paper -
23 Crisis or Turning Point - Supporting a Multi-Campus Student Information System in Transition
Barbara
Long, WVNET
Imagine if you will – the leader of the support effort
for the student information system resigns, a member of top management
reluctantly fills in, the relationship between the technical folks (DBAs) and functional staff is crumbling,
the user community is demanding more services, a new version of the product is
about to be released, and Y2K is only months away -- you have entered the Nightmare Zone.
Not really a stretch of the imagination, is it? In 1999, WVNET*, a centralized computing and
networking service bureau supporting education in West Virginia, was facing
these issues. Suddenly, this
organization which had experienced great success with the world’s first Banner
student information system implementations didn’t know where to turn.
The focus of divisional meetings moved from reviewing
current student information system projects to discussions about …should we
expand our services, tread water, or bail out?
“Where do we go from here?”
became the mantra. In the midst
of these challenges, the functional support staff was assigned the task of
conducting a training needs assessment – in an effort to define a new user
support strategy.
This presentation will trace the WVNET story and offer
transferable lessons that have led to the organization’s recommitment to the
needs of the user community. Here’s a
rare, behind-the-scenes look at the interplay among senior management,
divisional management, technical and functional consultants (a.k.a., the
“Banner Support Team”), user community and the vendor that facilitated change
through the eyes of someone in the trenches.
Explore the Banner Support Team’s triumphs/set-backs on breaking the
gridlock caused by lack of definition regarding the future of the product and
by indecision as to what to do about it.
Get ready to find out what worked (and didn’t). * WVNET is the West Virginia Network, which has served the computing needs of West Virginia higher education since 1975. WVNET was created to provide central computing facilities and wide-area network communications linking its "central site" computing resources in Morgantown with the campus computing systems at most of the colleges and universities throughout the state. WVNET reports to the Central Office of the State College and University Systems of West Virginia. Currently, twelve public colleges and universities are committed to using the Systems & Computer Technology Corporation (SCT)’s Banner software system.
Keywords: Customer Service Strategy, Collaboration/Team Building, Organizational Change