As the University of Iowa moves forward with the Board of Regents’ TIER (Transparent Inclusive Efficiency Review) project, the UI TIER leadership team is committed to keeping the campus informed on the latest developments in connection with the initiative.

The team will be sharing updates in Iowa Now on the 1st and 15th of each month through June. Information on the initiative can also be found on the UI TIER website.

Here are the latest developments on the UI’s academic and business cases:

Academic:

Organizational Excellence 01 (Time to Graduation) and Student Success 01 (Distance Education)

• Pappas Consulting held their first meeting on campus on Wednesday, April 8. They met with two teams of UI faculty, staff, and students to start their work on the two academic cases related to enrollment management and e-learning and online education. Pappas will be engaging with the campus over the next several months. The current timeline has them concluding their work in the fall of 2015. 

Finance:

Finance 01: Revise Distributed Finance Delivery Model

• The University Shared Services project team met on April 8 with the Financial Advisory Committee to complete Chazey Consulting’s Leading Practices Diagnostics document. The group discussed the need to review the survey data with organizations to validate and finalize the actual time spent on specific processes. The implementation team is planning to review the data with the College of Dentistry initially in an effort to streamline the process prior to working with the other organizations.

Human Resources:

Human Resources 01: Revise Distributed HR Delivery Model 

• The Project Leadership and Project Teams continue to work on the development of future state concepts for the realignment of HR representative responsibilities consistent with the original business case recommendations. These concepts include the goal of having local HR representatives who are able to focus exclusively on their HR role. 
• Recent focus groups of unit HR representatives highlighted the different experiences of those who carry the HR role as one of many areas of responsibility, in contrast to those who work exclusively in an HR role. The latter demonstrated a greater sense of focus on their HR responsibilities, a deeper understanding of HR practice, and a more strategic HR vision in support their employees and leadership.
• Another future state concept is to establish a direct reporting line between senior HR leaders and the unit HR reps in their college/division to support consistency and efficiency in HR functions. 
•  It’s also recognized that the realignment of HR activities will need to be somewhat flexible in recognizing the specific considerations within each college and division to determine the optimal HR structure in that setting. Following the development of future state concepts, the project will move toward the use of pilot projects to test the application of these concepts.    

Human Resources 10: Establish Clear Policy for Professional and Scientific Staff Search committee Size and Structure

• The April 16 and 22 meetings of the unit HR resource representatives will be used to prepare unit HR reps for their role in using the modified search procedures being implemented on May 1, 2015. Search committees of limited size will continue to be used for positions at Pay Level 6 and above, with other positions relying primarily upon the supervisor and search administrator to conduct a search, utilizing input from others relevant to the position as appropriate.)
• Supervisors will also be receiving information by email as part of the implementation plan. These search process changes will not initially apply to UI Health Care positions.

Information Technology:

• The IT community is making steady progress in establishing the framework for OneIT implementation.
• The Steering Committee and Program Office have drafted and approved charters, available on the OneIT website.
• The Steering Committee is meeting regularly. It named co-leaders and project managers for 14 of the 16 projects. A list is available on the OneIT website. The goals in selecting the individuals were to involve a diverse set of project leaders and managers from both central and distributed IT units, to ensure that they have subject matter expertise in the project area, and to be certain they could commit the time and energy needed to succeed.

The One IT Project List was revised slightly.   

•  Creating a central IT Project Management Office was split off from the Governance project as it became clear that additional discrete leadership was needed for these efforts to achieve their goals.
• VOIP and Office 365, previously represented as separate projects, were folded into “Communication and Collaboration” to reflect the complimentary technologies and leadership in these areas.

With leadership in place, the next steps are to draft project charters and form project teams. The Program Office has developed a high-level timeline of next steps:

April 1 – April 15

·     Individual project kickoffs and charter writing

May 1 – May 15

·    OneIT Program kickoff

·    Charter drafts presented to Steering Committee

·    Input period on charters begins

May 15 – May 31

·     Initial input period ends; public comment on charters

·     Charters finalized and approved by Steering Committee

·     Project planning begins

·     First month of status reports will be available publicly. These will be ongoing monthly.

July 1

·     First Phase of project implementation. (Some projects will have multiple phases, and projects will have different start dates due to dependencies on other projects.)

Aug. 1

·     Second Phase begins

 Oct. 1

·     Third Phase begins

Sourcing and Procurement:

• Huron Consulting is estimating savings potential for office supplies as well as preliminary comparison of Regent institutional policies and university policies. The office supply master agreement expires September 2015.
• Further discussion on next steps for office supplies will continue upon completion of Huron’s review of the computer peripherals contract as well as the print management business case.
• Huron will return to campus later this month to review MRO supplies, computer peripherals, and janitorial supplies.