Be Ready for Monday

IT Planning

IT managers have a lot on their plates. Not only do those that lead IT on campus need to make sure all assets work together now, but they also need to make sure an institution is prepared for what’s next. They must manage a constant flow of disposing of the old, maximizing the efficiency and operation of an institution's current network and equipment, and planning for the future. What’s more, they must be able to communicate to leadership about what’s needed to keep everything running smoothly.

Inform Yourself

Bridging the Divide

What Are You Paying For?

The Cost of Inaction

Interest Beyond the Interest

One Crazy Summer

Capitalizing on Summer

Wouldn’t it be great to have enough foresight to identify, anticipate, plan, and prevent the next emergency from landing in your lap? Whether it’s the simple act of communicating change before it happens and ensuring everyone is aware of what’s coming next (i.e. training on a new software implementation, outage alerts, or upcoming events on campus) or reacting to a large unforeseeable event that has the potential to bring an institution to its knees, leadership is constantly challenged to make critical decisions about who to inform and when. 

While grocery shopping at the local Harris Teeter recently, there was a cashier ringing up a customer at the front of the line. The cashier looked surprised when she finished ringing up the order, and commented on the ‘buy one, get one’ bacon deal. The cashier even commented on how the price of bacon had soared in recent months. 

Had the cashier not been told what the specials were for the week? There is a stack of flyers that sits at the front of the store in the weekly circular stand. The store also sends an email out each week to its mailing list highlighting noteworthy deals. So how is it that an employee on the front line is unaware of the pricing of its products clearly marked on sale? In this instance, the cashier didn’t take the time to educate herself on the specials. Yet as a consumer, she was very pleased to learn of the discount. 

The bigger concern is that the business didn’t ensure that all employees were on the same page, and so the customer educated her. To prevent this from happening more often, the business should take the opportunity to inform its entire team, perhaps by adding all employees to the same newsletter that is sent out to all customers on Wednesday with the week’s circular, or posting a stand of weekly circulars within the break room.

Internal communication breakdowns are not uncommon. We’ve worked with customers in the past that have told us things that others in our own organizations failed to communicate. Sometimes the information is minor in nature, but other times, the nature of the information can have major ripple effects elsewhere on a dependent project.

As an example, a client recently mentioned on a project call that they were working on an integration that needed to be delivered before the project (a system migration), could complete. The project team running the system migration had not been informed of the dependency, nor was any documentation shared about the requirements. Instead, the customer informed the business that there was an additional work stream running independent of the migration with the same vendor. 

Communication styles can differ depending on who sits in the corner office, but the planning around how and what to communicate should be an institution-wide decision. Before your staff comes to you with the next emergency, take the time to educate those around you with the important messages that should be over communicated to the customers.

Don’t let the customer educate the company. Be informed, and carry that message outward.

We’re IT people at our core. We live and breathe code. We know about pivot tables and dashboards and what makes computers tick - we’re those guys.  We’re also effective communicators. Often, these proficiencies don’t come as a package, but we believe there is merit in combining the two. We find it’s a struggle for IT departments everywhere - how to convey important information to those who aren’t tech-savvy in a way that will be heard and understood.

Even the most efficient IT departments can be easily misunderstood if they don’t communicate well. The non-IT staff want things that work, and they want everything to power-up and be agreeable - forever. Obviously, this will never be the case. But, we can ease the uncertainty they feel when things are not running smoothly with a few simple strategies.

First, and most importantly, IT leaders must make customer service a priority for the entire team. Everyone, from those whose jobs require front line interaction to those who rarely support internal customers, should be intent on providing excellent customer service. Leadership needs to stress that a goal for the department is to give end-users confidence that the team can and will take care of every problem. Build a reputation for your team through positive customer service that will instill trust across the entire organization.

Second, look at all your team’s typical communication channels. Do emails seem friendly? Are voicemails thorough and are responses timely? Are web assets easy for those who aren’t IT personnel to understand? Are the members of your team approachable? Ask a communications professional to help you evaluate your efforts and look for areas for improvement. The more personable and simple your communication, the better.

Finally, make it a point to over-communicate. If you know a system is going to be down for an upgrade, let everyone know ahead of time, and make sure that administrators are especially aware of what will take place. Give details about anticipated downtime. Then, when everything is back to normal, check in with stakeholders to make sure everything is running smoothly. This process will go a long way to build trust and secure your team’s reputation as competent and trustworthy.

With each new project, convey your expectations for timelines and project goals, and document your efforts. Co-workers who aren’t tech experts may not understand how long an IT project should take. Explain it to them. Set realistic timelines and provide updates that will assure leadership that projects are moving forward. For example, a simple schedule with timely notifications will help to demystify the projects that IT is tackling, and again build confidence in your team’s abilities. 

Encourage your team to consider the value of personable, detailed, and proactive communication. It will make a huge difference in how your team is valued and trusted.

Higher Education budgets are inherently complicated - multiple fund sources, hundreds of accounts, and lots of budget managers whose roles change often make the budget picture at most colleges and universities murky at best.

