Effective Planning and Management: Methods and Tools for Times of Declining Resources

|-------------------------------------|
|  Paper presented at CAUSE92         |
|  December 1-4, 1992, Dallas, Texas  |
|-------------------------------------|


EFFECTIVE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT:
METHODS AND TOOLS FOR TIMES OF DECLINING RESOURCES


Joanne Wilhelm
Karen Adams
  Indiana University Computing Services
  Bloomington, Indiana


ABSTRACT

The common trends of declining funding and increased demand for services 
and accountability experienced by institutions of higher education over 
the last few years are predicted to continue throughout the 90's. The 
resulting need to do more with less and do it better than ever before 
demands management and planning tools which are both effective and low-
cost. Without the use of daily management tools that translate 
organizational objectives to the work group and staff level, planning 
efforts are doomed to failure. This paper presents a set of tools and 
methods which, taken together, can and have proven useful in achieving 
these ends. The primary focus of the paper is a case study of a suite of 
processes and tools that Indiana University's computing services 
organization uses to cost-effectively implement its strategic vision on 
a day-to-day basis. Each tool is described from a "how to" perspective.


MANAGEMENT REQUIREMENTS IN TIMES OF DECLINING RESOURCES

After decades of incremental increases, higher education administrators 
have suddenly been forced to grapple with reduction, reallocation, and 
retrenchment. They now must pay closer attention to cost effectiveness, 
careful use of resources, and accountability. Departments, divisions, 
and work groups must do more with less, and do it better than ever 
before. Managers at all levels, especially in information technology, 
need more effective planning processes and management tools to help the 
organization channel scarce resources toward high-priority objectives 
while maintaining high-quality service. These processes and tools must 
enhance productivity while remaining cost-effective. Effective planning 
processes and management tools can change organizations for the better. 
They provide heightened accountability, improved organizational 
responsiveness, and better quality services and support. But 
implementing these processes and tools is both a science and an art, 
requiring careful timing and attention to detail, such as developing 
effective work plans and allocating limited resources. Implementation 
requires adeptness in human resource issues, employee participation, 
communication, and commitment. And it requires that managers be 
proficient in weaving these processes and tools into their daily 
responsibilities, skillfully guiding staff toward the organization's 
shared vision.

This paper presents a set of tools and methods which, taken together, 
can and have proven useful in achieving organizational efficiency and 
effectiveness. It provides a case study of a set of processes and tools 
that Indiana University Computing Services uses to cost-effectively 
implement its strategic vision on a day-to-day basis.


UNIVERSITY COMPUTING SERVICES

Indiana University (IU), founded in 1820, is one of the oldest state 
universities in the Midwest. With an enrollment of over 96,000 students 
on its eight campuses, IU ranks as one of the largest institutions of 
higher education in the United States.

Indiana University's computing services were traditionally handled by 
two distinct and separate organizations: Bloomington Academic Computing 
Services on the academic side, and Information Services on the 
administrative side. In 1989 a single computing organization, University 
Computing Services (UCS), was created by merging the two organizations 
and their different management philosophies, technology bases, and 
cultures. UCS was designed to more cost-effectively provide computing 
services to academic and administrative users. It took on campus and 
system-wide responsibilities; its Director reported to the University 
Vice President of Finance and Administration and the Chancellor of the 
Bloomington campus. When this Vice President resigned in 1991, the 
University President created the Office of Information Resources (OIR) 
and the UCS Director became the University's chief information officer 
with the title of Associate Vice President for Information Resources.

The OIR recommends policies and standards, and coordinates computing, 
video, and voice technologies, networks, learning technologies, and 
other information technology functions across the University. It has 
operational responsibility for telecommunications, printing, and 
University Computing Services. The Associate Vice President for 
Information Resources reports to the University Vice 
President/Chancellor of the Bloomington campus and of the Indianapolis 
campus.

UCS today faces another organizational transition. The Associate Vice 
President for Information Resources recently assumed a similar position 
at another institution. With an acting Associate Vice President for 
Information Resources and an acting Director in place, a search by 
committee is under way.


