Dr. Joe Whitehead:

There’s a saying, I’ve learned recently that says to speed up, slow down. Yeah. So taking the time to slow down, plan the projects: that will allow you to speed up and get things through to completion more efficiently than if you’re trying to rush things through from the very beginning. So taking that time to plan results in an overall shorter implementation.

Joe Gottlieb:

That’s Joe Whitehead, Senior Advisor to the President for Regional Science Initiatives and former Provost at Bowling Green University. We talked about the importance of project timing, using two examples that illustrate just how differently things can work out when you are rushed versus when you can give yourself enough time to execute effectively. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Joe Gottlieb:

Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new whys, the new whats, and the new hows in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process, and technology. It’s all on the menu because that’s what’s required to truly transform.

Joe Gottlieb:

Hello, welcome and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, president and CTO of Higher Digital, and today I’m joined by Dr. Joe Whitehead, senior advisor to the President for Regional Science Initiatives and former provost at Bowling Green University. Joe, welcome to TRANSFORMED.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here. How are you today?

Joe Gottlieb:

I’m doing great.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

And what would you like to talk about?

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, I would love to talk about your thoughts on the importance of project timing, but before we jump into that, please share a bit of your background on your personal journey and how you got connected into higher ed.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure. Great. Yeah, I’m originally from Mississippi. I’m a former college athlete. Grew up watching Star Trek and so all the, I’m a geek from that perspective. I, a doctorate in physics with a research specialty in look at crystal and polymeric materials. My academic career spans, uh, 30 or four years spending, getting as a research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute. I’ve worked at three different universities, university of Southern Mississippi, North Carolina a and t State University, and now Bowling Green State University. All along I’ve, I’ve had a passion for student success, and so that’s been what I’ve focused on throughout my career. Uh, I have experience as a faculty member as well as administrative experience at all levels, department chair, associate dean, dean and Provost. And so, again, what a focus on student success and how to help, uh, universities support students in transforming their lives.

Joe Gottlieb:

Wow. So you’ve seen really the, the academic enterprise from all levels and, and, uh, I imagine really have a good feel for how change happens and, and when it can happen. Well, with good timing and perhaps when it can happen, not so well without good timing. Would that be fair?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

That is fair statement, yes,

Joe Gottlieb:

Absolutely. All right. Well, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the importance of pro project timing and by project timing, I mean both the sequence of projects, but also the time allowed to complete projects in the right way. So why don’t you take me through that a little bit?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure. Uh, you know, there are times when you don’t have sufficient time in order to plan a project and execute it, so you have to do things fairly quickly. I can give you an example of one I dealt with recently. Uh, we had a vendor who had a major solution for our institution, and they gave us very short notice regarding a end of life situation. And so we had defined a another solution very quickly, which meant, uh, that prevented us from, uh, going through a, a process analysis to see what we can do to approve the current processes, to define what we needed going forward in order to produce the RFP. And so with this abbreviated timeframe, uh, we had to really move fairly quickly. Uh, and also I think that short timeframe, relatively speaking, uh, impacted the vendors who responded to the RFP. And I say that because, uh, in this particular case, I had experience with vendors at prior institutions who did not respond to the RFP.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

I knew they had good project, uh, good, uh, products. And so from that perspective, we didn’t have diversity of responses that I thought we could have had if we had more time in order to, uh, go through the full project timeline and process in order to put out an RFP that the vendors could respond to in, in a timely manner. And so what happened there is that yes, we got, uh, some responses, and because of my experience at other institutions, I knew, again, there were other vendors out there whom have had, you know, products who could have also, uh, helped us. And so we got a decision was made, we had to move forward and, uh, that decision was made. We had to really tailor our processes to that, uh, solution that was chosen, and that tailoring the processes to the solution that also, uh, impacted a, uh, staff member whose responsibilities were changed because of this solution. So when you have these abbreviated timeframes for, uh, project timing and project development, it could have an impact on your internal processes as well as have an impact on personnel. And so, uh, when the process is timeline is not optimum, this is a case where you can really infl, uh, really impacts how your, your operations and impacts your personnel.

