CSUQI: Can you give me a brief history and description of how you became the Quality Improvement Facilitator at Humboldt State University?

PP: In my previous role as a CMS Project Director on the CMS Central team, I had worked with both Matt Ceppi and Robyn Pennington. In observing their work, I noted the central goals of improving our ways of doing business, increasing productivity, and maximizing the value of our IT investments. Shortly after accepting the CMS Project Director position at Humboldt State, I realized that many of the QI initiatives could help with the myriad challenges facing me in the new role.

CSUQI: What has been the most notable QI achievement at HSU?

PP: QI activities at HSU are just beginning, but we have hit the ground running. The campus is working to hire a fulltime dedicated QI analyst. Furthermore, Matt and Robyn from the CO systemwide team recently visited the campus to provide business-process mapping and improvement training. That two-day course was extremely well received and has generated an overwhelming interest in further business-process improvement activities. A follow-up planning session will be scheduled in January so that campus strategies can be further developed.

CSUQI: Tell me about some of the QI initiatives at HSU.

PP: HSU plans to incorporate quality improvement techniques wherever possible. Initial plans will focus on the Common Management Systems project, and we plan to leverage the recent process-improvement training. Those techniques will be applied to ensure a thorough audit of the existing Banner (student administration) system, which is scheduled to be replaced by PeopleSoft through a series of rolling go-lives from 1/07 through 10/08. In particular, the process mapping and improvement techniques should help facilitate and streamline the fit-gap process for that project. The same techniques should also prove valuable during our HCM 8.9 upgrade, during which we hope to learn more about novel ways to use PeopleSoft so that we can make the most of the CSU’s investment in PeopleSoft.

CSUQI: What is on your wish list for the future of QI for the CSU system or at HSU?

PP: First, I would like to see the business-process mapping techniques unequivocally embraced by those campuses that share similar PeopleSoft SA timelines (including the “Banner Collaborative” and others). Such an approach would allow for more thorough collaboration and better leveraging of resources across the system. Looking further ahead, a single, consolidated data warehouse of the data from all campuses could greatly improve data analysis for our university system. Other initiatives such as corporate dashboards could help end users better recognize the value of our investments in PeopleSoft.

CSUQI: What resources have you used to assist with your QI efforts?

PP: HSU has taken advantage of the process mapping and improvement training offered by the systemwide QI team. We plan to purchase several of the recommended “additional reading” books from that course and review them as a team.

CSUQI: What techniques have you used to gain buy-in for QI initiatives in the CMS department?

PP: As the CMS Director, I immediately saw QI initiatives as possible solutions to the many challenges faced by this project. For example, common issues of reporting might be addressed through the corporate dashboards. As another example, we can ensure that our campus fully leverages the CMS baseline with the use of business-process mapping and improvement techniques as well as a well-planned campus fit-gap and/or business-process review workshops.

CSUQI: What is your biggest challenge in leading the QI efforts at Humboldt? And how have you overcome the challenge?

PP: The biggest challenge was generating sufficient interest in a previously nebulous idea. Once the idea was presented as a panacea, that challenge dissipated. But the future will hold additional challenges around keeping up the QI momentum to ensure that newly learned skills are fully applied and that they optimize our IT investments. We should be able to overcome those challenges by offering everyone within the organization a roadmap for applying QI strategies to all areas of the work required to run a campus.

Ideas, comments, questions? Have news or other Quality Improvement-related information to share? Contact Robyn Pennington at rpennington@calstate.edu. Let us know what information would be helpful to include in the Quality Improvement E-News.