Project Management and Transformation Teams

The size, scope, and complexity of the transformation initiatives require that we take an organized and planful approach to how we do our work to ensure that we can gain alignment across institutions and functions, collaborate among different functional teams, and meet our Transformation objectives and deadlines.

We are not simply adding more resources to what we are already doing, we are seeking to fundamentally change how we do things, implementing best practices from across our system and beyond, and streamlining our systems to ensure an education that is high quality, affordable, accessible and inclusive, relevant, and innovative, now and into the future.

Scope of Transformation

As we were creating Vermont State University and beginning administrative consolidation across both the new university and the Community College of Vermont, we focused on four different core process areas. In the first two areas, Student Experience and Academic Operations we were looking to bring together the programs and processes of three different institutions and re-engineer how we provide education and services to students. In contrast, the core processes related to Administrative Operations and Workforce Development were those that stretched across both Vermont State University and the Community College of Vermont.

Core processes of Transformation. It consists of four lists. The first is student experience. The list under student experience is as follows 1 Admissions 2 Financial Aid 3 Registrar 4 Marketing and branding 5 student and resident life 6 athletics 7 alumni and development end of list the next list is academic operations and is as follows 1 academic programs 1 a program array 1 b scheduling 1 c policies 2 advising and academic support 3 career services 4 teaching and learning 5 libraries end list. Next list  is Administrative operations and the list is as follows 1 facilities planning and management 2 business affairs and finance 3 Information technology services 4 human resources 5 procurement 6 legal and compliance end list. The fourth and final list is workforce development and is as follows 1 industry engagement 2 C E Program portfolio 3 customized training and apprenticeships 4 registration and student operations end list. end image.

In the fall of 2022, these teams were updated to better reflect the organization of VTSU and VSCS. The structure now looks like the following:

Transformation Team Structure graphic with the new structure. it shows that new student experience, student success, and academic programs are under VTSU stakeholders that are under the sponsor, VTSU president. The sub teams under new student experience are 1 admissions and enrollment, 2 brand launch and marketing, 3 financial aid operations. the sub teams under student success are 1 athletics, 2 students and residence life, 3 advising academic support and ADA, 4 career service. the sub teams under Academic programs are 1 program optimization/governance, 2 general education, 3 institutional research, 4 teaching and learning innovation, 5 registrar and scheduling operations.

Project Management Process

Given the urgency of Transformation, the temptation was for each team to jump in and begin designing and building things based on some combination of how things were being done at each of the legacy institutions. That type of process is not transformative and would likely perpetuate inconsistencies and inefficiencies. To combat this temptation, all the sub-teams and project teams used a five stage project management process to ensure adequate discovery about how our programs, services, and supporting processes and systems should be designed and developed in a consistent and effective way. At the conclusion of each stage, there is a Gate Meeting where the teams present to sponsors and stakeholders a summary of their work with their recommendations, and sponsors approve them to move forward.

The image below describes the core work teams are engaged in at each stage.

This is a graphic with arrows indicating the five stages that the projects will go through. The arrows are all pointing towards the right. The first arrow saws discovery. Under the arrow is additional text that says What is working? Was is not working? What are best practices? end text. The next arrow says Design.  Under that arrow is text that reads Details about services, processes, and systems needed end text. The next arrow says Development and under it is text that reads Build, adapt, and modify programs, systems, and processes to match design end text. The next arrow says Launch and under it is text that reads Roll out and provide training and support for new processes, systems, and tools end text. The next and final arrow says Review and the text under it reads Evaluate the process and results. Plan for additional improvements and optimizations. end text. end description

Project Governance

For Transformation to progress smoothly, it is important to have clarity on how the teams are structured and how decisions are made. The project sponsors are accountable for the progress and success of Transformation, but they do not have the capacity or knowledge to do the work alone. They must rely on the experience and expertise of the teams to ensure that the resulting programs, services, processes and systems meet the needs of students and are aligned with our operational processes and systems. Here are the key governance principles:

  • Project sponsors set vision and priorities and make decisions about plans to move forward
  • Core teams plan, coordinate, and oversee the work within their core process area and make recommendations to the Sponsors
  • The work of Design and Development is delegated to the sub-teams and project teams to ensure it is closely aligned with operational processes, systems, and student needs
  • Stakeholders ensure plans align with functional priorities and identify linkages and dependencies across projects
A graph made up of four rectangles. The top rectangle is large, going from one side of the image to the other. It is blue. In it are the words Project Sponsors (Chancellor and council of presidents). It is connected to two rectangles below it with two way arrows. The first rectangle is orange with the words Core Teams )(Core Lead and Sub-Team leads/representatives). The second rectangle is purple and says Stakeholders (Provosts, Deans of Enrollment, VSC CFO, CIO). These two rectangles are also connected to each other with a two way arrow and are side by side. At the bottom of the image is a final large rectangle that is green and says Sub-Teams and Project Teams (Leads and Institution and functional representatives, project-level, functional experts). This green rectangle is connected to the orange core teams rectangle and the purple stakeholders rectangle by two way arrows. All of this is to show that each level is communicating with the others. end description.

Timeline

With an initiative of this scope, it is not possible for all projects to progress through the process at the same time and at the same speed. The Student Experience and Academic Operations Teams got off to the earliest start because the launch of Vermont State University is dependent on the completion of their work. Within those core processes areas, the sub-teams have created projects relates to the programs, processes, and services within their scope. These projects are then moving through the project management processes on a schedule that matches their priority, urgency, and the dependency they have on other projects. Here is a high-level overview of the schedule, including the Administrative Operations and Workforce Development Teams.

graphic of the transformation projects timeline. along the top it is broken up into the academic year. Listed are AY 2021-2022, AY 2022-2023, AY 2023-2024, AY 2024-2025. Along the bottom every third  month is listed. right now the timeline indicates that the projects are in the beginning of AY 2022-2023 in mid-June. The projects listed on the timeline are broken into four groups and the project are in one of five stages: 1 discovery, 2 design, 3 development, 4 launch, 5 review. The first group is student experience in green. Project brand launch/marketing is currently in the beginning of stage 4 launch. project admissions are currently in the end of stage 3 development. project financial aid is in the beginning of stage 3 development. project registrar is at the end of stage 2 design. project athletic/fitness is currently at the end of stage 2 design. project student/residence life is currently in the end of stage 2 design. the second group is academic operations in blue. project academic programs/scheduling/catalog is currently in the beginning of stage 3 development. project advising/academic support/ADA/career development is currently in the end of stage 2 design. project teaching and learning innovation are currently piloting face to face and is in the very beginning of doing so in stage 3 development. projects library and general education/connections are both in the end of stage 2 design. group three is administrative operations in maroon. Its projects IT and facilities  and operations/processing are all at the very end of stage 2 design and just starting stage 3 development. the other three projects are business planning/administration, employee services, and alumni/development are all in the middle of stage 2 design. group four is workforce development and all three of its projects are just finishing stage one discovery and beginning stage 2 design. Its three projects are 1 communication/engagement/customer development, 2 systems improvement and integration, and 3 program development and student services.