Joe Gottlieb:

Wow. So let me get this straight. So first of all, the rush that happened, unfortunately due to an end of life, um, uh, update or, you know, so the abruptness of that end of life development, it, it really shortened the time that you had to get a new solution in place that in turn, led to not having all, even your preferred targeted vendors be able to participate. That then led to picking from something that was perhaps not the best set of options. And then that led to, um, rushing into an deployment of that software that really, uh, only had time to adopt sort of the baseline capability without perhaps doing the right level of change management. That sounds like it impacted at least one of your, one of your members of the team. Is that a fair summary?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

It’s a fair summary. Yes, it was. That was the one concrete, but the, in terms of the, uh, implementation process, it also impacted others also. But this was the, uh, a lasting effect in terms of a person’s, uh, responsibility being redirected right. To support this solution.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, it’s a great example and, and it really touches on a lot of things that project timing can have its way with, if you will. Maybe, you know, do you have a positive example? Let’s try a positive one.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Oh, yes, I do. Uh, many years ago we had a, uh, net institution. We had a chemical storeroom, which was very convenient for the researchers, but we noticed on a annual basis there was a deficit in the storeroom. And as we were analyzing it from the dean’s office, it turns out that, uh, there were cases where, uh, a project was billed for supplies. But by the time the principal investigator got the, uh, bill, the project account had been depleted because of other expenditures. And as we continued to look into this, we found that, that we had, for example, one inventory system for the chemical store room, another inventory system for facilities who received all the supplies from the vendors and then transferred it to the store room. And then you had to, then when the, uh, when the, uh, customers made a purchase, they had to go back to the financial system in order to, uh, hit their accounts.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

So you had these three different processes with three different systems that were not, uh, linked together. And that created, uh, the delay in building. Also, it made it difficult for the, uh, store room to know what inventory they actually had on hand. And so we went through a process of, uh, doing, um, looking at the, the, how we were doing business, all the processes and procedures, uh, found out where the challenges were, and then we got to the point of looking for possible solutions. Uh, and so we decided to outsource the store room. And one of the key things was that we needed a vendor to, uh, run the store room who could integrate all these different systems together. And so one, we developed an RFP, and the main part of RFP was the vendor had to be able to take these desperate systems and create a bridge between them so we could efficiently run the store room.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

And so we went through the RFP process, a vendor responded who could do it. We worked through the implementation process, and it worked out really well, uh, both for the employees as well as the customers. And so that was because we had sufficient time and planning and implementation. So the implementation went smoothly because we had that sufficient timing and planning and, uh, deficits were eliminated. The customers were happy because they were frustrated that they were getting these bills, uh, late, that they then had to go back and try and deal with their grant accounts, uh, and as they track their, their balances. So that’s a case there where we had sufficient time, went through a thorough process to understand the need, uh, and the challenges. Uh, and then we did the RFP along with, uh, identifying the best vendor to, um, develop the solution and then run the storeroom.

Joe Gottlieb:

So if we look at those two examples, thanks for sharing those. I imagine that each produced a very different effect in terms of the trust that was either expanded in the latter case perhaps, or contracted in the former case, just coming outta that experience. Right. So the, so the trust in how, how that organization was grappling with net new solutions, can you comment on, on, on how each of those influenced the, the, the, the respective futures of the trajectories of those of those organizations?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Well, as she suggested, in, in the latter case, there was more confidence, uh, in, uh, working with the customers and more confidence in working, uh, with the workers who were also frustrated that they could not have an accurate inventory, and they had people coming in who were upset with them. And so, uh, it made a better working atmosphere for them. Uh, and the former case, well, there were some stress and concern about implementing a new system that, uh, not everyone necessarily bought into, and there were different, uh, possibilities we could have, uh, dealt with. And so it’s, uh, uh, it creates a positive net effect. Yeah. If you can go through, uh, these projects with appropriate time and planning,

Joe Gottlieb:

And in the, in particularly in the latter case, would you say that the experience of doing it with adequate time was, was able to be referenced as you embarked on subsequent projects, right. Just, just you armed you with a context for was probably less requirement to sell. No one likes a delay. Everyone would love, you know, the best solutions to be just tumbling out of the sky at, you know, and be available at their fingertips. But that’s not reality. Right. So, right. Did it, did it help that organization to, um, have better alignment around how to build time into future endeavors?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Yes, it did. Yes, it did. There’s a saying, I’ve learned hurt recently that says, uh, to speed up slow down. Yeah. So taking the time to slow down plan the projects that will allow you to speed up and get things through to completion more efficiently than if you’re trying to rush things through, uh, from the very beginning. So taking that time to plan, uh, and, uh, results in an overall shorter implementation

Joe Gottlieb:

