Presentation given "off site" at EDUCAUSE and SGHE Summit meetings sponsored by Collegiate Project Services about best practices from the ERP implementations in the Tennessee Board of Regents

1. Best Practices from 19 ERP
Implementations
Presented by,
Tom Danford, CIO
Tennessee B
T Board of Regents
d fR

3. Today’s Goals
Today s
Present lessons learned
ese t esso s ea ed
from the full suite ERP
implementations of 19
TBR institutions
Discuss how these
lessons learned can
apply on an ERP
implementation at a
single institution

4. The TBR Challenge
Implement several
ERP modules1 across
19 institutions plus
the system office in a
forty-month period!
1Student and Financial Aid,
Finance,
Finance HR and Payroll,
Payroll
Advancement, and a portal
solution

5. Our Imperative
Keep every institution on schedule
and on budget. It is critical for us to
have a quality implementation while
controlling costs.
A guiding principle is to conserve the
resources of the universities for
academic and other goals
goals.

6. Current Status
We are in our 27th month of the project
Implementations have been sequenced
according to three waves of schools, or
“cohorts”
cohorts
34 implementations have been completed, and
64 i
implementations are in progress
l i i
Except in three instances, all 100 completed
and in-progress implementations to date have
been on schedule and on-time

7. Eight ERP Best Practices
Lessons We Have
Learned, Some Easily and
Some the Hard Wayy

8. Best Practice 1
Establish guiding
g g
principles at the
highest levels of
the i
h institution and
i i d
then live by them.

9. Best Practice 2
Form a governance
structure that
involves the
i l th
highest levels of
executives as
possible….and get
them involved
frequently.

10. Our model for….
Best Practices 3, 4, and 5
Our Project Management Model….
j g

11. Best Practice 3
Provide professional project
management support in large doses.

12. Assumption
People in higher education are in the
bus ess of educating students, ot
business o educat g stude ts, not
managing major ERP implementations
Therefore
The system provided project
management support i three
in h
significant ways

13. Project Management Support
at the Campus Level
1. Provided detailed project schedules
in Microsoft Project to all the schools
2. Separated the role of project
manager and project scheduler
3. Provided training in project tracking
and reporting format to the system
d i f h

14. Best Practice 4
Develop a
Metrics-Driven
Reporting and
Feedback System

15. The Weekly Flash Report
Purpose
Provide a snapshot each week of how well all the
P id h h k fh ll ll h
implementations are proceeding.
How the Report is Produced
Schedule updates are emailed to the independent
program manager once a week
The program manager evaluates schedule progress
according to several criteria and assigns a color code
(red, yellow, green)
The program manager then produces and distributes
the report system wide each week.
Link to a sample Flash Report

16. Monthly Executive Dashboard
y

17. Best Practice 5
Establish an
independent
program office
at the system
level

18. A Sampling of the Program
Manager Duties
Duties….
Coordinate and oversee the various implementation
pj
projects system-wide
y
Provide early warnings to the system and the
university presidents when project milestones are in
jeopardy
Design interventions, as needed, to help individual
campuses get back on track
Develop project metrics and provide weekly flash
reports and monthly executive dashboard reports on
pg
progress against budget and p g
g g progress against
g
schedule
Train campus project managers and schedulers in the
use of modern project management tools and
processes

19. Best Practice 6
Do the best communication job you
possibly can

20. Best Practice 7
Deal directly and
as quickly as
i kl
possible with
cultural and
people issues

21. Best Practice 8
Form a true partnership with your
ERP provider and implementer

22. Will These Practices
Work for You?
Applying these lessons
learned to the single
institution
i tit ti

23. What Applies
Developing guiding principles and sticking to them
Involving senior executives
Imposing professional project management
processes and tools and training campus personnel in
how to use these tools
Separating the scheduler and manager roles
Weekly flash reports and monthly executive
dashboards
Vendor partnering
d i
Communicating frequently
Using an experienced outside project management
firm who has done it before

24. Thanks for Joining us Today!
For more information…
Pick up our complementary CD that contains
this PowerPoint presentation as well as a
copy of the TBR Guiding Principles that were
adopted for their implementations.
Linger and talk with Tom Danford before you
leave.
Contact Tom at tom.danford@tbr.edu