Project Management for Student Affairs: Ending the Never-ending Project

David Sweeney, DirectorBrooke Woodruff, IT Manager

Texas A&M UniversityDivision of Student Affairs

February 21, 2008

Copyright David Sweeney and Brooke Woodruff, 2008. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.

Who’s In The Room?

• Centralized University IT• Decentralized Division/Department IT • Project Managers• Developers• Administration• Faculty

Today’s Agenda• History: Name That Year• Our History at Texas A&M• Operating Structures

– Student Affairs– Higher Education– Project Management

• Defining a Project – Ideas vs. Deliverables• Visual Case Study: Critical Incident Response System• Ensuring a Projects Successful Completion• Visual Case Study: Enterprise Event Management System• A Model Moving Forward

History: Name That YearName the year that this abstract segment was written:

“Management is a future-oriented decision process that relates resources into a total functional system for the accomplishment of a set of objectives. As a rule, universities do not have a management system, and there is no understanding of their environments in terms of inputs, outputs, objectives, and organizational relationships of a line and staff necessary for such a system. Hence, many of the problems of project management in the university arise from lack of integrated planning, programming, and budgeting, and from an operational structure which does not encourage effective collection, distribution, and control over resources.“ (Unknown)

A Brief History of the Department of IT, Division of Student Affairs at Texas

A&M

Higher Education Philosophy (Birnbaum, 1988)

The Operating Structures: Philosophies

• Poorly run but highly effective• Agreement is more important than efficacy• Institutional Culture has teeth• Tolerance for poor results and ambiguity

Student Affairs Philosophy• Student Development takes

precedence over efficiency• Suspicious of a “Corporate” Model

Approach• Student growth can’t be measured• Staff accountability is measured by

ideas, not deliverables.

Project Management Philosophy (PMI, 2004)

• Adheres to the definition of a project• Establishment of clear, achievable and measurable

objectives• Balances the competing demands for quality,

scope, time and cost• Adapts the specifications, plans and approach to

the different concerns and expectations of the various stakeholders.

Defining a Project – Ideas vs. Deliverables

• Student Affairs is an idea and innovation warehouse centered around a committee based decision making model.

• Plans are often loosely formulated from an concept or general need.

• IT is then charged with the task of implementation.• The “concept” is never matured into a project.• Sponsors, stakeholders, requirements, timelines and

deliverables i.e.; the project plans are not clearly defined.• Case Study: Incident Reporting and Tracking System

(IRTS)Definition of a project: “A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”(PMI, 2004)

Visual Case Study: Incident Reporting and Tracking System

Project Core Does not exist. Loosely cobbled together features make up the application.

Feature 2Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 1Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 4Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 3Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 6Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 5Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 8Stakeholder

unknown

Feature 7Stakeholder

unknown

With zero project management, no project plan and no specs – IRTS continues to exist as a never-ending project.

Ensuring a projects successful completion

• Some of the most critical IT project footings in Higher Ed include– People, Committees, Stakeholders– Sponsors, excellent history tracking (knowledge management)– original contracts (SLAs)– a secure funding source.

• Accountability for deliverables for all stakeholders• Keeping all stakeholders involved• Securing quality people to get the job done (Full-time

employees and well mentored Student Workers

A projects potential for ending (and being successful) is directly tied to it’s original footings.

Visual Case Study: Events Management System (EMS)

Project coredeveloped fromclearly definedrequirements.Features are

independent of thecore functionality.

Feature 2Known

Stakeholder

Feature 1Known

Stakeholder

Feature 4Known

Stakeholder

Feature 3Known

Stakeholder

Feature 6Known

Stakeholder

Feature 5Known

Stakeholder

The idea for an Event Management System originated out of committee work. The committee assigned a sole sponsor.

A Model Moving Forward

• Committees are here to stay – leverage committee work through aiding the leadership to establish clear goals, deliverables and sponsorship.

• Understand that consensus is important and use it to your advantage

• Establish funding sources before proceeding• Efficiency is NOT always the first concern (for SA)• Work closely with departments to set up

mentorship programs with student workers and individuals tasked with IT goals.

BibliographyUnknown (1968). Program/Project Management of Sponsored Programs in a University

Environment. Originally presented as part of the Management Training Program for Educational Research Leaders, Columbus, Ohio, September 18, 1968

Birnbaum, R. (1988). How Colleges Work. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco

PMI (2004). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Third Edition, Newtown Square, Project Management Institute, Inc.

David Sweeney sweeney@tamu.eduBrooke Woodruff brookew@dsa.tamu.edu