TuSA Business Processes Review

Executive summary 

The scheduling bottleneck caused by centralization with the PM prevents students from seeing all required and elective courses for registration. While the TU Office of the Registrar has tools (below) to clarify its processes and timelines, the root cause is misaligned communication styles. While a fountain of knowledge and experience, the Program Manager (PM) requires coaching and mentoring to understand communication needs for various stakeholders and situations so that all involved can make the best use of their time.

Business context and key facts

In recent years, TuSA has experienced significant growth in a short time, which included bringing on new leaders in the Program Director (PD) role and an expansion in classroom facilities. As a result, TuSA onboarded three Administrative Program Coordinators (APCs) to support the PM as direct connections to PDs in addition to supporting students. The expansion in classroom facilities has rendered TuSA temporarily without a consolidated physical base of operations.

Background

TuSA identified managing their schedule of classes as a key opportunity for improvement. When students are unaware that a course is being offered, they are less likely to later register for it, and when students do not see required courses on the schedule of classes, they grow concerned that they will not be able to complete their degrees in the timeline they planned. TuSA students enjoy open access to their PDs and contact them when they are concerned about their schedule, either due to time conflicts between required courses or not seeing required courses on the schedule of classes. PDs are concerned about possible student attrition due to administrative misalignment.

The PDs interviewed in this study are unsure why the scheduling problems occur. When they consult among themselves, they found that they are given different explanations. All schedule changes are centralized with the PM, leading to a bottleneck affecting registration, so they are not sure what they have missed.

Findings 

• APCs need access to Registrar tools to respond to schedule changes.

• Priorities synchronizing with the Assistant Dean, PM, and APCs have been limited. There may be a misalignment between what is discussed with the APCs and what is discussed with the PM by the Assistant Dean. This misalignment leads to a break in the internal business processes which delays schedule processing.

• Development of the PM has been limited, either due to missing oversight or the PM’s non-utilization of available coaching resources, or possibility a combination of both. The PM’s communication style does not match that of the needs of the group leading to interpersonal tension due to confusion about the steps of a given process and understanding why the PM has not done what was asked by the PDs.

• Innovations in internal processes such as using Teams to conduct asynchronous meetings gives stakeholders flexibility to participate in school business as their time allows. While important to manage the proliferation of tools, the energy, experience, and resourcefulness required to leverage available tools is worthy of note.

• Process management and optimization is important, but should not overshadow results. The PM may be spending time on process management and optimization which should be used complete work both urgent and important. Oversight is needed to foster innovation while balancing school needs. PDs expressed fatigue related to changing tools and the complexity of the procedures.

• PDs would benefit from having a high-level understanding of the general catalog publishing and class scheduling cycles for their internal planning.

Recommendations

Registrar-related processes

• Provide edit access to the scheduling application CLSS to APCs. The Registrar has an open request for this access which will be fulfilled unless otherwise cancelled by Associate Dean Scott Bernhard.

• Provide the PDs with catalog and class scheduling timelines.

  • The university catalog review cycle is available on the Registrar’s website. Direct link to the PDF >

  • The class scheduling cycle is available on the Registrar’s website. Direct link to the PDF >

Promote communication

• Schedule regular priorities synchronizations to include the Assistant Dean, PM, and APCs to align on priorities, processes, and ensure all understand requirements.

• Provide coaching opportunities for the PM to develop communication skills to deliver information clearly based on the audience and situation.

• With mentoring, provide the PM the opportunity to share expertise, train, and advise APCs in a structured, mutually agreed-upon manner.

• Identify the procedures to be transitioned to the APCs from the PM and develop a plan to train and provide support as needed.

Recommended internal processes

Synchronous meetings about the schedule of classes

To ensure timely submission of the schedule of classes, schedule one or more meetings to include the Assistant Dean, Associate Dean, PDs, PM, and APCs. This allows all parties to give feedback and de-conflict as much as possible. This venue promotes accountability with all parties understanding what is being said and their relative commitments.

While at first glance, this seems like a significant amount of time, the investment increases engagement by the relevant parties and likely balances out the time currently spent.

How it works:

1. Go through the schedule line by line and by program to ensure accuracy. The PM’s role is to note or make changes in real time as they come up in the meeting.

2. APCs should make notes on outstanding items and follow up with PDs to de-conflict and clarify after the meeting. Once done, they will communicate these decisions to the PM.

3. The PM will review for alignment across all programs.

4. Schedule additional meetings to review the schedule line by line and by program with the relevant parties.

Use a post-mortem evaluation after peak periods

Immediately after a peak period or the conclusion of an initiative, use a post-mortem evaluation as a strategy to promote continuous improvement. The post-mortem process allows employees to reflect on and share their insights about the processes that went well and those that did not.

If problems that arise during the peak period do not significantly disrupt delivery, develop a workaround, and empower staff to note these issues for post-mortem evaluation. These notes can be used to inform process refinements later, allowing staff to refocus on finishing out the remaining time without distraction.

How it works:

1. The Assistant Dean can collect feedback by way of a survey at the end of the peak period to the ADs, PM, and APCs or host small-group discussions.

2. Identify themes that emerge.

3. Praise accomplishments and identify opportunities for refinement.

4. Ask team members to research and generate solutions for these problems and present their recommendations to the group for feedback.

5. Update processes to reflect these changes.