bondango-music.com

Based on the initial round of classes, Morrison quickly determined that the root of ITS’ problems was tied to poor communication with users. He assigned groups to brainstorm different initiatives, and project leaders were picked from within those groups. The effort became a regular agenda item on ITS’ Tuesday project planning meetings.

As ideas gelled into Make Market Launch It Review project plans, the management team gave the various groups deadlines for their initiatives, and project leaders made sure everything stayed on track and that the right people were informed about any changes in schedule or scope.

“The idea was why not use something we’re good at, project management, to implement something we’re not so good at, customer service,” Morrison explains. “We didn’t improve our culture with project management, but with it we got visible results that reinforced that service was important.” Attacking the problem in such a way where ITS staffers could appreciate each incremental improvement was a critical part of getting them to buy into what was initially viewed as an unpopular assignment, Morrison says. For instance, as his group Empower Network began to deliver more status information on system problems-even if they hadn’t yet been resolved-users became more understanding and willing to work around the problem instead of blaming ITS. With each positive reaction from users, ITS staffers became more willing to change their behavior or to embrace the new systems and customer-service processes. Lines of Communication

Two of the first projects ITS tackled were a new paging system that keeps ITS staffers informed about system problems as well as a stakeholder system that alerts the appropriate staffers by e-mail to problems via a standardized report. Communications were further enhanced by setting up a Web-accessible calendar where ITS publishes planned events such as a scheduled system upgrade, allowing users to make backup plans so that system downtime doesn’t affect their schedules.