Mission and Organizational Structure

UCS' mission is to create an excellent computing and electronic 
information support environment for scholarship and the service 
functions that support it. UCS seeks to facilitate the highest quality 
research, teaching, and learning; to provide access to higher education 
for Indiana residents; and to enhance the state's economic development.

UCS is organized around the specific technology dimensions of its 
responsibilities and the support services that users require. The 
organization's structure is matrix-like and includes four vertical 
divisions that reflect the technology dimensions: Computing Systems, 
Information Systems, Network Systems, and Workstation Systems. Each 
vertical division directs its efforts toward the horizontal dimensions 
of the matrix. These include the respective technologies, technology 
standards, and planning; user applications; and service delivery. UCS' 
commitment to delivering effective user support calls for special 
emphasis; thus, the fifth vertical division is Computing Support 
Systems. It delivers services across all the primary technology areas 
and supports organizational administration and management.


Management Philosophy

Decision making at UCS is characterized by a participatory philosophy 
and consensus building at the senior management level. Before making 
decisions that have cross-divisional implications, senior management 
conducts discussion and invites input from mid-level and line managers. 
While this philosophy means more time is spent reaching decisions than 
in more centralized decision structures, these decisions receive greater 
support and are easier to implement. In addition, major project 
proposals follow a specified senior management review procedure, and are 
presented in a standardized format. This format includes the background 
of the problem, the recommended solution with rationale, alternatives to 
the solution, personnel and non-personnel resources, the impact on other 
divisions of the organization, how the project will be managed, and the 
implementation schedule. This format and process together ensure that 
the information needed for consensus-based decisions is available, and 
that all relevant individuals are included in the process.

Each senior manager is a UCS associate director (AD), responsible for 
one of the five divisions. Decisions that affect staff or projects in 
each division are decentralized to the respective AD who has full 
budgetary and hiring authority in the division.


Strategic Planning and Management Processes Overview

When UCS was formed, senior managers were faced with a large 
organization (250 FTE, 150 FTE) whose collective management processes 
were disjoint and disorganized. The organization needed a rational, 
coherent process to track resources from allocation to implementation. 
To help implement integrated management processes, the UCS Management 
and Planning Systems group developed a handbook called UCS Management 
Processes Guidelines and Calendars . This is updated and distributed to 
all senior and line managers at the beginning of each fiscal year. The 
handbook includes:

   ** A fiscal year calendar of the annual management cycle (Figure 1). 
This provides a snapshot of the timelines for planning, budget 
preparation, personnel management, and advisory functions, and shows the 
links between the management processes.
   ** A detailed schedule of the management process timelines, advisory 
committee meetings, and the academic calendar.
   ** Detailed management process guidelines for updating the strategic 
plan, developing division implementation plans, reporting progress on 
objectives, constructing the base budget, producing the annual report, 
and completing performance reviews and development plans.

UCS Organizational Management Cycle (FY92-93)

[CHART MISSING]

Figure 1


THE STRATEGIC PLAN

In a climate of environmental change, organizations must be especially 
proactive in determining their goals and objectives, and discovering the 
best means of allocating resources to achieve them (Keller, 1983). A 
primary tool for addressing these issues and improving an organization's 
ability to perform its mission is strategic planning.

The importance of strategic planning for information technology has been 
established and extensively explored over the past decade. Information 
technology organizations exist in a constant state of change caused by 
rapid and continuous technological advances and the ever-growing 
sophistication and demands of their user groups (Penrod and West, 1989). 
Strategic planning can boost their chances of surviving in that 
environment.


UCS Strategic Planning Processes

In 1989 over 30 senior administrators and managers, with considerable 
staff and user input, prepared the first UCS strategic plan. The 
planning process and resulting document set out the organization's 
vision, goals, and objectives.

In the two years that followed, UCS used two different processes to 
write annual updates to the plan. In 1990, a staff member working with 
senior management composed the first draft. The draft was then 
distributed to the managers for review, discussion, and refinement. A 
more participative and collaborative process was used for the 1991 
update. Senior administrators attended a strategic planning retreat 
where they drafted a revised set of strategic goals, objectives, and 
priorities. This draft was forwarded to a

planning team of representatives from each division who wrote a 
Strategic Plan Update reflecting UCS strategic goals and objectives in 
language and format that was accessible to both staff and users.

