UWFT Program News Update
This message was sent to UW leadership, administrators and finance role-holders. Others who received this email are those whose work will be impacted by UWFT, or who have expressed an interest in staying aware of program news. This message may be shared broadly.
CURRENT PROGRAM ACTIVITIES
We continue to follow the timeline for the “Readiness Phase” – a period of time that relies on broad stakeholder input to inform and define the larger scope, schedule, budget and funding plan for this transformation. Check out the UWFT website for more on Readiness and a closer look at the current timeline.
UWFT welcomes new AVP
Ed Loftus has accepted the position of Assistant Vice President for UWFT and will be officially joining the team on Monday, January 7, 2019. The UW is particularly excited to leverage Ed's experience at Bucknell University where he led his team through a successful implementation of Workday for HR/benefits/payroll and finance as a fully integrated, single deployment. This implementation replaced a 20-year-old system and involved extensive change management, hundreds of integrations and a well-resourced stabilization effort.
Technology strategy workshops
Two important workshops held in November provided key IT stakeholders an opportunity to level-set on business architecture artifacts, share understanding of the current state IT architecture and initiate discussions around the future-state vision and conceptual framework. Participants learned about the Workday financial data model, industry best practices for integrations, Enterprise Data Warehouse/reporting and security -- all of which provided a better understanding of the scale and scope of readiness work.
HRP remediation workshops
A strong partnership between HRP and Finance owners is critical to the success of this transformation. Members of the UWFT team, the ISC, UW-IT, UW Medicine and key business partners gathered together for a series of workshops to dive more deeply into areas where there will need to be changes to the current configuration in order to implement an integrated future state for Workday Human Capital Management and Finance. An output of these workshops will be a "solution catalog" -- a compilation of prioritized remediation (not optimization) activities and recommendations for the program roadmap.
Process around key decisions
The governance structure of the UWFT program was designed so that multiple stakeholders would have the opportunity to inform key decisions while also very clearly displaying when there is misalignment. The Technical and Core Teams delve deep and make programmatic decisions, which help inform actions taken by the Program Leadership Team (PLT), and the PLT then works to ensure the Sponsor Team is informed and engaged at the right level of decision-making.
For all of these governance teams, the program adopted a simple process of asking participants to hold up red, yellow or green cards to represent their votes, providing an around-the-room visual that is equal parts simplistic and compelling. Those whose votes are yellow or red are then given the opportunity to express their concerns, and the team immediately identifies ways to mitigate those issues, including through escalation to the Sponsor Team if necessary.
As UWFT proceeds along the Readiness Phase, key decision timelines are being previewed with governance team members well in advance of final decision-making moments, providing many opportunities to seek input from direct reports, colleagues and fellow governance team members to ensure a thoughtful course of action is pursued.
UWFT'S MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION
Q: What is an Operating Model?
A: An Operating Model is a blueprint and design that connects an organization's strategic vision and business model with its detailed business processes. It answers the question: "What are the fundamental capabilities and competencies and where do they get executed?"
All FAQs
New members of the UWFT team!!
Hiring Update: UWFT leadership team in place
In addition to hiring Ed Loftus as our new AVP responsible for steering this ship, the UWFT program team is thrilled that the rest of the leadership team has now been defined. Along with Brett Simmons leading our technology workstream and Debra Fromholzer leading our Project Management Office, longtime UWFT leads Jeanne Marie Isola and Jennifer Dickey are now UWFT's directors of Design and Enterprise Unit Readiness, respectively. The University also managed to score a big win when Sarah Cantwell agreed to officially join the team as the UW Medicine Readiness Director on the UWFT program. Sarah has been working with the UWFT program for the past few years as a consultant through Point B. In addition, Robert Lee joined the team as a business analyst, where he'll be able to leverage his understanding of current state financial systems based on years of experience working in the Travel Office in UW Finance.
Interested in joining UWFT?
There are a number of open positions currently posted, but don't be discouraged if you don't see something that fits your skills and experience. This program team is expected to grow from its current size of a couple of dozen to many times that by the time we go live, so check back frequently to see our other open positions.
Share your perspective!
The lessons learned from the University’s first major implementation (HRPM) are fresh in the minds of all involved in UWFT, and key among these is the importance of ensuring we hear from the right people at the right times. Although there will be many opportunities to be involved in UWFT over the course of this multi-year program, the program team would love to hear from you if you would like to volunteer in a specific way. Or, if you forward this message to colleagues, but think they should be getting it directly, please tell us! Do you have a group you meet with regularly that should hear from us? Let us know!
UWFT Newsletter Distribution List
This message is being sent to UW leadership, administrators and finance role-holders. You may also be receiving this email because your work will be impacted by UWFT or you’ve expressed an interest in staying aware of program news. You’re welcome to forward this message broadly, and please email us at uwftask@uw.edu if you’d like to be added to our distribution list.
The UW Finance Transformation program’s multi-year mission is to transform the University’s aging legacy financial systems, policies, and processes and deliver a current, cloud-based system that will improve how the UW tracks, spends, collects, manages and reports financial information. Have questions? Contact us at UWFTAsk@uw.edu.