"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success." - Henry Ford
The beginning
It was about a year ago, in March 2018, when I joined the Departmental and Campus Applications (DCA) team and started working with Sacha Geer, Manager, International Mobility and Intercultural Learning and the Student Success Office's Global Learning team.
In late 2014, they had started using a system called Waterloo Passport. This system was meant to do a lot of things including managing international agreements, facilitating applications from inbound and outbound exchange students, and tracking exchange balances. However, due to various factors, this wasn't the reality. In fact, it was far from it - the stakeholders were not happy with the system, there was no trust in the data, and it was not seen as something that could scale.
Ultimately, Sacha, the team and I had to determine if we could salvage the system to satisfy the ongoing needs of the Global Learning team to manage exchange and mobility at Waterloo, or if we needed to cut our losses and get a different solution altogether.
We decided we were up for the challenge and came up with a plan to move forward.
The Plan
Understanding the business needs, current state and pain points
At first, this meant asking lots and lots of questions of everyone and anyone, reading every document related to processes, and having sessions with the Global Learning team to see how they used the current system, and how it satisfied (or not) their business needs. I attended team and faculty meetings to amass a list of pain points (over 50!) from the faculty representatives and faculty endorsers. We were able to map the current state to give us clear picture of what was happening, where it was failing and where there were opportunities.
Learning the system functionality to see how it could align with business needs
This meant reading all the vendor documentation on system functionality, playing with the test site to recreate issues and try out new functionality, and contacting the vendor HelpDesk to learn more details on system behaviour and system limitations; we have 108 tickets submitted so far!
We met with other universities using the same platform including University of British Columbia (UBC) and U of Guelph to see how they implemented their system and what functionality they were using.
We also had a System Utilization Meeting with the vendor client account manager to share what the system could do, what functionality we were using well, what functionality we weren't using so well, and what the recommended best practices were.
Prioritizing the list of things to do
Now that we were armed with the knowledge of what the system could (and couldn't) do, the list of pain points, as well as Sacha's knowledge of the overall strategic direction of the team, we had to agree on priorities.
We decided that overhauling the student application process was the number one priority as it needed to be done before the start of the next application cycle in fall 2018.
We wanted to improve the student experience by having them make informed choices, as well as enable the Global Learning team to track the application lifecycle more efficiently. It would also be a good indication of whether or not the system could do what we needed it to do. Sacha and I scheduled weekly update meetings to ensure our work was on track and to address any roadblocks or challenges.
Guiding principles
We also came up with guiding principles to keep us all in check:
Designing the desired future state to make sure it aligned with business needs
Next, we mapped the desired future state to achieve the business needs. We discussed and prototyped the changes in working sessions to see the system behaviour in action to determine the impact on the process and user experience.
This was an iterative process that involved many changes including disabling existing functionality, like the Recommender Module and student self-registration, and enabling the Withdraw Application function for students, multi-choice program functionality, and mass updating program pages.
Involving the users to ensure user adoption
Global Learning team involvement was required during the design phase to ensure the business needs were met, but the team was also involved during testing, which helped them get used to the system in a new way.
The team started to hold mandatory information sessions for the students to provide them information and resources to help make informed choices when applying. In parallel, I also held faculty endorser information sessions to demo how they would start to use the system moving forward; having an open-door policy worked well for those that weren't as keen initially or just didn't have time.
During Match Week in January, when the team attempted to match almost 730 applications, we were locked in a room together (with donuts) to make sure our new application workflow was working as expected.
Accepting feedback and continuously improving
Currently, the team is still going through the continuous phase of matching any new applications and so far the new system and process changes seem to be working as expected. However, our work is still in progress as we have collectively agreed that no system or business process is ever static.
We are always looking to make things better, faster and stronger. There is already a huge improvement in the quality of data we are collecting. The team can now make evidence-based decisions and confidently share the data with other groups on campus, including Waterloo International and Institutional Analysis & Planning (IAP).
Where we are today
Today, I am happy to share that perceptions of Waterloo Passport from many users have shifted from negative to positive. The system itself is functioning appropriately and can continue to scale as mobility opportunities grow at Waterloo.
- The number of student applications submitted has seen a 45% increase this year compared to last year, from 550 to almost 800!
- During Match Week 2018, it took four people five days to process and match almost 500 student applications. During Match Week 2019, it took two people 2.5 days to process and match almost 730 applications!
In speaking with the team, they now trust Waterloo Passport in terms of its data, are seeing it scale, and are even enjoying using it.
Defining success
Upon reflection, the key to our success has been building the foundation of a strong partnership between DCA and the SSO Global Learning team.
The open and honest communication we have enables us to always get on the same page, handle any issues that might come up, and even predict if something might go sideways so we can address it before it does.
To quote Bob Bitchin, "Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure". Truly, I have been on an adventure with the Global Learning team so far and am looking forward to many more to come!