UCS has not yet determined the specifics of the 1992 strategic planning 
process, in part because the organization is in a transition between a 
permanent Associate Vice President and a permanent UCS Director. When 
permanent leadership is appointed, we will most likely develop a new 
strategic plan rather than update the original one.


Advisory committees--Their Structure and Input

Key in any strategic planning model is identifying the needs and values 
of the organizational stakeholders and constituencies and building them 
into the planning process (Bryson, 1988). UCS seeks guidance from users 
and clients on priorities and policies through two advisory committees. 
The university-wide Administrative Computing Advisory Committee (ACAC) 
is a body of administrators, professional staff, faculty, and students 
who focus on IU's administrative functions. The Bloomington-campus 
Academic Computing Policy Committee (ACPC) focuses on that campus's 
academic functions. This committee includes faculty members, UCS staff, 
and student representatives.

Both committees take part in IU's technology planning by establishing 
long-range (five-year) plans in several major areas of academic and 
administrative computing. The ACPC also develops short-range (one year) 
plans in several specific application areas. These groups play an 
important role in UCS strategic planning and budget prioritization; 
their plans help UCS refine its strategic goals and objectives.


IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGIC PLAN: TRANSLATING STRATEGY INTO ACTION

UCS translates its strategic objectives and the organization's 
operational objectives into annual implementation plans for each UCS 
division. These plans guide each division's actions toward accomplishing 
UCS operational and strategic objectives for the next fiscal year.

Senior management collaborates on developing the plans and collectively 
reviews them at the end of the process. This level of attention helps 
management identify and assign the division and cross-division 
objectives that feed into UCS strategic and operational objectives. It 
also helps them identify and coordinate crucial timelines and staffing 
requirements for division and cross-division projects. Most strategic 
and operational objectives are cross-divisional; making the appropriate 
linkages among divisions ensures that the organization's collective 
efforts will work in harmony.

Senior management identifies the divisions responsible for each of the 
strategic objectives. Each division then outlines its implementation 
plan. These plans include the division's operational activities and 
resource estimates; strategic objectives and projects, with resource 
estimates for accomplishing them; activities and timelines that could 
affect the division's ability to complete the projects; and an outline 
of project items that involve personnel or non-personnel resources from 
other divisions.

With the division implementation plan mapped out, work groups in the 
division develop their plans. These plans describe projects and 
activities in more detail and provide the linkage between division plans 
and staff objectives.


LINKING STRATEGIC PLANNING TO THE BUDGETING PROCESS

Once the organization's strategic vision is expressed as a set of 
strategic objectives, and these objectives are expressed as division-
level objectives, an organizational budget is derived. This is a 
critical part of strategic planning, for nowhere are an organization's 
priorities more clearly set out than in its budget. The budget is the 
mechanism most amenable to serving as an implementation tool for the 
strategic plan.

The strategic planning literature pays little attention to this stage, 
perhaps because of the difficulty of aligning the strategic planning and 
budgeting processes. Yet neglecting this stage will diminish an 
organization's effectiveness, especially when funds are tight and 
organizations must be sure their support goes to the highest priority 
objectives.


Difficulty of Aligning the Budget Process with Strategic Objectives

Three factors contribute to this difficulty.

   ** Most organizational budgets are compiled by division. But 
strategic objectives tend to cross-cut divisional boundaries. Cross-
division complexities make it difficult to maintain a one-to-one 
correspondence between budget lines and strategic objectives.

   ** Organizational budgets tend to be constructed as line-item budgets 
rather than program budgets. Since planning strategies are generally 
directed at policies or programs, the line-item budget is at odds with 
the products of the planning process. Strategic planning strategies do 
have line-item implications, but these should be derived by careful 
analysis of the programs and projects that are part of the strategies.

   ** The inertia of the budgeting process itself should not be taken 
lightly. Most processes have been in place for some time, often with 
stakeholders who resist changes that could affect their position in the 
competition for scarce resources. This aspect of strategic planning is 
rightfully seen as a threat to any part of the organization that is not 
furthering strategic objectives.