That’s right. Can feel counterintuitive at the time. I love that adage. Um, we’ve talked about it on the podcast before with multiple guests, actually. It’s, it’s just so powerful. But it takes some experience, it takes some, some ability to, to see that through, to, to really get it, to really feel it, and then, uh, appreciate the investment needed. Okay. Well, these are great. Those are great examples of how project timing really, really matters. Let’s talk about how data-driven decision making, then, particularly when project timing is well managed, can really mitigate risk and maximize your achievement of goals in your project. So, uh, I’d love for you to speak about that if you can.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure. Uh, one thing I’ve, one of my pet peeves I’ve had over the years and people work, have me work with me, uh, they sort of laugh when it comes up, is that too often decisions are made on solutions, okay? Before understanding, uh, the overall situation. And so a solution is, um, determined or decided upon, and then you spend the next x number of years tailoring all your systems in order to fit that solution. Where if you had taken some time to acquire the right data, meaning, uh, current systems you have in place, do they talk to one another, getting input from the, uh, from your workers who on the front lines working with these systems, uh, so that you have a better idea, uh, what the need really is. And so that getting that information is critical because it allows one to, uh, move forward again, more effect efficiently, more effectively.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

And so, again, this is one of the pet peeves I’ve had. Another thing that that, uh, comes into this is that, uh, everyone wants perfect holistic data before making a decision. Well, no, it, the world is not like we’re, we’re working a fuzzy air. We in a fuzzy world. So you have to have, make decisions the best decision with, uh, the best data you have in a timely manner. You can’t wait till that perfect perfection occurs because you’re never getting anywhere. So action is critical. Uh, and too often discussions start and they keep going about, uh, the data itself versus, okay, this is what we have. Okay, we understand the trends here, let’s move forward, making the best decision possible. And I call it data informed decision making. <laugh>.

Joe Gottlieb:

Nice. Nice. Um, so I know one thing that can potentially loom as a challenge is software customization. So I love your thesis for being real about what data can be made available in a timely manner to make the best possible decision. Now, we’ve talked about time, we’ve talked about data now with customization, customizing software, I think we’ve all learned by now is really a bad idea. Um, and, and, and, and yet knowing that knowing what it can lead to, or sometimes being in a hurry and not being willing to figure out how might we adapt to something that we could adopt, um, can put you down this path where you’re dealing with a lot of technical debt that, that, that results from customization. So love for you to talk about that if it, if it factors into your experience.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure, it does. Uh, my experience has been, and again, something I’ve talked about numerous times is that the way these major systems work is that, uh, you can have a generic installation. And too often institutions accept that generic installation because they’re looking at the front end cost. But, and to tailor that installation to what you really need is additional cost. And so sometimes they make decisions to go with the generic versus the additional upfront cost to get exactly what’s needed, okay. To move forward. And so if you can have these decisions made where you understand the overall situation and project into the future, then you can do the tailoring or customization on the front end. It may cost a little more money at that time versus getting five, 10 years down the line. And now you’re looking at, here’s the data I need. But now the field is not there because of the initial installation.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

So being able to project into the future, uh, and, uh, be able to have the larger data set possible, even though you may not use all the fields at the beginning. So as you move forward, then you have that flexibility in order to, uh, be able to do things that you may have anticipated at the very beginning. But at the same time, the more information you have on the front end, that gives you better idea of looking at the crystal ball and figuring out what you may need in the future think, and that will minimize the customization that you need in the future.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, I think there’s a nuance here. I mean, so let’s be clear about what we mean by customization. So these, there’s been a lot of history around customizing software to, to basically automate the way we like to do things in our version of higher ed. And even though a lot of these, a lot of institutions are quite similar, they like to feel different. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and, and that’s a well-known thing, right? But that’s human nature. There’s a little bit of that, but there’s a special version of it in higher ed, I would say. But these days, the right way to do that is to avoid customization and instead make sure there’s configuration and integration that suits something that I think you were speaking to, which is the other systems you have, the way that you are managing data across those systems so that you actually do get the rich result that you need.

Joe Gottlieb:

And that does require both discipline and time, right? So being able to first of all, pick the right vendors Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, second of all, understand how to think about enterprise architecture and how those vendors can fit together, and something you’ve established for enterprise architecture, which needs to include data architecture, right? Yes. And to, as you point out, anticipate how you’re gonna need to use this and how you might adjust with how you might, this new solution might operate a bit differently than what you’re used to. That’s okay. But it’s anticipating, as you said, how it’s gonna operate for you in your constellation of systems. Um, just wanna make sure we’re clear on that.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure. Yes, exactly. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Yeah. This, getting to the data lakes and the, uh, things of that nature, I think there’s, I think a data house, or there’s a new term I heard recently where it’s a combination of a data warehouse and data lake. They’ve convolve the two words. I don’t recall the

Joe Gottlieb:

Exact, the data lake house

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Data Lake house, yes. Okay. <laugh>. Okay.

