Choosing the Right Partner for Change

Reflecting on our Future Campus™ Summit, an unmistakable theme was clear: in an era of constant disruption and distraction, the urgency for colleges and universities to catalyze change at pace and scale is accelerating. Their ability, or lack thereof, to do so will be a decisive factor in how efficiently they can operate in the face of previously unseen financial challenges, under mounting scrutiny and public challenges to their core missions.

Administrative technology transformation programs are ripe with opportunities to develop the change and program management capabilities your organization needs now more than ever.

Technology choices matter, but the way our institutions lead people through change matters more. New systems and ways of working that your students, faculty, and staff don’t adopt are not wins; they are liabilities.

Maximizing Value Through Your SI Selection and Spend

Your choice of partners depends on many factors, including the maturity of your existing organizational change and program management capabilities. Your service implementation (SI) partners’ ability to support you in affecting and sustaining change should reflect your institution’s needs (and desired outcomes) and must be carefully evaluated when investing in a transformation program of any type.

• Change is the critical path. In addition to strong Project Management Office (PMO) structures and processes to evaluate progress against the plan and ensure team members are focused on what matters most, winners in this space bring mature, deliberate approaches to managing sponsorship, stakeholder engagement, organizational readiness, training, communication, measuring adoption, and ongoing maintenance of the artifacts they leave behind.
• Governance mitigates risk. The right SI leans into transparent decisions, scope control, and documenting program and change management playbooks or strategies that survive leadership turnover and calendar churn. What roles does your SI recommend participate in each level of program governance? Do they embrace our culture of shared governance? Is that reflected in their approach?
• Outcomes over outputs. You’re not buying hours, you’re buying adoption, process discipline, and measurable results. Tools and accelerators are table stakes, but reduced audit findings or improved retention are the real stories. How have the SIs you’re evaluating moved those needles for their clients?
• Total value > price. The cheapest proposal can become the most expensive path for you if it undervalues change management and post-go-live stabilization. Re-implementations and “rescues” aren’t always due to poor configuration decisions and lagging development.

What “Spend Wisely” Looks Like in SI Selection

The stakes are too high to let any opportunity slip by without maximizing the value we expect to achieve. We must be intentional in evaluating and selecting the partners we choose to help transform our institutions’ administrative functions.

• Proven change leadership: named practitioners, real artifacts, and outcomes from like institutions, not generic RFP language and templated slides.
• Role-based adoption plans: how will faculty, advisors, HR partners, and finance teams work differently on days 1, 30, 60, etc., after go-live? How will you measure it? How will you capture and address their feedback?
• “Reference-ability” at scale: credible references from like institutions (i.e., experience at complex universities and academic medical centers with similar culture and constraints versus experience at a private not-for-profit without a research mission)
• Proven governance and risk management success: decision rights, escalation paths, and scope safeguards that others have proven and you can apply.
• Post-go-live runway: Hypercare, plans for optimization, and knowledge transfer are built into the approach, and you understand how and when your team will take ownership.

Who should help us achieve the change and outcomes these bold initiatives promise? If you’re considering your partner criteria or want to discuss a practical evaluation model that elevates change management alongside functional depth and system integration capability, we’d love to hear from you and understand your institution’s needs.

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Originally posted by Michael Anderson on LinkedIn. Be sure to follow him there to catch all his great industry insights.