Administrative Process Redesign moves forward

The campus’s grassroots effort to build better administrative practices and systems is on schedule and preparing to reach out nationally to see how other universities have faced the same challenges.

“We’re not alone in dealing with some of these administrative issues, and we felt it was important to see what other universities have done to either reform systems and identify what is and isn’t working on their campuses,” says Alice Gustafson, leader of the Administrative Process Redesign (APR) project.

Plans to have designated project team members make visits to five other universities in coming weeks have been approved. The universities include the University of Minnesota, Michigan State University, the University of Washington, Cornell University and the University of California–San Diego.

The schools were chosen because of the variety of their efforts. For example, Washington has excelled in change management training and partnering with labor unions to make its work successful. UC–San Diego is recognized for how it has structured its project and for its technical solutions and business models.

The site visits were recommended by the project’s Research and Data Analysis Team to help keep UW–Madison’s project up-to-date on other successful projects.

“These visits will help us build a network of contacts, give us a read on what’s worked elsewhere, and how they’ve dealt with problems along the way,” Gustafson says.

Developing more efficient ways for the campus to conduct business — built from the ground up with employee involvement —is the aim of the APR project.

The project will identify and develop new ways to provide services to the campus in the areas such as human resources, information technology, grants administration, other business functions and possibly facilities issues in academic units.

About 120 employees from across the campus are working in teams to identify and analyze dozens of university business practices. Gustafson says project teams are on schedule to select and prioritize processes in need of change by the end of December.

They hope to present their recommendations to deans sometime in January.

Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell and Gustafson say the project is off to a strong and productive start.

“It’s a way to step back and make sure that the basic administrative processes we’re using across campus are delivered efficiently, with a high quality of service and leveraging the available technologies,” Bazzell says.

Both Bazzell and Gustafson say the project is designed to encourage broad participation and the sharing of ideas. For more information on the project and the work of the various teams, visit Administrative Process Redesign.

“We’ve made a commitment to operate this project in a way that’s transparent, that’s inclusive, and in a way that respects the campus culture and allows everyone to participate,” Bazzell says.

About 400 people attended forums in October aimed at updating the campus on the progress of the project. Organizers plan to hold a series of periodic forums on a variety of different topics to keep the campus updated on the project.

Gustafson says the teams have been charged with capturing an inventory of processes in their designated areas. In one case, that inventory is 11 pages long.

Their work, in turn, is reviewed by “feedback groups.”

“We have 90 people who are involved with our project as feedback groups that check on the work that the teams are doing,” Gustafson says. “We wanted to make sure that we took time to check our work with campus, and that’s where the feedback groups come in.”

Although the project — which began last spring — is running on schedule, the project’s work is far from completion. Once processes have been tagged for change, the teams will work to redesign them and develop models that will show how the services will be delivered.

The project’s first stage is expected to take up to three years, followed by a two-year implementation stage, Gustafson says.