The UCS Budget Process

UCS' mechanism for integrating the planning and budgeting processes is 
central to the success of our implementation process. Following are some 
keys to this success:

   ** Many objectives require us to coordinate resources across two or 
more divisions. Associate Directors handle this coordination before the 
budget is constructed, during the division implementation planning 
process. The coordination continues throughout the project, with one 
Associate Director designated as coordinator for each strategic 
objective.

   ** The UCS budget is a program budget. Each organizational objective 
or ongoing activity is designated as a project (or program), enabling us 
to manage the resources for accomplishing each one. Many projects are 
defined directly from an objective in a division implementation plan.

   ** The project budget is constructed bottom-up. Each division first 
compiles its budget with significant interaction between managers, staff 
and Associate Directors. These division budgets are merged into an 
organizational budget and submitted to the administration of the campus 
and the University. Working bottom-up, UCS can manage and track projects 
that cross divisions and rapidly reallocate resources to new projects 
each year as the environment and our clients' needs change. An automated 
information system manages the budget. It's built to take advantage of 
the benefits of the program budget, while being flexible enough to 
manage costs by line item within and between programs.


GUIDING DAILY STAFF ACTIVITY TO STRATEGIC ENDS

The Importance of Staff Participation

It is not enough to link a strategic plan to the budget process. It is 
only when each staff member tailors everyday decisions and actions to 
supporting the organization's strategic goals that these goals and 
objectives can be achieved. Successful strategic planning processes 
involve staff participation. As service deliverers, staff are the true 
"front end" of an organization, so must share ownership of and 
commitment to strategic objectives. Many otherwise well developed 
strategic plans have foundered from failing to carry the elements of the 
plan into the day-to-day activities of the organization's staff.

Deriving staff performance objectives is a key pan of putting a 
strategic plan in place. One good way to involve staff is to have them 
participate in developing their performance objectives. At UCS work 
group managers and staff share in this process. Some managers even ask 
their staff to provide the first iteration of their performance 
objectives, based on the work group plan.


UCS Staff Performance Review and Development Plan

The performance review document is a written guide to the activities 
staff should undertake to implement the organization's strategic 
objectives. It also shows the relative priority of the employees' 
various responsibilities in enabling these objectives. When staff help 
identify and refine their objectives, they have a chance to interact 
with managers and directors to clarify their role. The performance 
review is a vehicle for a "management by objectives" approach to 
implementing the plan. The UCS approach most closely resembles the 
management by objectives philosophy (Rodgers & Hunter, 1992).

The two-part UCS performance review process is called a "Performance 
Review and Development Plan Process." Both parts are conducted in 
writing at least twice a year; with frequent manager and employee 
discussions on objectives occurring during the year.

The first pan of the performance review, completed by staff and manager, 
evaluates staff performance on strategic and operational objectives for 
the preceding year. It helps guarantee follow-through and accountability 
on the organization's goals and objectives. The second part of the 
review is the written development plan in which employee and supervisor 
set next year's objectives, again based on the division and work group 
implementation plans. Objectives in the strategic plan are decomposed to 
the division level, then the work group level, and finally to staff 
objectives (See Figure 2).


ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH REPORTING ON OBJECTIVES

Once an organization identifies its objectives in strategic and division 
implementation plans and in individual staff performance objectives, it 
needs an accountability mechanism to track progress on those objectives 
for the year. UCS uses a bimonthly reporting process. The reports are 
kept brief--three pages for each division to reduce administrative 
burden on managers. Included are sections on progress (and exceptions) 
toward key strategic and operational objectives and performance measures 
on key indicators of service quality.

The reports are constructed through a bottom-up process. Each staff 
member reports on individual objectives to his or her supervisor, who, 
in turn, reports to the managerial level above, and so on, through to 
the top of the organization. The bimonthly reports are placed on an 
organization-wide file server where all staff can read them. At year's 
end, the information is consolidated into an annual report on progress 
toward goals and objectives and is distributed to our clients.

The combined bimonthly and annual reporting process:

   ** Provides accountability and tracks progress on objectives for all 
staff and the organization.

   ** Communicates progress on objectives, alerting management to 
objectives that need attention, such as deploying different levels of 
resources than were originally planned.