Even when budget managers are engaged and actively trying to both understand their budget and use it efficiently, the process of accounting for every single line item can be daunting.

Shifts in budget management are especially challenging.

A new budget manager may not be familiar with all the expenses for which they’ve been asked to pay, and often reorganizations within the college structure can leave some expenses lost in transition, with budget managers unintentionally renewing software or services that might be obsolete or underused.

So, what are you paying for?

We suggest that budget managers review the following expenses that may go overlooked or be auto-renewed as they plan for the new budget cycle.

Software

Aging software may become obsolete, be available in newer versions, or be charged on a per seat basis (i.e. number of users).

Examine software expenditures for the following:

• What version are you paying for and is it the most current?

• Are you paying for a certain number of seats for the software?  If so, do you still need as many?

• When was the last time you negotiated the pricing of each product?

Auto-renewals

Look at the terms of your contracts.

• What is the renewal period?

• How much notice must you give to cancel a contract?

• Is there an opportunity to negotiate rates for extended years of service?

Discover what's not working

Are there items on your budget that were great in theory, but have been tough to implement in the way they were intended?

• Review each expense and its purpose

• Site the details of its use.  Who uses this product/service and why?  To what end?

• Determine if the product/service is providing the results for which it was intended and if the price for the product/service is justified

Evaluating budget line items for the value they bring to your institution may not only save money, but free up funds for new projects ahead.

Oftentimes when working with a third party vendor or consultant, companies consider cost above all other factors, regardless of the services that will be rendered or the products being purchased. The bottom line figure is what drives budgets and can make or break a project. If a company needs to negotiate price due to constraints (or perceived lack of value), there are items that consistently take a hit: services and hardware.

As a safeguard, companies institute policies against making technology-related purchasing decisions without first receiving internal approval from a CIO or technology director. From an operational perspective, there is a lot of merit to standardizing on server hardware, for example. So, when given the choice to purchase a new server to run a specific piece of software or provide a server on their own, many choose to look solely at the bottom line and opt to work with their internal teams to provide a machine (whether physical or virtual). It’s an easy way to cut costs on the surface. But what is the total impact of making a decision to remove an item (such as a server) when the time comes to negotiate contracts and pricing? These intrinsic costs are easy to overlook.

Consultants are often hired when the company feels it needs assistance in delivering on a solution that it cannot provide on its own within a given time frame or set of expectations. When the scope of work is discussed at the front of the engagement, the items that are added to the statement of work should reflect the requirements for delivering the services and products involved in the project. Do decisions that involve trimming the cost as it relates to a delivering on the project make sense? Negotiating is expected, but explicitly going with a homegrown roll-your-own approach can prove questionable, especially given the nature of a consulting engagement.

Consider the cost of ownership when a business decides to provide its own server hardware as part of a project but fails to work internally to deliver it. IT doesn’t see the project as a priority and instead places the item on an ‘action list.’ Months go by and dates are missed. Internal communication is poor or nonexistent, and the timelines for the project are delayed. Management gets anxious. The project slips into jeopardy. (The lack of alignment that exists within information technology and the business is another topic entirely. When the IT operation fails to listen to what its constituents actually need, everything loses focus and nothing ever appears to get finished.)

On the other hand, having walked in those shoes for many years, I understand the decision. There’s an inherent point of pride for being able to deliver on a task, especially as it relates to a key responsibility of the department within an organization. It’s when decisions are made without regard for the greater success of the project, when egos get in the way, or when decisions are made in a bubble that really causes chaos. Unfortunately, this is a well-known scenario for how projects often become derailed and or fail.

As not all solutions are fixed price solutions, the cost of time and materials can impact the decision to green light a project or table it for a later time. Changes to a project’s scope or list of hardware items that need to be incorporated typically result in a change request and additional cost. Those costs can make or break a project. In project management, there are three critical factors, each of which weighs heavily on the overall success of a project:

Time v. Cost v. Quality

So, if a project needs to be delivered early, one of the other two factors needs to give: either pay more or receive a product that potentially doesn’t contain all of the bells and whistles that were scoped. Inversely, cutting costs can cause a project to either come in late or lack a certain quality.

The real question in my mind however is, “What is the cost of inaction?”

Institutions of Higher Education design web experiences to provide a service. In rare occasions, whenever dealing with new students or retention, schools attempt to gather intelligence about student intent. Years ago, we designed a process at High Point University to provide customized billing that streamlined how all students received and viewed important information, but it also included tracking functionality that showed us when students opened and viewed their bills. This information was not used to "catch students" but to help the administration understand which students were going to have trouble paying for their tuition. We were then able to individually address and help many students who would have otherwise simply quit their college career from potential embarrassment or from not knowing there were helpful resources available at the university.

That was in 2006. We are now heading into 2019 and the game has changed completely. Understanding intent is no longer good enough. We now need to understand the "interest beyond the interest."

