On-line presentation at EDUCAUSE 2012: The Tennessee Board of Regents embarked on a multi-institution business process realignment project for the system's 13 community colleges. The project identified 255 initiatives that defined process improvements in multiple ways, including process optimization, policy, and training. This session chronicled the project from its innovative approach through lessons learned.

1. A Collaborative Multi-institutional
Approach to Business Process
Improvement #E122_OL03
http://bit.ly/QHMwFj
Dale Sims, Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance
Tennessee Board of Regents
Thomas Danford, Chief Information Officer
Tennessee Board of Regents
November 7, 2012

2. Which Type of Institution Do You
Represent?
 4 Year Public
 4 Year Private
 2 Year Public
 2 Year Private
 Other

3. Which Functional/Technical Area do
You Work In?
 Student
 Financial Aid
 Student Accounts Receivable
 HR/Payroll
 Finance
 IT

4. Today’s Topics
 About the Tennessee Board of Regents and
the Business Process Improvement Project
 The Process
 Findings/Observations
 Specific Process Initiatives
 Benefits
 Roadmap

5. About the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR)
 Public post-secondary education system established in 1972 consisting of 6
universities, 13 community colleges, and 27 technology centers with programs
in 90 of Tennessee’s 95 counties
 200K+ Students, 14K+ employees, and an annual budget in excess of $2.4B
 Comprehensive Banner® suite implementation (Student, Finance, HR/Payroll,
AR, Financial Aid) across all colleges and universities
 Operational Data Store and Enterprise Data Warehouse (ODS/EDW) used by 4
of the universities and all 13 of the community colleges

6. About the Business Process Improvement
(BPI) Project
 Objective: Development of a “Common Process
Foundation”
 Desired Outcomes:
• Common Student Experience
• Leverage Operational Knowledge
• Facilitate Training
• Mitigate Risk
• Address Complete College Tennessee Act
(CCTA) Requirements

7. The Process
 Consultant Led and All Inclusive
 Executive Sponsors and Leadership
 Workshops and Sessions (continued)
• Kickoff
• Discovery & Planning Sessions
• BPM Sessions
 Deliverables
 Briefings and Presentations

8. Workshops and Sessions
 Kickoff (a crash course in BMP)
 Discovery & Planning Sessions
• Process prioritization, planning, and
alignment
• Discovery Process
 Business Process Modeling Sessions
• Across all functional areas
• Construction of future state process models
• Validation of process models

9. Findings and Observations
 Schools are more alike than different
 Desire to maintain control of customer-
facing branding
 Sharing of best practices understood but
not realized
 Acceptance is inversely proportional to the
distance from the customer

10. Strengths
 Colleges share a base process set
 Customer service orientation
 Many good and best practices in use today
 Innovative approaches at many schools
 Cross college collaboration

11. Challenges
 Legacy silo mentality
 IT support challenges
 Few opportunities to develop robust
stewardship and governance mechanisms
 Negative perceptions of common processes
(e.g. loss of control/autonomy)
 Impact of CCTA not well understood in the
colleges
 Need for strong leadership

12. 4 Quick Takeaways
 Need for ERP system (Banner®) functional
user training
 Desire to develop functional user groups
 ERP capabilities not being fully utilized or
relied upon
 ERP and BPM provide no strategic
advantage

13. Specific Process Initiatives
 Summary - 255 distinct initiatives that drive to
defined process improvements in the areas of:
• Business process optimization (137)
• Documentation development and maintenance (1)
• Supporting investment decisions (12)
• Performance measurement (2)
• Planning (for improvement) (16)
• Policy and business rule review (60)
• Requirements identification (4)
• Stewardship (3)
• Training & knowledge development (20)

14. Sample Initiatives
Area Observation
Human Resources Work with the finance office to determine the best practice for
managing group positions, pooled positions and reconciliation.
Review the results of the BPM for HR with finance leadership;
pursue process improvement across the business units.
Student Accounts Banner return of Title IV funds and Title IV authorizations
Receivable functionality should be utilized to assist in complying with the Title IV
regulations for federal financial aid.
Financial Aid College financial aid directors, admissions and registrars offices
evaluate the needs of TELS recipients to determine a system wide
best practice for handling transfer credit.
Student Records Explore the feasibility and effort associated with implementing a 2-
way interface between Banner and D2L. "One stop shop" for
instructors to record grades.
Student Records Consistency for learning support – review the consistency of
RUBRIC and use of the learning support module where applicable.
Recruiting and Review transcript requirements, policies, and procedures. Determine
Admissions where there are opportunities for consistency that would benefit the
student.

15. Sample Initiatives (continued)
Area Observation
Financial Aid Work with foundations to establish earlier deadline for selecting
scholarship recipients, facilitating their incorporation into initial
financial aid packaging cycle. Provides student with an earlier, more
complete picture of their aid package and any remaining unmet
need. Also minimizes chance of an over-award requiring manual
adjustment.
Financial Aid Consider a system level approach to loan default management,
including consideration of use of a third party vendor. Currently,
practices and results appear to vary among institutions.
Admissions Use of Self-Service Admission functionality is limited, requiring more
manual processing by both student and institution staff. Increased
use of this functionality should be considered. Training on its
implementation and use should be provided both to new
implementers and existing users.
Finance Continue collaboration across the colleges to define a standard
reconciliation process for all transactions posting to the General
Ledger.

16. Initiatives By TBR Strategic Plan Goal
Access
7%
Student Success
20%
Resourcefulness & Efficiency Quality
71% 2%

17. Initiatives by Functional Area
All
4%
Finance
Student (all) 9%
18%
Student Accounts Receivable Financial Aid
15% 25%
Human Resources
29%

18. Common Process Foundation
Benefits
 Portability of Customer Service
 Consistent use of common rubrics
 Enhanced technology support for functional
users
 Better reporting and analytics
 Consistent performance measurement
 Process and system knowledge will be more
transferable/shareable
 Compliance with CCTA

19. Implementation Roadmap
 Current Activity
• RFP Process
• Develop appropriate governance structure
 Activity After RFP Award
• Prioritize initiatives (2 streams)
• Create workgroups
• Review initiatives and validate
• Implementation and training

20. Categorization into ‘Streams’
Stream 1
45%
Stream 2
55%

21. Prioritization Matrix

22. Dale Sims
Tennessee Board of Regents
dale.sims@tbr.edu
Questions?
Thomas Danford
Thank-you!
Tennessee Board of Regents
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tdanford #E122_OL03
http://twitter.com/tdanford
thomas.danford@tbr.edu