   ** Communicates information among managerial levels, across division 
boundaries, and to our clients.

As an example of the outputs from the UCS Management Processes for FY92-
93, Figure 2 displays a decomposition of strategic objectives through 
the staff member objectives and the reporting process.


________________________________________________________________________

INTEGRATING STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES: A UCS EXAMPLE


University Computing Services
Strategic Plan Update
(1992-93)

| Goal 1: Develop and provide distributed computing services and 
| applications for Indiana University. Develop a networked workstation-
| based computing environment.
|
| Objective 2: Implement distributed services, including the migration 
| of faculty, students, and staff to workstation-based mail and 
| conferencing.


Computing Support Services Division
Implementation Plan
(1992-93)

|     a) In conjunction with the Program for Distributed Computing, 
|     Computing Support Services will develop and provide the support 
|     services required for the delivery of distributed services and the 
|     migration to workstation based mail and conferencing.
|
|
|          1 ) The Education Program will develop and provide computing 
|          classes on the new distributed computing environment 
|          applications.


Education Program Staff Member
Staff Performance Objectives 
(1992-93)

|               a) Develop 2 new JumpStart classes to support the 
|               introduction of the distributed computing environment.
|               Offer these classes 8 times each during the fall 
|               semester.

Education Program
September October/1992 
Bimonthly
Report

|          Win the assistance of the Program for Distributed Computing 
|          staff, completed the development of 2 new JumpStart classes, 
|          one on the PC platform and one on the Macintosh platform. |         
|          Eight PC classes and eight Macintosh classes are currently 
|          scheduled to be offered during the fall semester.

________________________________________________________________________
     Figure 2: How a UCS strategic objective is translated through each 
     of the management processes.



MANAGEMENT PROCESS ISSUES

While this planning and management process has helped UCS cost-
effectively deliver and improve services in a time of budget cuts, four 
major issues remain.

Staff resistance can be a problem in introducing new planning and 
management tasks. In technology organizations where there's more to do 
than is manageable in a 40-hour week, staff can view these processes as 
too time and labor intensive. The utility of each management tool may 
not be apparent to those used to spending time on technical issues. The 
UCS executive director and senior management devoted a great deal of 
time and energy to getting UCS to adopt the new process. During the 
first year, particularly while the new procedures and tools were being 
developed, the executive director had to enforce deadlines, even for 
senior management. But the consensus building aspects of the strategic 
planning process and management and staff commitment to the strategic 
objectives helped put the integrated planning and management process in 
place. Without such a commitment, this would have been much more 
difficult. We continue to struggle to find the right balance between 
spending time on planning and spending time on actually delivering our 
services.

Managing large complex projects that require coordinated efforts by two 
or more divisions is another problem. Our organizational structure is 
designed to help us easily realign resources to address crossdivisional 
projects. But a formal matrix management approach, which empowers 
project managers with responsibilities that run horizontal to the normal 
vertical hierarchy of divisional authority, has not been adopted. Given 
the stressful environment during the merger, UCS decided not to empower 
people as horizontal project managers. Instead, staff committees from 
all affected divisions handled coordination. Unfortunately, when the 
division objectives are not fully compatible, this coordination effort 
often fails.

As we integrated these processes into our organizational structure, we 
often considered the benefits of some aspects of total quality 
management (TQM). These processes and tools are consistent with weaving 
TQM into the fabric of our organization, and we continue to evaluate the 
usefulness of TQM for our organization.

For many years the only mode of operation higher education organizations 
knew was growth and expansion. By contrast, one of our biggest 
challenges today is prioritizing what we ought to Stop doing. This 
remains a problem for UCS because there are few clear-cut mechanisms for 
prioritizing what we should drop. We are more comfortable dealing with 
fiscal and personnel constraints by making minor refinements to our 
suite of services. But some progress has been made this year by 
including our advisory groups directly in the decision-making process.


BENEFITS OF INTEGRATED PLANNING: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

In our three to four years' experience using and refining these planning 
and management tools, we've reached several conclusions that have 
implications for computing technology organizations. These implications 
are general enough to apply to most public sector organizations.

