The Quality Improvement Champion Award recognizes an individual for outstanding promotion and practice of quality improvement concepts through one or more initiatives. Ms. Abbi Stone, Director of Resources and Special Projects in the Finance and Administration Services (FAS) division at CSUSM, leads the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Team in the Financial and Administrative Services Division. Ms. Stone developed innovative communication tools including a formal communication plan and matrix to ensure that the BSC team provides timely and accurate information to important stakeholders. Her superior leadership skills and advocacy provide the BSC team direction and support coupled with the freedom to creatively develop activities and initiatives. Ms. Stone has led the implementation of several successful programs within the FAS division such as the Grand Slam program, which allows employees to make suggestions on how to cut costs and improve efficiency. The program has resulted in total savings/cost avoidance of $525,000 thus far. Ms. Stone embodies the values of a Quality Improvement Champion, often referring to the FAS division’s BSC strategy when called upon to resolve issues.

Dr. Steven R. Marx, professor of English, adopted the role of guiding Cal Poly toward being a “green campus.” He assembled like-minded individuals to present seminars on natural resources on the 6,000-acre campus in San Luis Obispo. He assembled these presentations into a book titled Cal Poly Land, A Field Guide. The book serves as a guide to the resources on campus and as a text for a popular course on the environmental qualities of campus land. His initiatives set the standard for guiding future and present efforts to manage Cal Poly lands for both education and enjoyment.

The Most Valuable Team award recognizes the outstanding accomplishment of a team quality improvement effort. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Core Team in the FAS division of CSU San Marcos (CSUSM) is charged with developing and communicating the key initiatives of the BSC effort. This includes the development of the Strategy Map; creation and collection of related measures; support of activities related to the BSC; and ensuring ongoing communication to key stakeholders of BSC concepts, measures, initiatives, and outcomes. Since its inception in August 2001, the BSC Core Team has accomplished a phenomenal amount. From developing and distributing a BSC newsletter, to copywriting a BSC Strategy Map and Glossary, to launching employee and customer participation initiatives, to being recognized as a leader in BSC development for governments and nonprofits, the BSC Core Team has had a busy three years. These initiatives have resulted in numerous improvements and achievements for CSUSM including training of other BSC teams, surveys of awareness and attitudes toward BSC, creation of a BSC website and online BSC orientation, and employee skills development workshops — to name a few.

The Document Pool Concept Team at CSU Fresno, comprised of Human Resources staff, was charged with the objective of shortening the time to fill vacant staff positions without compromising the diversity of the pool of qualified applicants using an applicant pool concept. In less than a year, the team developed a new recruitment process, which resulted in campuswide benefits including reducing recruitment time by 50%, creating a more thorough skills and experience screening process, and minimizing time spent by campus managers on recruiting selection.

The cross-functional CSUSB Automatic Call Distribution Implementation Team’s objective was to redesign the method of serving the voluminous number of callers to the Records, Registration and Evaluation Department and to reduce the number of lost calls, long hold time, and incorrectly transferred calls. In approximately half a year, the team completed a physical and organizational restructuring of Enrollment Services, obtained new software, wrote telephone scripts, developed phone trees, and added new voice mailboxes. These efforts increased productivity, enhanced customer satisfaction, improved data gathering, eliminated busy tones and the need for customers to call back, improved accuracy, and enabled less hold time and fewer misdirected calls.

The cross-functional WebComm Team at CSUSB was tasked with creating a one-stop website where graduating students could have 24-hour access to register for commencement, provide name card information, print invoices for payment, and complete a graduation survey. In roughly six months, the team completed these goals, effectively permitting students to register for commencement online, anytime; reducing the number of information calls to the Commencement Office; enabling students to track payments, providing more accurate and legible name cards; increasing productivity of office staff; and reducing printing and mailing costs.