Case Study 3: Streamlining Complex Implementations & Operations
The Challenge
A large university was undertaking a massive, multi-year program to centralize its HR and Finance services across four distinct Waterfall implementation phases. Because each phase introduced a new set of collegiate stakeholders with unique business needs, the program presented significant change management challenges. Primarily focused on process and workforce realignment, the initiative also required introducing new technology to facilitate communication between central teams and colleges. Furthermore, success depended on orchestrating multiple, highly matrixed workstreams, ensuring all groups were strictly aligned to hit the exact same implementation dates for every phase.
The Solution
Before beginning the work, I met with stakeholders to identify clear project success criteria and establish precise ways to measure and communicate them through KPI’s and dashboards. Because this massive program introduced two new HR Operations teams and expanded the support of a third, I worked closely with our HR teams to define exactly which services would transition to these groups, identifying and establishing the new processes needed to best support our customers.
To drive efficiency across the four Waterfall phases, my goal was to create reusable deliverables, such as project management plans, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and cut-over approaches, that could be leveraged repeatedly. Because each phase introduced unique business challenges, we had to continuously refine processes and tools as we worked through each implementation phase to ensure optimal results.
The Result
We successfully implemented the HR Shared Services model, establishing a critical foundation for operationalizing consistent HR processes across a massive institution with highly unique needs. Ultimately, this strategic realignment standardized the HR experience for employees university-wide, while simultaneously unlocking new operational efficiencies and guaranteeing consistent compliance with university policies and contracts. Furthermore, this robust framework sets up the university to more seamlessly deploy other HR process and technology changes in the future.
