Campus Financial Systems for the Future

Emphasis on People and Process

The methods, techniques, and structures that this book describes are independent of the desired institution-wide information technology or business architecture, and are designed to enhance the institutional decision process. When successful, such methods, techniques, and structures enhance not only the quality of technical and business design decisions, but improve the likelihood that the key members of the institutional community -- who later will judge and depend on the eventual system solution -- will share a sense of responsibility in major project decisions and outcomes.

For this reason, this book recommends using a team structure to bring diverse interests and expertise throughout the institution together in an organized fashion. As with all complex projects, the key to success remains the quality, organizational placement, credibility, and availability of project participants, especially the project management.

The effective deployment of functional teams accomplishes the tasks of:

breaking the project into components of manageable and well-defined scope,
identifying clear deliverables and project accountabilities,
creating a hierarchy of roles that strives to align project decisions vertically and horizontally across the institution, and
making it possible to compress the project in time by facilitating concurrent team activities.

Having the right structures and people in place makes it possible to lay out the steps in a complex project in ways that convey to every participant and key stakeholder what is to be expected and when.

The endeavor can be viewed as having five major phases: (1) articulating a strategic framework, (2) structuring and managing the project, (3) determining business and technology requirements, (4) selecting a solution, and (5) acquiring and implementing the system. Within these phases many steps will need to be taken and many tasks completed; these are graphically illustrated by process flow charts at the end of Chapters 2 and 3. Highlighted at the close of each chapter are a number of actions that can either greatly enhance or jeopardize the success of the project. Actions that are greatly encouraged and that seem to predispose projects toward success are referred to as critical success factors. In many cases, the failure to take a critical action, at a critical juncture of the project, creates added project risks. Such failures to act, as well as ill-conceived actions, are referred to as land mines. Finally, a glossary of terms and concepts is provided in Appendix B, to support the technology "awareness-raising" process described in Chapter 4.

No book of this kind can be as prescriptive as a cookbook, because no set of financial management needs is likely to be a standard for higher education. Even cookbook recipes fail when the cook doubles specified quantities or does not take into account variations in humidity, altitude, or other local particulars. Despite this caveat, the authors believe that all projects of this kind have certain common elements and benefit from a project architecture that is inclusive, open, and consensus seeking. We hope the steps, structures, and techniques described in this book -- and the success factors and potential land mines highlighted -- will help you effectively and successfully lead, monitor, or support such projects at your institution.

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