Introduction and Generalized Project Framework

I. INTRODUCTION

In the University Initiatives Fund (UIF) preproposal process, the Executive Vice President, along with various campus partners, sponsored four entries for consideration by the UIF Review Committee:

• Human Resources - HEPPS Improvements/Employee Assistance Program
• Streamline the University of Washington Grant and Contract Process
• Goods and Services Acquisitions
• Automated Travel Expense System

Following recommendations by the UIF Review Committee, the Acting Provost selected the four preproposals to advance to the full proposal stage of the UIF competition. As initially conceived, these four candidates for UIF funding share several common themes and project similarities with one another. The goal of each is to substantially improve critical University-wide services with resulting positive impacts on large segments of the campus educational and/or research communities. The project structure of each includes a high level oversight committee responsible for project schedule and budget, as well as critical decision-making authority. Additionally, each project utilizes process improvement teams, consisting of a broad cross section of campus users, having the responsibility for identifying campus needs and information requirements and for making recommendations to the oversight committee. Finally, each project employs an identical technological approach to implementing the information systems objectives.

Given these parallel themes and project similarities, it was quite logical that one of the comments coming out of the preproposal review process would suggest that the Executive Vice President "explore possible merger" of the individual preproposal submissions. Taking that suggestion very seriously and after much discussion and careful evaluation, we have concluded that consolidating the individual proposals into a single project framework, with one oversight committee and a flexible priority-setting and scheduling mechanism, is not only possible but, in many ways more efficient. For example, this approach will result in a common set of software tools which will enable application developers of all service systems to realize efficiencies and provide consistent interfaces for campus departments, thereby substantially reducing training and support costs. In addition, the unique (and high cost) skill sets required to build the necessary infrastructure can be shared across multiple projects.

Some research Universities have made the decision to pursue $30-$60 million dollar solutions to their service systems problems. However, given current web technology developments, we believe this would not be the right path to take now, even if the University had these millions to spend. We remain convinced that the life expectancy and the responsiveness of our central service systems can be extended appreciably through the effective use of these new and emerging web-based technologies. However, transforming the University’s service systems is not a simple task, nor can it be done quickly. A long-term institutional commitment will be necessary.

This document attempts to offer a common framework within which these and perhaps future service process improvement efforts could be conducted. This proposal is intended to provide information sufficient to evaluate the feasibility and advisability of this consolidated approach. In addition, there is available a set of Appendices which delineate more detailed information about the four individual project components, including scope, objectives, deliverables and benefits as well as the technology infrastructure component. While a departure from the earlier project-by-project UIF submittal, this is not an attempt to combine all four proposals into one submission; but rather, it is intended simply to provide a description of how we might take advantage of the commonality within the projects and optimize efforts to improve campus service systems. In fact, attempting to execute all four project proposals simultaneously is not realistic since many of the same critical staff resources are required for each. Within the technological infrastructure framework described in this proposal, the suggested priorities are provided below:

1. Human Resources - Payroll process and the Employee Assistance Program are considered key components of the University's Human Resource functions. In addition, any failure in the payroll process would have serious consequences. Because this complex process and associated systems have narrowly averted major mishaps on several occasions in recent years, and because of the labor intensive nature of its current requirements, it is critical for the University to identify and implement significant improvements.
2. Streamlining the UW Grant and Contract Process - Annually, the University receives hundreds of millions of dollars for research. The grant and contract process is the facilitating vehicle through which these funds are obtained and expended. The process is severely strained by increasing complexity and growing program volumes. Significant changes will improve the efficiency of those dependent upon this process, enhance support for our research, and allow us to take advantage of current federal efforts to promote electronic exchange.
3. Goods and Services Acquisitions - Managing and tracking acquisitions is unduly complicated at the University. Simplifying the process, improving controls and adding new features will make it easier for departments to purchase needed goods and services. The management of chemical purchasing and disposal in coordination with EH&S as described in this proposal would help improve one major and costly element in our purchasing system at the University.
4. Automated Travel Expense System - The current, and mostly manual, travel reimbursement process contains unnecessary costs and delays. The objectives of automating the process would be to provide cost, time and labor saving benefits for UW travelers and the staff who support them.

Underlying all four of the preproposal submissions was the concept of a common information technology infrastructure - a foundation using standard technologies, the campus network, software communications to existing central systems and web-based technologies to provide a user friendly means for departments to collect and enter information into campus systems and to access and retrieve information from those same systems (Enclosure #1). However, the goal is not to simply automate our current business practices. Rather, the objective is to radically rethink how we can significantly improve the way we conduct business in light of new technologies.

This consolidated proposal separates the design and construction of the technology infrastructure from each of the four preproposal submissions. Constructing the technology infrastructure is a prerequisite to completing the systems necessary to accomplish the individual project objectives. The intent is to create an infrastructure that provides a generic framework for providing much needed information tools and features to departments, not only for these four specific service areas, but also other campus business processes where improved data acquisition and data dissemination will be required in the future to improve institutional effectiveness and productivity (Enclosure #2).

