Coping with Disruptive ChangePre-award and Post-award Perspectives

Presenters:• Pam Miller, Director, Sponsored Projects Office, UC

Berkeley• Kim Page, Manager, Contracts and Grants Accounting,

UC Berkeley

Learning Objectives

• Participants will learn to recognize the various types of change and the impact change has on the different personalities in the work environment.

• Participants will learn about the strategies being used at UC Berkeley to cope with disruptive change in the pre- and post-award sectors.

Change is Good!

You Go First!

What type of change is happening?

Incremental Change– Modifies existing

methods and systems

– Gradual change– Minor disruptions– Impacts smaller

span of organization– Fewer objectors

1909

1916

Ford Model “T”

What type of change is happening?

Transformative/Disruptive Change

– For the future– Challenges beliefs and

assumptions– Major disruptions– Significant changes and

larger impact– More protestors and

mutineers

Disruptive change?

Disruptive change?1981

1951

2016

Disruptive change?

1951

Berkeley’s “Change” Story• 2009—diagnosis of the campus operational and financial environment

facilitated by Bain & Company– Identified ways to improve effectiveness – Potential $75M in cost savings

• 2010—the design phase of the Operational Excellence (OE) initiated to identify administrative efficiencies/improvements

• 2011—Governor proposed $500M cut from UC budget• 2013 Campus Shared Services implemented to improve efficiency of

administrative services and reduce costs– Included Human Resources (HR), Finance, Information

Technology (IT) & Research Administration (RA)

What happened?• 89% of department RAs removed from campus departments• Rumors that RA jobs will be lost• 20% of campus RAs leave Berkeley campus• Campus Shared Service RA teams (n=9) created with 175

RAs• RES and Engineering Research Service Center left intact • SLAs established with campus departments• Plan to house CSS RAs in off campus location announced

What happened next?• Faculty dissatisfaction with CSS RA model• Plan to house CSS RAs in off campus location rescinded• CSS leadership changes made• Operation Excellence discontinued• Chancellor declares CSS RA a failure• Chancellor decides to step down

What went wrong?• Case for “disruptive” change not well articulated• Outside consultants in charge of implementation• Faculty not consulted• Complexity of RA not understood• Relationship of PI and RA not understood• Communication problems led to lack of trust• Not up front about what it would cost to implement• Not up front about the time is would take to implement• Other organizational and financial factors

Disruptive Change – Keeping the Silos, changing the silo mentality

Alex Novkov on Jul 13, 2016 Don't Break Your Silos ‐ Push Out the Silo Mentality https://www.infoq.com/articles/break‐silos‐ventilators

• Silos may…complicate the decision making process in a company.

• Silos themselves do not create these problems, the mentality that comes with them does.

• Forming of silos in the organization is a natural process.• Silos do not need to be destroyed if they are ventilated

often.

The Next Chapter

• End to End (E2E) Review of Research Administration– Initiated by the VCR and CFO– Multiple Campus Participants– Including Faculty!

New E2E Principles• Offices charged with particular responsibilities must act in

concert (not in isolation from one another) for the system to be effective and efficient.

• The bonds between staff, faculty, and students are extremely important and that a faculty support system must be designed to capture this synergy

• It is critical that we address problems of staff morale and turnover, which often stem from lack of training, instances of poor cooperation among units that need to work together, and related cultural issues.

End to End Process ScopeEnd-to-end (E2E) process is defined to begin with identifying funding sources and end with close-out of the sponsored project.

The objective of the project is to enhance research support services through improvements to process, structure and ways of working together.

End to End Process ScopeThe four mega processes include:• Proposal Preparation and Submission

(starts w identifying funding and collaboration opportunities, ends with proposal submission)

• Award Set-up (starts with notification of intent to award from agency, ends with fund activated and set-up to spend)

• Award Management (starts with the fund being activated, ends with completion of work on project)

• Close-out (starts with the PI ending work and finalizing expenses to project, ends with final reports and final invoice to sponsor)

Project OverviewExecutive Team

VCR, CFO, VCAF &Chief of Staff

Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee

Campus Culture

Project Lead: TBDProject Manager: TBD

Structure

Project Lead: VCAF Chief of Staff

Project Manager

Process

Project Lead: VCAF Chief of StffProject Manager

● Cross-functional workgroups created to map and analyze each process.

● Implementation of improvements and metrics evaluation managed by functional owners of the relevant offices.

● Cross-functional advisory workgroup will review previous work on service interface and develop and vet options for regional groupings and a governance model.

● Campus leadership has decision on the plan forward.

● Currently soliciting input for project approach.

Campus Input: ● EVCP CAOs● Functional Owners

● Faculty forums● Staff forums (SPO, CGA, CSS, IAO brown bags)● Staff associations (eg, ABOG, BSA)

Progress and GoalsProcess Improvement• Created a high level end-to-end research administration

process map• Compiled an inventory of processes to prioritize for

analysis and improvement.• Completed mapping and analysis of two processes:

award set-up and Conflict of Interest (COI) review. COI changes implemented in June. Implementation plans for award set-up changes are being finalized now.

• Next process targeted for improvement this fall is the proposal development and submission process followed by award management in the spring semester

21

Progress and Goals

Regional Model• Conducted 35 interviews over the summer on a regional

model service interface and compiled feedback to inform the work of the working group on structure.

• Currently forming the cross functional advisory group• Goal - Deliver options for regional service center model

to campus leadership this fall, along with implementation plan and timeline.

