The ESUP Portal Project and Design Thinking @ College of Design saw an opportunity to bring academic expertise to a business project: the design of the new U of M portal. One best practice for new product design is involving the future users early in the process. ESUP used Design Thinking Workshops to learn what the U of M community needed from a portal, shaping what became the Rough Draft. Watch our video to learn more about Design Thinking and this unique collaboration.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Video: Portal and Design Thinking Workshops
Because of the nature of their different types of work, it's unusual for business units and academic units to collaborate on a project at the U.
The ESUP Portal Project and Design Thinking @ College of Design saw an opportunity to bring academic expertise to a business project: the design of the new U of M portal. One best practice for new product design is involving the future users early in the process. ESUP used Design Thinking Workshops to learn what the U of M community needed from a portal, shaping what became the Rough Draft. Watch our video to learn more about Design Thinking and this unique collaboration.
The ESUP Portal Project and Design Thinking @ College of Design saw an opportunity to bring academic expertise to a business project: the design of the new U of M portal. One best practice for new product design is involving the future users early in the process. ESUP used Design Thinking Workshops to learn what the U of M community needed from a portal, shaping what became the Rough Draft. Watch our video to learn more about Design Thinking and this unique collaboration.
Monday, November 25, 2013
HRMS work stream focuses on
stakeholder engagement
As the end of Phase 2: Analyze & Design draws near, the HRMS work stream has ramped up its outreach to the broader user community and to the University. A new Sneak Peeks video page has been added to the HRMS website to provide previews of system changes and early-education opportunities for system users. During the past three weeks, the HRMS team has also hosted three town halls on the East Bank, West Bank, and St. Paul campuses, which were streamed to employees statewide.
A total of 273 people attended these sessions (166 in person and 107 online). Attendees heard a brief overview of planned system and business process changes to date, then shared their feedback, questions, and concerns with HRMS project leaders including Director of OHR Operations Lori Lamb, HRMS business owner Kelly Krattiger, and HRMS project director Kris Hause.
“Our goal is to get more people involved, and more discussion happening, about the HRMS portion of the Enterprise Systems Upgrade Program,” said Lamb. “We want to know what concerns people have, what they are hearing about the project, and what additional information they need. We want feedback from people who might not otherwise have had the chance to share, and if people are out of the loop, we want to bring them in the loop.”
Attendees also provided written feedback, which is being compiled and reviewed to identify topics for future communications, training, and discussion. A video of the first town hall session has been posted on the HRMS upgrade website, z.umn.edu/hrms. You can also offer feedback or ask questions about the project online.
Additionally, on November 7, more than 60 project team members, governance committee members, and subject matter experts from the HRMS and Finance work streams attended an appreciation lunch hosted by Kathy Brown, vice president of the Office of Human Resources, for their hard work on shared processes like those in Payroll Accounting. Brown, Lamb, Associate Vice President and Controller Mike Volna, and Rob Super, chair of the Finance functional steering committee, each thanked those in attendance and spoke highly of the level of engagement to date and the tremendous potential of the upgrade to help transform the way the University operates.
A total of 273 people attended these sessions (166 in person and 107 online). Attendees heard a brief overview of planned system and business process changes to date, then shared their feedback, questions, and concerns with HRMS project leaders including Director of OHR Operations Lori Lamb, HRMS business owner Kelly Krattiger, and HRMS project director Kris Hause.
“Our goal is to get more people involved, and more discussion happening, about the HRMS portion of the Enterprise Systems Upgrade Program,” said Lamb. “We want to know what concerns people have, what they are hearing about the project, and what additional information they need. We want feedback from people who might not otherwise have had the chance to share, and if people are out of the loop, we want to bring them in the loop.”
Attendees also provided written feedback, which is being compiled and reviewed to identify topics for future communications, training, and discussion. A video of the first town hall session has been posted on the HRMS upgrade website, z.umn.edu/hrms. You can also offer feedback or ask questions about the project online.
Additionally, on November 7, more than 60 project team members, governance committee members, and subject matter experts from the HRMS and Finance work streams attended an appreciation lunch hosted by Kathy Brown, vice president of the Office of Human Resources, for their hard work on shared processes like those in Payroll Accounting. Brown, Lamb, Associate Vice President and Controller Mike Volna, and Rob Super, chair of the Finance functional steering committee, each thanked those in attendance and spoke highly of the level of engagement to date and the tremendous potential of the upgrade to help transform the way the University operates.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Q and A with Rob Super
Rob Super, one of the administrative center directors at the University’s Medical School and bowtie aficionado, plays a critical role in ESUP. We sat down with Rob to ask him a few questions.
ESUP: How did you get involved in ESUP?
Rob Super (RS): Richard Pfutzenreuter (Fitz), vice president and CFO, and Mike Volna, associate vice president of finance and University controller, asked the Financial Management Advisory Committee (FinMAC) to serve as the user community representatives on the Financial Functional Steering Committee on ESUP. I am a member of FinMAC. Fitz and Mike also asked me to serve as the chair.
ESUP: What excites you about this project?
RS: Many things. The user perspective is being actively sought and given equal weight in all decisions. We are building up trust between the user community and our central colleagues. System integration issues are identified early on and addressed in the most collaborative way I have seen in my 20 years at the University. We have great support from President Kaler and his senior leaders. We are seeing very creative solutions emerge from our workgroups. I think we will see new functionality in many areas that will be embraced by users.
ESUP: How did you get involved in ESUP?