We recently designed a new registration system for a portion of courses served by the North Carolina Community College System, and during the design process we took the following key points into consideration:

If a potential student provides basic information but does not complete the course sign up, can we determine the intent of the student? By removing barriers from the existing process we can increase the possibility that students enroll. However, can we measure the “interest beyond the interest?” Can we determine why a student is attempting to sign up for a course? What is the catalyst that sparked the interest and a desire to start an engagement with us? Is it passion, curiosity, or need?

With these questions in mind, we started designing our new system with a brand new attitude and a focused view of how the service should be delivered.

Once institutions understand intent, admissions staff can engage a potential student in a way that inspires them to achieve that which they want, generating a win-win relationship that will hopefully last a lifetime.

Friday evenings in our house are typically reserved for family time, and we usually find ourselves gathering to watch a movie. As is the practice, we rotate who in the family gets to choose the film. Last weekend, we ended up settling on an old favorite, One Crazy Summer. 

If for some reason you haven't seen One Crazy Summer, the title could reference a myriad of story lines, from adventure to chaos to tales of unthinkable hi-jinx. Or it might reference the nature of how a campus approaches its summer project list, complete with tight timelines, long hours, and unforeseeable disruptions. (In actuality, the film is about a high school graduate's search for a love story laced with its share of adventure, chaos, and 80's hi-jinx.)

Recently, we were discussing summer project lists of our own with one of our clients, and we agreed that the process of planning, budgeting, and executing such projects can get stressful and unruly. Although the secrets for a successful summer implementation plan are not written in stone, the framework for creating a successful environment are as follows:

• Begin on the Monday after graduation. Do not wait until June.

• Identify the "known," understand the "unknowns," and expect the "unknown unknowns"

• Tighten budgeting processes

• Identify staff willing to work long work hours

• Implement a standard approach to project management to help avoid scope creep and cost overruns

The title of the film we watched and the very nature of a summer on campus fosters the notion that, without plans, we might be left to our devices and to whatever direction our peers might take us. Without thoughtful planning and sound execution, we may be in for one crazy summer.

The summer months are very important to a campus. As a Community College, how these months are spent may impact fall headcount calculations, which will then determine the allocated budget. As a University, summer activity culminates with the arrival of students on campus in late summer. Every day counts.

There are a couple of ways that institutions can capitalize on summer months, and the direction differs by the type of the institution.

FundFive focuses on four techniques as part of a framework of services geared to helping an institution prepare, and our combined approach forms a framework for ensuring that the summer months are focused on a successful start to the semester:

• Class Forwarding

• Consistent Measures

• Early Service

• Energy Infusion

Class Forwarding

Institutions are encouraged to look closely at the wait-lists for courses taught in the spring semester, and then market those courses to your existing students. Using the existing cost/revenue formula, an institution can then decide which courses are financially worth pursuing. However, refrain from using the same decision-making process used during the fall or spring semesters. Since measuring retention from this subgroup as related to the general population of students will be simple and fast, you will be able to determine in a matter of a few months if this technique works for your institution.

By looking at course fail rates, an institution can detect the common academic gaps. Rather than simply providing your students with the ability to retake courses, market common courses to a group of your students who usually need guidance to understand their academic gaps. Depending how good your detection of academic need is, you may be able to charge a premium for these services. 

"Academic quality is a requirement, but it will not determine the success of this program. The experience of a student taking summer courses can be superior to that of a course offered during a regular semester. It will depend on the ability of the institution to resist the expected summer slowdown. Not all learning must be confined to the traditional structure of the typical academic calendar."

Consistent Measures

As a practice, institutions should break summer attendance headcounts by FTE, RFTE (Reduced Summer FTE), returning new and non-degree students, and other characteristics. Add in open house headcounts, the number of SAT/ACT scores received, the number of paid deposits, and the number of pre-registrations, and your enrollment forecast becomes clearer. Using these metrics, relate this number to the upcoming fall enrollment.

The first year that an institution does this, the data will be interesting. When the second year comes around, the data becomes curious. By the third year, your institution will be able to calculate fall enrollment in June within a 15% +/- error rate.

"The measures listed above are simplified to get you started. What you measure is important, but it is not nearly as important as measuring it consistently."

Early Services

The introduction of services earlier in the enrollment process demonstrates that an institution is now starting to wade into moving larger, more strategic pieces. The number and types of early engagement programs that an institution can create for an upcoming class are endless. Ignore best practices. Instead, ask what would work best for YOUR institution, and start placing focus on introducing new services based on that need. Such programs can be centered around academics, or perhaps more focused on the student experience. Rather than cite examples, we encourage you to work with the leadership at your institution, brainstorm, and enact the ideas that your team develops.

Energy Infusion

This point is deeply strategic, as it requires commitment and involvement from the entire institution. We suggest that the institution utilize the summer months to freshen up facilities that are usually booked solid during the year. The tendency that most colleges have is to increase summer utilization by filling residence halls and facilities during the summer months as much as possible, which helps generate income. 

Use an existing campus formula to measure summer income versus any potential income from increased retention or a larger freshman class. Success will absolutely depend on your ability to capitalize on the value of what you are doing by communicating energy and action to your students. If you can do that, they will respond.