Culture• In planning. First deliverable is to establish the working

group

22

COI Process Improvement Metrics

23

Pre-award Changes

Sponsored Projects OfficeCSS RAContracts and Grants AccountingBerkeley Research Development Office

Delays in Award “Activation”• Post metrics on each office’s role to create more realistic

expectations • Post metrics on overall process by funding agency type• Show CSS RAs how to use Phoebe Search to identify new

awards received by SPO• Give CSS RA access to proposal information at time award is

received from sponsor to facilitate project decision-making and budget upload

• Clarify and simplify Fund Advance process for pending and delayed awards

Lack of “Transparency”• Create more informative “Award Status” categories in Phoebe

Search (Stage 1)• Implement the KC Negotiation Module so PIs can see the

issues being negotiated in real time (Stage 2)• Automate notifications to PIs and CSS RAs• Redesign SPO Notice of Award document for PI use

– Content, placement of information, terms used• Rename SPO NOA to distinguish it from the sponsor’s NOA• Update transmittal email sent with SPO NOA• Encourage use of department award distribution mailing lists

Lack of “Efficiency”• Implement internal guidelines and processes within SPO

to facilitate and speed up award negotiation and finalization

• Developed guide for CGOs on problematic T&Cs• Implement “informed consent” process for non-critical

terms and conditions

Post-award ChangesContracts and Grants Accounting

Post-award ChangesContracts and Grants Accounting

Monitoring and Metricsin the Award Setup Process

• Identified pain points• Implemented protocols for monitoring processes• Developed metrics and reports• Perception vs reality- where are the *true* pain points?

AWARD SET UP METRICS ‐ JANUARY 2016‐AUGUST 2016TIME TO SET UP: AVERAGE # DAYS

Dept Name# Awards Set Up

Avg # Days for Dept to Submit Budget

Avg # Days for CGA Analyst to Approve

Avg # Days for CGA Supervisor to Approve

Dept 1 206 14 1 1Dept 2 127 7 1 1Dept 3 70 11 2 1Dept 4 66 16 2 1Dept 5 61 6 1 1Dept 6 61 6 1 1Dept 7 53 24 1 1Dept 8 36 10 1 2Dept 9 16 12 3 0Dept 10 14 25 2 4Dept 11 11 17 3 1Dept 12 10 25 5 1Dept 13 9 2 1 5Dept 14 8 39 2 1Dept 15 7 14 4 1Dept 16 7 28 0 0Dept 17 6 8 0 2Dept 18 5 51 3 3Dept 19 4 8 3 3Dept 20 4 10 0 1Dept 21 3 18 0 1Dept 22 2 10 1 1Dept 23 2 40 0 1Dept 24 1 8 0 1Dept 25 1 86 3 2Dept 26 1 3 0 0Dept 27 1 65 1 6TOTAL 792 13 1 1

Monitoring and Metricsin the Award Setup Process

• Communicated expectations to staff and held staff accountable • Next: Revisit external expectations and make sure they are

realistic• Communicate the realistic expectation

Consider…• Does proposed change actually solve a problem? (Does

the RA want an email sent when the award is received) • Does the proposed change solve one loud person’s

problem at the expense of others’ problems?• Will a report/published metric/other product produced in

the attempt to solve the problem be useful?• Are expectations realistic?• How will you and your staff respond to disruptive change?

Let’s Get Personal…How do you cope with change?

Work Styles Handout

Directions• On the handout read the words in the boxes in each row.• Score each box in each row from 1-4 with a 4 in the box that is

most like you and 1 in the box that is the least like you.• Then assign a 2 or 3 to the remaining two boxes. • Once you’ve done this for each row, total each column.• Circle your highest scoring column.

Analysis• The column with the highest score is your preferred working

style.

• Which is your style color? (TBD at the conference)Column 1: Column 2: Column 3: Column 4:

Note: There is no one “best” style and most people have more than one as a back-up.

Blue needs:• Understanding • Harmony • Hugs • Love • Affection • People • Inspiration • Warmth

Gold needs:• Stability • Consistency • Order • To be on time • Rules and procedures • Recognition • Respect • To be productive

Green needs:• Autonomy • Knowledge • Accuracy • Data/Information • To find out how things work • To be understood • To question • Space

Orange needs:• Action • Humor/Fun/Play • Variety • Freedom • Challenge • Hands-on activities • Flexible environment • Mobility

Change Issues for Each Style• Stressors for Greens

– Lack of control – Lack of independence – Incompetence – Emotional displays – Lack of options – Routine – Decisions without data

• Stressors for Blues– Broken promises – Lack of Discussion– Clock-watching – System before people– No chance for individual

expression

Change Issues for Each Style• Stressors for Gold

– Incomplete tasks– Ambiguous

tasks/answers – Disorganization – Too many things going

on at the same time – People who do not follow

through – Non-conformity – Changing details

• Stressors for Orange– Redundancy – Deadlines – Rules and regulations – Being stuck at a desk – Non-negotiable and

imposed structure – “How-to” directions – Focus on Abstract

concepts not results

Strategies for coping with change?• Understand your style of coping with change• Understand what is likely to push your buttons• Understand how others are likely to cope with change• Recognize that new ideas are not necessarily bad ideas• Respect & challenge past practices• Look for and listen to the pain points• Other Ideas? Suggestions?• What has worked/not worked for you in your organization?