The MSU Way: Excellence in Campus Operations and
Services Process

Where can we begin to improve?

Organizations that have focused on finding their project "coxswain," typically through dedicated capital portfolio management programs, have been shown to significantly optimize efficiency, sales, and profitability. A research report, "The Value of Project Management in Organizations," conducted by PM Solutions' research and publications division, The Center for Business Practices, reveals that organizations with a solid project management infrastructure achieve an average of 20-percent improvements in productivity, customer satisfaction, cost reductions, and return on investment.

Project approach (high-level)

Phase 1: Validation and Cohesion

1. Exploring current reality of operations and service at MSU
2. Clearly stating why this effort matters to the units involved
3. Finding what in this effort matters to involved individuals
4. Creating a common future that would unite each of us and all of us in knowing how important we are to its success
5. Agreeing to commit to how we get there

Phase 2: Scoping and Development

1. Develop the “how” of the MSU Way: ECOS initiative
2. Identify “process improvement projects” in the different areas of Physical Plant service and operations
3. Pilot and refine selected “process improvement projects”

Phase 3: Implementation

1. Develop recommendations for stakeholder group
2. Wide-scale implementation of approved process improvement
3. Institute continuous improvement

Data collection efforts:

 “How do you know you are doing well if you don’t know how well you are doing?”
Simply stated, we need to know how well we are doing. The first effort in this direction of knowing how well we are doing is the focus group.

• Process-mapping of major projects procurement methods at MSU
• Process-mapping of service requests handled by Building Services of the Physical Plant
• Surveying staff perceptions of change process engagement levels in the Office of the Executive Vice President for Administrative Services (formerly known as the Vice President's Office for Finance and Operations) organization.
• Suggestions through the MSU Way: ECOS website

Given the multiple sources of data that the ECOS initiative will collect and accumulate, the following strategy will be used to process suggestions through the committee structure established for the initiative:

Process improvement

In the MSU Way: ECOS initiative, we utilize the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle, or Deming Cycle, to guide our work. The PDCA cycle is a never-ending cycle, repeated again and again for continuous improvement.

• Plan:  Recognize an opportunity or a gap in each committee’s area of focus. Plan gap closure and change steps.
• Do:  Test and pilot the change. Carry out a small-scale study.
• Check:  Review the test/pilot, analyze the results and identify what we have learned.
• Act:  Take action based on what we learned in the “Check” step:  If the test/pilot is not favorable, we go through the cycle again with a different plan. If the test/pilot were successful, then we will take the case to the Steering Committee for approval to go to the Stakeholder Group for wide-scale implementation