Joint planning workshop illuminates challenges

Program Director Andy Hill addresses the
team during a morning break

On June 5th, project leaders representing each of the 12 different Enterprise Systems Upgrade Program (ESUP) work streams joined together for a day-long retreat to clarify where and how the projects are dependent upon each other over the next 18 months. Each project leader had time to trumpet team successes, identify key milestones, and then list expectations and dependencies. Much of the information was plotted into a giant timeline. The visual communications tool helped the leaders clarify scheduling and resource alignment, and it identified areas of conflicting assumptions. The team now has a stronger understanding of interdependencies, and is in a much better place to put effort into resolving divergent assumptions.  

Project director Tim Gagner places his
dependencies on the big plan.

The next steps for the program leaders include addressing the issues surfaced. Many of the dependencies identified can be solved through communications and cooperation, but some of them may require business-led prioritization. ESUP leadership will refer to the governance process for appropriate guidance any time the work streams demonstrate legitimate, and well-intentioned differences of interest.

ESUP’s leadership team will reconvene for a second joint planning workshop on June 26th to brainstorm creative solutions to the conflicting assumptions identified at the first event. In the meantime, everyone is invited to view the timeline, which is hanging in 150 Williamson Hall!

ESUP Update, June 3 - 16, 2013

Murdoch, O’Connor complete Advanced Certificate in Equity and Diversity
Congratulations to Cynthia Murdoch and Bill O'Connor, both members of the Portal project team, who completed the Office for Equity and Diversity's Advanced Certificate in Equity and Diversity. The certificate included 10 workshops, a year-long dialogue circle, and an application project.

It is great for the Portal team and ESUP to have this strength. Thank you to Bill and Cynthia for dedicating the time and energy toward increasing your skills in these areas!
Pictured left to right: Bill O'Connor, Susan Geller, Anne Phibbs (OED certificate program director), and Cynthia Murdoch.

New servers in ESUP
ESUP Assistant Program Director Mark Powell was on hand last week to receive delivery of two new sets of servers: Exadata and Exalogic. The first set, Exadata, will house the Oracle databases. When OIT upgraded to the current version of Exadata servers, users experienced significant performance improvement.

The second set of servers, Exalogic, are new for ESUP. These servers will run PeopleSoft applications instead of the multiple servers currently used. The Exalogic and Exadata servers are designed to work together and Oracle will provide additional patching and upgrade services for these servers, which helps reduce system administration resources and costs to the University.

The servers being unwrapped.

The servers will be split into two combined sets, pairing one Exalogic with one Exadata. The set in the WBOB data center will support ESUP’s production systems, while the second set (located in the 90 Church St. data center), will support the Program’s development, testing, and disaster recovery.

Team continues to gather and analyze Portal opportunities
The Portal Project Team has completed a matrix of portal opportunities and information about each opportunity. This is the result of four months of engagement starting with the kickoff in February, including over 50 listening sessions, seven design thinking workshops, input forms and a survey. It is not the end of opportunity gathering - the portal is still listening and gathering input critical to the success of portal. The Portal leadership team will review the matrix over the next few weeks to determine priorities for phase one. More information about the opportunities and the process will be available on the Portal website soon.

Sessions scheduled for Finance
The Finance team continues to schedule sessions for Phase 1: Plan and Discover. Sessions for Expenses will begin June 3 and are scheduled to wrap-up by June 13. Some of the business processes to be covered include travel authorizations, cash advances, and expense reimbursements.

Treasury sessions also begin June 3 and are scheduled to end June 20. Some of the business processes to be covered on these sessions include bank administration, cash position/cash forecasting, bank reconciliation, settlements, financial gateway, managing and administering deals, and treasury batch processing/integration.