Joe Gottlieb:

I want a lake house. And, uh, it’s a data lake house. Sounds pretty good to me. Um, all right. Well, glad we covered up that little, um, interesting little, uh, nuance. Let’s shift gears yet again. And, um, so now I wanna talk about how do you see project timing playing into best practices for serving multiple stakeholders on any given project? ’cause clearly, most projects have multiple stakeholders. Higher ed can be very complex, right? In terms of governance, in terms of, in terms of, uh, different processes and how we collaborate to serve the student. So let’s talk about that a bit.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure. I, we’re in the midst of, uh, of, uh, very interesting times now with artificial intelligence.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yes. Yes. We,

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

And, uh, they’re the ones out there who are on the forefront. There are some large institutions that have been in the, in the news, uh, university of Florida. Okay. Uh, university of Michigan is, is also, uh, moving forward, university of Albany, uh, in terms of ai, the question though is that, uh, how does the higher ed in general deal with ai? And what happens here is that, uh, everyone’s concerned about protecting their data. So you have the IT units saying, how can we protect the data? And now you also have faculty and staff who wanna take advantage of the AI tools. Okay, well, how do you do that? Uh, as, and also protect the data. So now you have these competing, uh, viewpoints. And if you are not careful, um, you can be so protective of your data in a sense that you will suppress innovation.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

And the ones who are not innovative are gonna fall behind, you know, in terms of utilization of AI and supporting student success, and, uh, using student, uh, using AI as a another tool to help students be more successful. And so, uh, how to reach that happy medium is a real key thing that institutions have to grapple with. How can, uh, we be innovative, okay? At the same time, protect your data and there’s some solutions out there, but those solutions cost money. So how do you now balance the cost Okay. Of, uh, innovating when AI based on current business model? And so, uh, a key thing is gonna be governance, because there’s gonna be different levels of governance. You’re gonna need an overall AI policy for the institution, uh, from a strategic level, but also you’re gonna need some tactical elements of that policy to, uh, guide behavior.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

And, uh, and that’s where again, data will be helpful in understanding, uh, your data systems. Okay. Uh, I heard, uh, a couple years ago, I was part of a workshop and, uh, data on a college campus was described as a hairball. Okay? Okay. So, uh, how do you track your data? Where’s it coming from? Where’s it going? You know, what path does it take? It’s a hairball. How do you, how do you disentangle a hairball? Uh, that’s very, very difficult if, if it’s po, if if po if it’s possible or not. So again, data governance is gonna be even more important going forward and having a happy balance between, uh, uh, being supportive of the users while protecting the, uh, the data of the institution itself.

Joe Gottlieb:

I think that’s a really important point. And what I’ve seen in things like this that are equally complex, in particular as, as something like ai, um, but it had before that it was true for cloud. And before that it was, you know, true for, for mobile. And before that it was, you know, true for a client server, if you’re, if you’re as old as I am, um, yes. And before that it was, you know, mainframes if you’re, it really as old as I am. But anyway, um, we digress. The idea of breaking it down when, particularly when something is new and you want to balance your ability to move forward with, with rules that you know, should apply. You mentioned governance, but even just technically speaking, how to sort through, how to construct something new can be really hard at first. It’s about taking smaller steps, right? And so, and then iterating, and I think, I think industries, all industries have gotten better at breaking things down into smaller pieces. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> so they can iterate and learn and evolve. Does that match your experience?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Yes, it does. Uh, I’ll think back to my days of doing research and dealing with students, uh, they would see a problem, highly complex. I said, take a step back. Every complex problem is composed of, uh, increments that are adding, that are you’re putting together. So let’s de basically, uh, deconstruct the complex problem into a com, uh, a group of simple pro uh, elements. Let’s add those back together in order to then deal with the complex. And so, uh, that’s what we have to do in higher ed in order to, uh, deal with ai, other complexities we’re dealing with. Now, another complexity is, you know, this, the enrollment trends that are going on, how do we recruit students? And that gets back to data again, because there is some, uh, you call predictive analytics. How do you deal with that and trying to recruit students and trying to help students be more successful? There’s an ethical component of predictive analytics along with the ethical component of ai. So how do you deconstruct these in order to, uh, uh, have bite size, uh, uh, ch you can bite it off in smaller chunks in order to digest and move forward to build a complex model.