Rob Super (RS): Richard Pfutzenreuter (Fitz), vice president and CFO, and Mike Volna, associate vice president of finance and University controller, asked the Financial Management Advisory Committee (FinMAC) to serve as the user community representatives on the Financial Functional Steering Committee on ESUP. I am a member of FinMAC. Fitz and Mike also asked me to serve as the chair.
ESUP: What excites you about this project?
RS: Many things. The user perspective is being actively sought and given equal weight in all decisions. We are building up trust between the user community and our central colleagues. System integration issues are identified early on and addressed in the most collaborative way I have seen in my 20 years at the University. We have great support from President Kaler and his senior leaders. We are seeing very creative solutions emerge from our workgroups. I think we will see new functionality in many areas that will be embraced by users.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
ESUP creating a 'one-stop-shop' for reporting
University leaders and staff need reports to help them make good decisions. However, these reports are not always easy to find. This will change with the Enterprise Systems Upgrade Program (ESUP).
“In terms of reporting changes coming as a part of ESUP, the idea of a reporting center is the thing I’m most excited about,” says Lori Lamb, chair of ESUP’s HRMS functional steering committee. “Having ready access to reporting information in one place will be a big step forward.” Lamb is referring to the Reporting Center, a concept now taking shape as part of the program.
The idea is to centralize the reports University faculty and staff need to do their job through the Portal when the upgraded systems go live late in 2014. It won’t be the only place to find reports but it will be THE place to access reports from multiple reporting tools like UM Reports, PeopleSoft and UM Analytics.
The Reporting Center will:
- categorize reports based on their function (i.e. finance, human resources, student, etc.),
- include robust search functionality, and
- allow users to customize their own view to include their favorites.
To help identify features that work well for users and enhance functionality, Reporting and Data Management (RDM) staff conducted usability testing and feedback sessions by sharing an early version with University staff from the System campuses.
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| UM Morris feedback session - Clare Dingley, registrar and director of the Office of the Registrar pictured |
“We’re encouraged by the positive response and we’ll use the feedback as we work towards a final product,” said Amy Winkel, reporting project director for ESUP. “We appreciate everyone’s input and the opportunity to create this tool that will make it easier to access reports in the future.”
Look for additional Reporting Center information and details in future issues of the Upgrade and at upgrade.umn.edu as development work continues.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
ESUP Video: How ESUP Works (Part 2)
Santiago Fernández-Giménez, Assistant Program Director for Communications, Change Management, & Training, talks about how the Enterprise Systems Upgrade Program (ESUP) is doing its work in video number two.
Enjoy!
As always, please send your questions or comments to esup@umn.edu.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
New book highlights portal project's University engagement
Historically, implementing new products at the University has been a challenge. Students, staff, and faculty worry their needs won’t be met by the new product. To address this concern early in the process, staff on ESUP’s portal project looked to innovative participatory methods highlighted in a new eBook, Cultivating Change in the Academy: Practicing the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter within the University of Minnesota.
According to their website, Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter (AoH) is “An approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges.” This means ensuring that when groups of people get together they have meaningful and productive conversations.
From the beginning, staff incorporated many AoH techniques as they engaged stakeholders and started their work developing the new Portal. Getting everyone together to discuss a future project using AoH helped “provide a vehicle to move from idea to action,” wrote Susan Geller, portal project director. These techniques, including World Café, guided Geller and the Portal Leadership Team from the initial steps in the process through the first phase of the project.
World Café, smaller circle discussions around a specific topic where people move around to different circles to hear others’ opinions, helped participants share ideas about success, challenges, assumptions, and identify themes used in the Portal’s project charter. At the kick-off event, over 430 people simultaneously participated from all five system campuses and it was well received. According to surveys completed after the event, 75 percent of respondents said ‘Yes’ when asked “Did you feel a part of the conversation about portal and that your input was valuable?”
Feedback harvested from the AoH activities has had a direct impact on the “Rough Draft” version of the Portal currently available through the project’s website. Join the conversation by looking at the “Rough Draft”, telling us what you think, and reading the new ebook. “If we all create the Portal together, we’ll have a better chance of meeting all of our needs,” said Geller.
According to their website, Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter (AoH) is “An approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges.” This means ensuring that when groups of people get together they have meaningful and productive conversations.
From the beginning, staff incorporated many AoH techniques as they engaged stakeholders and started their work developing the new Portal. Getting everyone together to discuss a future project using AoH helped “provide a vehicle to move from idea to action,” wrote Susan Geller, portal project director. These techniques, including World Café, guided Geller and the Portal Leadership Team from the initial steps in the process through the first phase of the project.
 |
| Landscape agenda for portal kick-off event |
World Café, smaller circle discussions around a specific topic where people move around to different circles to hear others’ opinions, helped participants share ideas about success, challenges, assumptions, and identify themes used in the Portal’s project charter. At the kick-off event, over 430 people simultaneously participated from all five system campuses and it was well received. According to surveys completed after the event, 75 percent of respondents said ‘Yes’ when asked “Did you feel a part of the conversation about portal and that your input was valuable?”
Feedback harvested from the AoH activities has had a direct impact on the “Rough Draft” version of the Portal currently available through the project’s website. Join the conversation by looking at the “Rough Draft”, telling us what you think, and reading the new ebook. “If we all create the Portal together, we’ll have a better chance of meeting all of our needs,” said Geller.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Now showing: Appointment structure sneak peek video!
In September, the HRMS work stream shared that restructuring the University’s appointment data could transform our system and data. This month, HRMS business owner Kelly Krattiger demonstrates how the new structure will work and what will change for the better because of it. Check out our latest HRMS Sneak Peek video!
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