake team.
2. Operational improvement and customer perception
3. Bottleneck – ended up being the COI forms.

17. Award Intake Process (Current)
Award Set-Up
Award Intake Process (Current)
Full implementation January 2012
Award setup has slowed for expedited awards, but is still 65% faster than previous processing timeline

18. Award Setup (Current) New process has identified hold-ups
Shaping policy and procedure decisions
Awards processed 6 days faster when all internal documents are present

19. Post-Award Metrics Area Metric Letter of Credit Number and $ of draws
$ unbilled
$ in LOC Clearing Account(s)
Invoicing
Monthly unbilled number and $
Monthly billed number and $
Accounts Receivable
Number and $ in aging buckets 30/60/90/120+ days
Overdrafts
Number and $ in aging buckets for overspent accounts
Closeout
Awards open 120+ days past end date
Cost Transfers
Number submitted/approved less than 90 or 90+days

20. Post-Award Metrics Area Metric Financial Reporting
Monthly number submitted
Monthly percentage submitted on time
Monthly number past due (i.e. backlog)
Cash Application
Number and $ of payments sitting in holding accounts
Bad Debt
Number and $ of write-offs
Effort Reporting
Number and % certified on time
Number and % outstanding
Number and % certified by PI or individual
Number of recertifications

21. On-Time Submission On-time submission increased by 35% for Invoices
On-time submission increased by 48% for Reports, from a low of 14% at the start of FY10
Marcia

22. Backlog – Invoices and Reports
Backlogs have decreased by 64% since the start of FY10

23. Collecting Metrics

24. Collecting Metrics Things to consider: Audience for metrics
Identify Opportunities
Determine Metrics to track
Identify systems to deliver outputs
Analyze output to ensure integrity
Things to consider:
Audience for metrics
Effectiveness of metrics is greatly affected by the selection of recipients who will be reviewing the metrics.
Wrong metrics or wrong audience diminishes the value of the metrics.
Data integrity
Is the data that you are using to populate the metrics accurate?
Is the correct logic being used?
Establish standardized processes for entering data
Interpretation of data
Are assumptions being made?
Know what each data field means; develop a data dictionary

25. Discussion