Situation:
Enrolment Services receives request from Faculties and departments to change or modify the current Student Information System (SIS). Resources allocated to implement these requests are limited and there was a substantial backlog of Project Initiation Requests (PIRs) which was causing frustration among the user community. SDS was engaged to support Enrolment Services and the SIS Working Group with improving the effectiveness of their current PIR prioritization process and tools.
Our Actions:
- Completed a situation assessment including the analysis of current and historical PIRs
- Formed a working committee that ensured representation from key stakeholders such as the user community and the business.
- Developed and validated a set of principles to guide the prioritization approach
- Presented different models for prioritization and recommended the approach that was best aligned to the guiding principles.
- Established criteria for determining when requests were “out-of-scope”
- Developed a PIR scoring tool which evaluates requests based on a set criteria and its corresponding weighting.
- Established value categories to support the prioritization based on value and total cost
- Gained consensus among the user community on the criteria and the approach
- Developed all supporting documentation to enable the implementation of the new prioritization approach and implemented changes to the current PIR intake system.
- Provided recommendations to other areas of the organization that were affecting the performance of the PIR process
Results:
- Backlog was reduced by 60%
- Team resources are allocated to the PIRs based on their alignment to the priorities of the university
"We are very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with SDS. Lesley and her team members are exemplary business partners that offer strategic advice to identify effective solutions to complex problems. They are highly effective collaborators who are thoughtful, analytical and creative with their thinking and approach to problem sets. They have successfully supported us in improving our SIS enhancement prioritization business process resulting in improved decision making and most effective and appropriate use of limited resources. They have also partnered with us to successfully develop a business case and high level implementation framework to evolve and improve the University’s academic course scheduling model. We would appreciate the opportunity to work with them again and highly recommend SDS and their services!"
-Annie Yim, Associate Registrar & HR Director, Student Records & Systems Management | Enrolment Services