Development is underway
Now that some business process decisions have run through the ESUP governance process, leadership staff have approved functional specifications and technical staff have begun development. This means a big change for many of the developers on the program, who will no longer be attending as many Interactive Design and Prototyping (IDP) sessions. Instead they will write code. Developers are still available upon request to attend IDPs or to do technical research when needed, but developers are builders, and they are happy to move out of the consulting role. Let’s all join the developers to toast the beginning of Phase 3: Configure & Develop!

Quick hits and reminders from across the work streams

• The Executive Oversight Committee will present an update on the status of ESUP to the Board of Regents at their June meeting. The Board meeting begins at 9 a.m. on Friday, 6/14 and is open to the public. The full schedule is available on the Board of Regents website.
• The HRMS work stream has launched its project website at z.umn.edu/hrms. The site will grow and evolve in the coming weeks, so check back often for the latest information on the HRMS upgrade!
• The Student project has been working on team well-being, identifying ways in which team members can take care of themselves and prevent burnout. Kudos to the Student work stream for tackling such an important issue!
• The Finance work stream’s General Ledger module has completed their Phase 1: Plan and Discover sessions and are completing the required deliverables. 

Weekly Update and Key Messages for the Week of 11/19/12

• Last week, much of the ESUP Program repository on Google Drive was again removed from view, disrupting access and work for a number of ESUP team members.
• As a result, we are migrating the ESUP repository to NetFiles this week.
• NetFiles is an established and secure University system that was used for ESUP documentation before we migrated to Google.
• UMN project directors have been asked to populate the repository structure in NetFiles with additional work stream subfolders and files by Monday, Nov. 26.
• If there are still missing folders or files at that time, we will discuss how best to retrieve or rebuild them.
• Like any system, NetFiles will require training and familiarization for some users, as well as clear conventions for file naming, version control and permissions.
• We will share instructions and processes for accessing and using NetFiles within the week.
• For more information on using NetFiles, go to http://www.oit.umn.edu/netfiles/. 
• Google Drive, Mail, Chat and Hangouts will continue to be used and encouraged for collaborative purposes.
• Thank you for your work and patience during this transition.

• We have reached another early ESUP milestone in the past week: All chapter 1 pre-upgrade functional activities have been completed and the Upgrade Lab has completed the compare reports for the University to review.

• The Analytics Collaborative (AC) hosted a successful day-long retreat on Nov. 15 , with the purpose of clarifying, defining and co-creating a shared plan to advance the work of the AC across the University. 

Analytics Collaborative Retreat

• Participants left the retreat energized to advance a vision of shared tools, shared data, shared understanding and a shared development environment.
• The Analytics Collaborative and the Data Governance Team are tactical committees under the umbrella of the Enterprise Data Management and Reporting (EDMR) strategy. 
• The AC is comprised of a network of collegiate reporting professionals and representatives from each of the central business units who advance reporting projects for central and local reporting efforts.
• With the new governance structure in place, the time to operationalize and socialize the EDMR strategy is now. 
• Throughout ESUP, the EDMR project team will look to align with this new EDMR governance structure. 
• For more information on EDMR, visit IT News for November 2012 at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/oit/news/2012/11/.

• We continue to have strong participation in ESUP sessions from all five University of Minnesota campuses.
• We recognize that, in some cases, participation is limited by the seating configuration and available technology in our meeting rooms.
• This will be an increasingly important concern as we move into the Analyze and Design phase and sessions become more frequent and more intensive.
• We are working to compile a more detailed directory of meeting rooms, both on and off campus, that will better support the number of participants, technology needs, and schedules of our upcoming sessions.
• We also will have several “go bags” available to check out for session use, containing extension cords, power strips, and other meeting supplies -- the first of these bags should be available the week of Nov. 26-30.
• Thank you again for your engagement in these important discussions!

• Please welcome Bill Nelson, who will be consulting on the Identity Management and Security work stream with UMN project director Arash Forouhari during the Plan and Discover phase.

• The ESUP Consolidated Calendar is now available online by clicking Calendar on the ESUP blog at upgrade.umn.edu.