Texas Christian University recently announced the successful completion of a fixed-time/fixed-price integrated PeopleSoft ERP deployment at the university. How they were able to achieve it on time and on budget makes an interesting story.
Located in Fort Worth, TCU, a private university, enrolls over 7,300 students, and employs 1,300 employees and 1,500 student workers in its six-college organization. It is also one of the country’s first universities to “go live” with all three major PeopleSoft applications simultaneously, including PeopleSoft’s Integrated HR/Student Administration application (version 7.0) and Public Sector Financials (version 6.0).
They decided to use Cambridge Technology Partners [http://www.ctp.com] as their consultants. The main attraction for Cambridge was their Cambridge Momentum service, a suite of rapid, fixed-time/fixed-price ERP implementation services, which uses a comprehensive, ROI-driven business case approach. Just what TCU had in mind.
TCU’s aggressive business goals for their PeopleSoft project included improving customer service through workflow automation, streamlining business processes, and facilitating self-service applications via the Internet. The challenge was meeting these goals within the financial and time constraints of a university environment.
“Like most higher education institutions, TCU operates under a strict budget and is subject to the academic calendar year’s specific deadlines,” explains Dave Edmondson, TCU’s assistant provost and project leader. Plus, in a familiar business scenario, he says “TCU’s Executive Team is more likely to fund I.T. projects with clearly defined costs and returns on investment.”
A steering committee consisting of representatives from all user groups, the I.T. organization, and Cambridge consultants was formed to oversee the implementation. The committee built consensus around a quantifiable business case for the integrated, three-tiered solution, then used the business case to keep all phases of the project on track.
TCU went live with its first phase of rollout, including Public Sector Financials, HR and Student Administration — including Admissions — during June and July of 1998. Subsequent phases, to be completed in 1999, will include Financial Aid, Student Records, Budgets, Housing, Benefits Administration and Time/Labor applications, as well as Web-enabled capabilities to provide applicants, students, professors and university administration with self-service via the Internet and TCU intranet.
“By matching and prioritizing customization requests to the business case, we have controlled the scope of the project and hit every milestone to date on time and on budget,” Edmondson says proudly.