Increases Organizational Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Accountability

Integrating an organization's planning, budgeting, performance review, 
and reporting processes increases effectiveness, efficiency, and 
accountability. At UCS improved efficiency is one of the major benefits. 
By ensuring that a higher percentage of organizational decisions and 
staff activities align with strategic objectives, we pare wasted effort 
and inappropriate managerial decisions.

Beyond this, the organization's effectiveness is enhanced. This comes in 
part from freeing staff time from tasks that are neither strategic nor 
required for day-to-day operations and gearing staff activities to 
"doing the right things" instead of "doing things right." The integrated 
approach makes H easier to trace the relationship of individual 
decisions and actions to strategic objectives and the organization's 
mission, and improves accountability to client groups and the University 
administration. These benefits are especially important in an era of 
reduced funding.

Ensures Operationalizing the Strategic Plan

Integrated planning and management enhance an organization's ability to 
operationalize the strategic plan and safeguard the quality of its 
services. They help translate strategic objectives from the highest 
levels of management to the levels of day-to-day staff implementation. 
When staff are explicitly included in developing the strategic plan and 
performance objectives, they become part owners of the strategic 
objectives. This ownership builds commitment to these objectives, and 
helps staff deliver services consistent with the plan. Ownership carries 
over, too, to the organization's clients. UCS clients are involved in 
the strategic planning process, and, through a number of advisory 
committees, in many UCS operational decisions. This represents the UCS 
effort, in terms of Peters and Waterman's book In Search of Excellence, 
to "stay close to the customer."

Provides Cost-Effective Management Processes

Cost-effective integration of these strategic planning processes and 
management tools can be achieved with a surprisingly low overhead. The 
initial development required UCS to commit between 1.0-1.5 professional 
staff lines for about one year. Even this commitment is a minimal 
investment for the potential return. We hope these tools can provide a 
template other computing organizations can tailor for their own use. 
Once these processes and tools are developed, the most difficult task is 
convincing senior and line management to follow the process timetables 
and use each management tool appropriately. This is no trivial task, but 
effective leadership and a participatory strategic planning effort can 
produce the required commitment.

The first year an organization applies this planning and management 
process will demand more effort from managers and staff than traditional 
management. But once the integrated process is in place and managers and 
staff know what to expect, the overhead for maintaining the process is 
considerably less than the effort of budgeting or doing performance 
reviews without such a framework.

Accommodates Different Management Styles

These management processes are flexible enough to be used by a diverse 
group of managers with different styles and management needs. UCS 
management groups vary greatly. Some managers use a large number of 
control or intervention devices with their staff, while others prefer 
more laissez-faire approaches. These tools can accommodate this range of 
style.

Responds to Changing Needs

One of the main purposes of strategic planning and management is to help 
an organization respond to changing environmental conditions and client 
needs. We saw this proven at UCS when our executive director resigned 
and the organization was able to continue addressing its strategic 
goals. Such a loss of leadership could have caused severe problems had 
not clear organizational directions been in place. The particular 
strength of these directions was their tie-in with strategic objectives, 
division implementation plans, workgroup implementation plans, budgets, 
staff objectives, and performance review processes.

GENERALIZING THE PLANNING PROCESS

It is our experience that these integrated strategic planning and 
management processes and tools can be shared and generalized to other 
institutions. They can help institutions of higher education address the 
transition to reduced budgets, increased service demands, greater 
competition, and increased accountability. And they can help 
organizations turn these times into opportunities for improvement, 
rather than a series of intractable problems.


REFERENCES

Birnbaum, William S. If Your Strategy is So Terrific. How Come It 
Doesn't Work? New York: American Management Association, 1990.

Bryson, John. Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: 
A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement. San 
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988.

Keller, George. Academic Strategy Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins 
University Press, 1983.

Penrod, James & West, Thomas W. "Strategic Planning for Computing and 
Communications" In Brian L. Hawkins (Ed.) Organizing and Managing 
Information Resources on Campus McKinney: Academic Computing 
Publications, Inc., 1989.

Rodgers, Robert & Hunter, John. "A Foundation of Good Management 
Practice in Government: Management by Objectives." Public Administration 
Review. January/February 1992, pp. 27-39.