Members present: Brian Dohe, Tony Cabasco, Nancy Farrington, Jeremy Floberg, Varga Fox, Susan Healy, Deborah Hopkinson, Rich Jacks, Stephanie Johnson, Jenny Miles, Judy Ouimet, Keiko Pitter, Ron Urban, Cindy Waring, Kathy Yeager.

Keiko began by explaining that this is the first meeting of the Implementation Project Team, which is a decision-making and coordinating team. She went on to describe the team structure for the project implementation:

Team Structure
At the top is the Steering Committee, which is made up of the Senior Officers. This is the liaison to the President and the Trustees.

Below the Steering Committee is the Implementation Project Team (IPT), which is headed by the project manager (Keiko and the Datatel project manager). The project manager is the liaison to the Steering Committee. The IPT is made up of the leaders of the module teams, plus representatives from Development, Student Services and WCTS. This team needs to communicate project status to other people in their area.

Below the Implementation Project Team are the Module Teams for Core, Financial Aid, Admission, Residence Life, HR, Payroll, Finance and Student System.

Under each Module Team are the Task Teams, which are for specific areas within each module. For example, the Finance Module includes Task Teams for GL, AR, AP, etc.

Decision Making
Decision making goes up the hierarchy from task team to module team to project team to steering committee, if necessary. Escalation occurs only if one level is unable to reach a decision. It's important to remember where you are in the structure at any g iven time, since the same person will very likely serve on several different levels. Remember to focus on the task at hand and refer it to the appropriate group (even if you are on both of them).

Team Membership vs Focus Group
The users of the software are not necessarily the implementers. If your role is to make a process decision, you are on a task team. But if your role is as a viewer of the information, you may be invited to give input during a focus group meeting, but yo u would not be part of the implementation team.

Personnel Module
This module is planned to go live by August 1. It will need some of Core to be complete at the same time. There will be no data conversion with Personnel; faculty and staff information will be entered manually. Cindy said that on August 2, we will all start doing timesheets electronically, so everyone will see something which affects them on day 1.

Scheduling
Check the implementation schedules on the web for current information (linked from the Documents section). The basic information is correct, although minor changes may still be made. Keiko explained about the Gantt charts and stressed that duration does not show intensity. In project implementation, duration and intensity have to be balanced. She showed Gantt charts of the overall project and of Core Demographics, as an example of a detailed schedule.

WCTS Liaison
Keiko explained that a WCTS staff member will work with each task team. Susan will work with Core, Personnel and Student System. Barb will work with Admission, Financial Aid, and Business Office teams.

Reporting
Deborah raised a question of how reports will be done. Keiko reminded everyone to do the usage assessment. Each area should define what reports are used. This step takes place at the beginning of a module implementation. The reports will be programmed by WCTS during the middle of implementation so that they will be available during the testing phase (at which time they may be modified, or modifications could be noted and done later). Cindy mentioned that she had seen a lot of choices in the reports su pplied with the software - something like 50 templates for electronic timesheets, for instance, as well as the ability to write your own. Keiko said that we will try to implement using the Datatel-supplied reports when acceptable, but noted that reports can be done much more quickly using the tools supplied with Datatel than writing COBOL programs. In addition, the contract includes custom programming days from Datatel which can be used if necessary. Kathy asked if WCTS reporting was over and above the departments doing their own ad-hoc reports; Keiko said yes.

Ron asked if there would be tools available to calculate the top 10% of students and so on. Keiko said that many analysis tools, charts and graphs are built into the software. Cindy mentioned that she had seen a lot of this demonstrated in the personnel module.

Budget
Keiko explained that she is now working on the budget proposal for the second phase of funding which includes staffing needs. The last piece of the proposal is to include an example of process improvement, which will emerge at the workshop next week. Sh e said that the support from the trustees is phenomenal. They really care about the process and want to make sure we have sufficient funding to do the job right. The proposal includes budgeting for one FTE for one and a half years as a floater between th e offices. Jenny asked when we can expect the project manager from Datatel to start. Keiko said she is planning to have one on March 15.

Process Improvement Workshop
Keiko reminded everyone to start writing down a list of all office processes, including those which only happen once a year. The workshop next week is to train people in the use of the tool. Susan Brick and Shannon Callister will attend so they can act as facilitators later, when each office is mapping their own processes - sometimes it helps to have the perspective of a neutral party.

Training
Keiko said that there are only 10 spots available in each on-site training class, so not everyone will be able to attend. Each module team will need to decide which people are best suited--for both grasping the concept and for being able to assist and/or train others. She is reserving 3 spots in each class for WCTS staff: Barb, Susan and Rich. Our current plan is to have Rich repeat each workshop at a later date so more people can attend.

Computer Based Training (CBT) will be installed on the three computers in the WCTS office on the third floor of Mem next week. It is already available on the PC in the WCTS seminar room.

Core Implementation
Keiko said that Susan would be the leader of the Core Module team, because it is a database administration function. The implementation will probably begin the week of March 22. Core implementation begins with two on-site training classes conducted by Datatel. Then we will discuss Core for a couple of weeks before Datatel returns for consulting. The Core team will decide who should attend training. Susan will be calling the first meeting very soon to discuss the process.

Documentation
Manuals have been received from Datatel (only one copy of each) and are in the WCTS seminar room. The originals will stay there but offices can make copies. Manuals are also available for download on Datatel's web site.

User's Group
Keiko explained about the Datatel User Group. The national group meets once a year, in March, in Washington DC. It's expensive, costing around $2000 per person. While this year's trip is coming out of the WCTS AIS budget, in the future offices will hav e to pay for their staff to attend. There is also a regional user's group meeting in June. The NW has one of the strongest user's groups and around 300 people attend the meeting. This year's meeting will be at Lewis & Clark College. Those people going to the March meeting should get together with Susan to coordinate which sessions they will attend. Keiko warned everyone that, quite often, users attend these meeting to find resolution for problems they've encountered. Hence, you might hear a lot of what you may perceive as negative feelings or feelings of frustrations. She encouraged everyone to hear the resolution...so we do not repeat the same mistake or encounter those problems. She promised everyone that Whitman will come up with NEW problems of our own.

Communication
Ron mentioned that the terminology used in the project is not always understood. Keiko requested that people with terminology questions tell her or Susan about it and she'll put a glossary on the web page, if necessary.

Ron asked if the web page could be indexed to simplify seeing the new changes. Keiko said that since she is the one that's posting information on the Web in her spare time, she really doesn't have the time to add all the nifty features. She suggested regularly browsing areas pertaining to their office.. or areas pertaining to the most current meeting. Usually she will send out an email about general changes.

Future Meetings
It was agreed that the IPT would meet every Friday from 10:15 to 10:45 in the WCTS seminar room. Keiko would like to start the meeting on time...and asked everyone's cooperation. Because of the Datatel training all week next week, the next meeting will be Friday, March 5.

The meeting ended with an invitation for everyone to view the new AIS server, Orion, in the WCTS computer room.