OSU leaders and the AMP team have reached out to peers across the country including higher education and public agencies to learn from their experiences implementing Workday. Those experiences include both challenges and successes that we have carefully and intentionally leveraged to inform our strategy and approach for AMP. The following are key points that were consistently recommended and have been implemented in AMP planning, structure and activities to manage and mitigate risks:
1. We’ve established strong governance.
The leadership at OSU is aligned on the importance of AMP and the changes to our business processes and supporting technology. The AMP Steering Committee has been and will continue to be actively engaged to provide leadership, make program-level decisions, and ensure that our teams operate in alignment with our Guiding and Design Principles.
2. Organizational change management is the driver.
OSU has committed to lead AMP with organizational change management at the forefront. Our implementation processes will be driven by that commitment so that we can prioritize supporting people through the change. We will utilize the expertise of our external partner specializing in organizational change management and our Change Management Lead who will be dedicated to AMP, as well as use our change champion network to assist in navigating the big changes that AMP will create.
3. We will implement business process change through a “fit-to-standard" approach.
We will adopt best practice higher education Workday processes in our approach and not simply reimplement our current processes, sometimes referred to as “lift and shift”, into the new system. We plan to improve on the end-user experience by simplifying the number of technologies we use and condensing our processes to a comprehensive solution and unified architecture.
4. Community engagement is crucial for success.
Broad engagement with our community began with the perspectives we heard from 500+ community members who attended the 2023 focus groups, open forums, workshops, and other engagement events that have informed foundational strategic decisions. We will continue broad engagement with the OSU community and integrate feedback in every stage of the process. We will also utilize multiple digital and print channels to communicate important updates and provide opportunities for feedback such as the AMP website, intranet site, regular email updates, and printed materials.
5. We will provide early and thorough testing, training, resources and support.
We are creating a comprehensive training system and allotting significant time for a testing and training phase for each module of Workday, including end-to-end user experience testing, to enable successful implementation. We will also offer robust resources and support so people can easily get their questions answered or refresh skills that might not be regularly utilized.