Joe Gottlieb:

I think communications also comes into play here, right? So your example took a complex problem and broke it down into small pieces. I think one of the tricky parts of serving stakeholders mm-hmm, with change is having the trust that we talked a little bit about in, in, in the, in light of the positive, uh, project, the successful project, the trust to be patient and to say, we’re gonna start with this piece of the problem and deliver this solution to this first piece. And we’re gonna learn from that and we’re gonna get better at solving the next piece, and we’re gonna start to string these together. So over time, we give you our stakeholders, whether it be students or staff or faculty, better processes, better use of data, better flow for all of us, right? Uh, in pursuit of the mission of any particular institution. And, um, and that’s a dance.

Joe Gottlieb:

And so in the case of ai, you touched on it earlier, right? It’s about having some policies, alright, what do we have policies for students? Do we have policies for faculty? Do we, are we looking ahead to how we can use technology with the right, um, with the right rules, so to speak, with the right level of security? Again, it’s easier to solve in a smaller use case than a big constellation of use cases. And so letting ourselves break it down so we can do a thorough job of doing a smaller scoped thing so that we can then move on to larger scoped things with that same thorough approach. But again, thorough implies timing and time. Yeah. So these matters really relate together if, uh, if we can pull it together like that.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

I agree with you. Also, you have to think about too is that in terms of communication, uh, there’s, uh, you communicate why you’re doing things.

Joe Gottlieb:

Yes.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Okay. Focus on the why. ’cause too often we focused on, we focus on, uh, the what. And so if we focus on the why, then that will help develop that, develop that, uh, help develop the, uh, pathway that people can relate to in terms of where we want to go. And then now we can take those steps to get there. Yeah. More digestible.

Joe Gottlieb:

Well, and why brings me to mission values, strategic plan, strategic objectives, right? Yes. Yes. And now we’re measuring our progress there. And if that’s, if that’s true, then really it helps the organization unify. And in fact, you talk about go slow to go fast, right? Part of what allows you to go slower so that you can ultimately be more productive and more, more effective is alignment around why we are doing something so that we agree on the what’s, because we’re sufficiently motivated by the Y. And if our strategic objectives can sufficiently inform us as to what that y should be, you know, why are we doing X in pursuit of what we get higher alignment, we get more patience with time, we get better focus of fewer things to do in the end, right?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Yes, I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Yes. And then communicating, uh, all

Joe Gottlieb:

Along over,

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Along over and over and over again. Yes, exactly.

Joe Gottlieb:

All right. Well let’s bring this to a summary. Um, what are three takeaways you’d offer our listeners on the importance of project timing?

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Sure. Uh, one is detail preparation is, is, is key. You have to assess the need. You have to define policies and procedures before making a decision. Uh, and that way, uh, things go more smoothly. Uh, you’re more efficient in on your time. So, uh, the other part is you need broad averse input because the more input you have from, uh, the users, uh, with different perspectives, the better informed, uh, the project will be. And the better you can better manage the, uh, the project and the time it takes to complete the project will also help ensure, uh, success on the outcomes. Okay. Also, uh, you can’t have tunnel vision when you’re looking at one particular solution. You should be looking at things holistically to see how this one potential solution will interact with the other existing systems. And again, uh, and that way you can sort of project what may be happening down the line. You can anticipate, uh, some of the challenges you can now build into the solution you might have anticipated, uh, when you were focused on that one particular solution when you bring in to look at things holistically. So those are three things I think are really key, uh, to success and, uh, project timing. Again, project timing means, uh, pre-planning, planning, execution, and then the output result.

Joe Gottlieb:

Great summary. Joe, thanks so much for joining me today.

Dr. Joe Whitehead:

Uh, it’s been a pleasure. It’s been a real pleasure to have this conversation.

Joe Gottlieb:

And thanks to our guest for joining us as well. I hope you have a great day and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED. Yo, stop the music. Hey, listeners, have TRANSFORMED. I hope you enjoyed that episode, and whether you did or not, I hope that it made you stop and think about the role that you were playing in your organization’s ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at Info@Higher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find TRANSFORMED is available wherever you get your podcasts.