A major requirement for success in developing this technology infrastructure element is the ability of central administrative offices, in cooperation with users, to significantly change and/or eliminate current business process requirements. All project participants will need to be mindful of three specific goals as they attempt to convert the University’s support services to an information based environment which is much more responsive to institutional/client needs: 1) provide comprehensive collection, storage and retrieval of transactional and management information needed by all levels of the institution and external entities; 2) simplify the processes by which data collection and access to information are currently performed; and 3) identify, standardize and develop the technical infrastructure needed to construct and support the applications.

II. GENERALIZED PROJECT FRAMEWORK

A. Project Organization

The following chart displays the consolidated project organization to be established under the guidance of the appropriate sponsors. This structure is intended to provide the framework necessary to: 1) assure that requirements from all constituencies are considered; 2) promote effective management and communication; and 3) facilitate critical problem identification and resolution.

The consolidated project direction will be provided by the proposal sponsors and a small Steering Committee (4 to 6 members) responsible for representing an institution-wide view. The Steering Committee will focus on University-wide needs, reviewing requirements of the University community and evaluating and consolidating them into a set of common information requirements. Committee responsibilities would include: project plan development; maintaining project schedules; addressing problems; and managing the budget.

The Process Improvement teams will be formed by the proposal sponsors and represent a broad cross section of campus users, one team per application (proposal) area. Process Improvement teams will consist of a mix of departmental representatives, central office users and technical applications staff, all knowledgeable in the specific process involved. These teams are charged with defining user requirements and recommending solutions to existing problems. They will also provide recommendations to change institutional business processes to meet both central office and departmental needs. These teams will report their findings and recommendations directly to the Steering Committee and appropriate sponsors.

This group, comprised of technology development staff, is charged with the design and construction of the web-based technology infrastructure and to support and provide for the technological capabilities needed to satisfy the business requirements as determined by the Process Improvement teams and the Steering Committee. The web-based technology infrastructure will provide standards, development guidelines, web templates, software scripts, application interfaces, desktop tools and approaches that address common requirements across all projects.

There will be one Application Development team for each of the four proposals. The teams will be comprised of application software developers and central office business area experts. These teams will work closely with the Process Improvement team and the Technology Infrastructure team to define and develop the applications that will address the common information requirements for each proposal area using the tools provided by the Technology Infrastructure team.

Although it is clear that the web technologies are the right direction for the campus, it is also apparent that we must retain a flexible approach. It must be remembered that these service systems require a very high level of reliability, auditability and security. As we apply new technologies, we must insure that such rigorous standards continue to be met. Obviously, some aspects of these new directions are experimental and will require flexibility as we design, implement and respond to the rapidly evolving and complex technology and business environments.

B. Project Sequencing

As indicated earlier, this consolidated project framework consists of five specific elements: the four original UIF proposals and the technology infrastructure element common to each of them.

Due to the substantial up front cost, the limited availability of critical administrative staff and the added project complexity, it is impractical to work concurrently on all four of these major administrative applications; therefore, a phased implementation approach is being proposed.

The construction of the web-based technology infrastructure will begin as soon as the team can be established. In addition, at least one of the four UIF projects can be selected to begin concurrently with the development of the technology infrastructure. The Generic Project Sequence chart illustrates this approach.

There will be considerable overlap between all of these phases. Rapid development techniques will be employed to provide continuous prototyping of typical transactions to test and evaluate the technology infrastructure and application designs with real users. This would occur early in the Technology Infrastructure Development Phase and the Requirements Definition/Business Process Review phases. The Process Improvement teams will represent a critical element in this approach as the definition of requirements and the testing of prototypes during these phases is necessary to insure that all components work well together to meet the needs of the end users.

III. BUDGET

The original preproposal budget estimates contained the identifiable costs associated with the four specific projects. The total four year cost of this consolidated approach is only fractionally less than the sum of the original preproposals, since the cost of the technology infrastructure is necessarily front-loaded with the initial project(s) selected. Subsequent projects can be completed at substantially less cost than indicated earlier by utilizing the technical infrastructure already in place. The advantages of completing the technical infrastructure in the initial effort not only accrues to subsequent UIF projects, but also to accelerating the general evolution of all campus service systems to the web-based environment.

The UIF instructions requested budget detail "intended to describe the proposed initiative in its fully implemented state". In this case, we feel it is not possible to accurately predict the ongoing (post-implementation) costs associated with these proposals. Without a view of the specific process design or workflow, identification and assignment of costs cannot be done with any degree of confidence at this point. We know there will be support costs associated with maintaining the infrastructure, life-cycle costs associated with central hardware and software, and ongoing campus training which we have not attempted to estimate here. We are confident that these costs will be less than the development costs and that the funding preserved campus-wide by altering any of these labor intensive processes, will provide much needed opportunities for reallocating resources to alternate workload requirements. Similarly, these estimates do not attempt to forecast costs which may be necessary to reconfigure any local desktop computing environment which may be incompatible with campus computing standards/guidelines. In those situations there may be equipment, networking, and connectivity expenditures required to access new processing features provided by the web-based service systems.

This effort will be conducted within current campus organizational structures and assumes shared reallocation of existing resources to facilitate project completion. The budget estimates include only direct costs of new resources required and necessarily rely upon major contributions from current staff resources. We believe space requirements for this proposal can be accommodated within existing space assignments.