Managing Change in the Central Pre-Award Office: Optimizing Subcontracting

1. Managing Change in the Central Pre-Award Office: Optimizing Subcontracting NCURA Region IV Spring Meeting April 29, 2014 Tyra Darville-Layne, Senior Grant & Contract Officer Elizabeth Adams, Executive Director Office for Sponsored Research-Evanston Campus

2. Agenda • Change in the pre-award office (importance of, obstacles to) • Priority-setting in the pre-award office • Tools for managing change in the pre-award office • Case study: re-engineering subcontracting in the pre-award office

3. Common Central Pre-Award Business Functions • Proposal review • Proposal submission • Agreement negotiation • Award establishment • Subcontract issuance • Non-financial post-award • Some financial post-award! • Training/outreach • ERA/information

4. Change in the Central Pre-Award Office The Importance of Change • Pre-award offices confront change on a daily basis; we have the skills at the individual and transactional level • Organizational change is just as important; the ability to act collectively is essential to this • An important responsibility of management is to get organizations to act collectively, in terms of functions and values • As time passes, business environments and demands change • Organizations don’t change (in a positive way) “on their own” • Not changing creates risk • The many business functions in a pre-award office must continually be evaluated and appropriately balanced • Change in the central pre-award office drives change in other key units

5. Change in the Central Pre-Award Office The Obstacles to Change • Lack of metrics/feedback • Quantitative • Qualitative • You need mechanisms to perceive yourself as an organization, as a customer might see you • Don’t wait for the feedback to find you • Take more control of the conversation on campus regarding your office, and on change • Systems • Lack of SOPs • Organizational structure • Human resources • Organizational culture

6. Typical Reactions to Organizational Change • Why change? We’ve always done it this way. • We don’t need to do things differently, they’re working fine the way they are. • We don’t have time to make these changes and still do our day-to-day work. • Things will be worse than they are now if we make these changes. • It’s too much of a hassle to do this. Jake Julia, Associate VP, Office for Change Management, Northwestern University

7. Characteristics of effective change agents • Patience • Strong work ethic • Strategic thinking • Multi-frame thinking (viewing issues from multiple perspectives) • Strong analytical skills • Consensus building • Collaborative • Assertive • Focused • Considers the institutional context (culture and climate) when contemplating organizational change Jake Julia, Associate VP, Office for Change Management, Northwestern University

8. A Few More Words on Patience • Not to be confused with indifference or ineptitude • Transformation is a process, not an event • Real change advances in organizations through stages that build on each other • It takes months and years • It is never really “done”

9. Priority setting in the pre-award office • Priority setting within and among business functions should be a conscious activity of management • High priority functions should be transparent and consistent • What drives priority setting? • Risk • Internal business environment • External business environment • You need a few champions/change agents in the office to help drive the priorities through the organization

10. Tools for change management in the pre-award office • Organizational structure • Human resources and professional development • Policies/procedures • Systems • Metrics • Relationships and Culture

11. Case study: re-engineering subcontracting in the pre-award office • Organizational structure – Old • Seven Grants Officers assigned departmental constituencies • Each Grants Officer performed all preaward(and selected postaward) functions, including the issuance of outgoing subcontracts • Competing priorities among variety of business functions at the individual level caused serious institutional delay issuing subcontracts

12. Case study: re-engineering subcontracting in the pre-award office • Human resources and professional development • Identify/select staff with strong interest in contracting and characteristics of effective change agent • Centralize the subcontracting function • Cultivate competencies through professional development/formal engagement at regional and national levels • Increase overall organizational knowledge, capacity and commitment

13. Case study: re-engineering subcontracting in the pre-award office • Policies and procedures • Institutional policy • Establish the foundation upon which processes stand • Subcontracting on Sponsored Programs– new NU policy • Institutional procedures • Establish written review elements for each transaction that connect the preawardand postawardstages • Focus on assigning resources to risks • Align work between campuses

14. Case study: re-engineering subcontracting in the pre-award office • Systems • There are a variety of systems that are used to manage subcontracts, across their lifecycle. At Northwestern: • Home-grown Electronic Sponsored Projects Request (ESPR) facilitates award-stage subcontract requests from the PI/unit to OSR-Evanston • Agreements module in InfoEd (enterprise pre-award platform) tracks subcontract negotiation/issuance process • NUFinancials (PeopleSoft) captures subcontract expenditures and receivables • Home-grown BI Publisher generates subcontract agreement templates • These systems need to connect, or make sense in relation to each other • A system is only as good as the procedures and business processes surrounding it • These systems contain data elements that you should be able to report on

15. How to evaluate the subcontracting function of a pre-award office • Metrics • Goals for change and continuous improvement should be informed by data • Quantitative and qualitative

16. How to evaluate the subcontracting function of a pre-award office • Quantitative: • Subcontract caseload report, “GM055” (see handout) • Report data retrieved from InfoEd • Report distributed to staff daily within the office • Subaward transactions tracked from formal OSR receipt of sub request to full execution of agreement • I’m interested in what I’m doing so I’m measuring myself

17. How to evaluate the subcontracting function of a pre-award office • Qualitative: • Regular distribution of subcontract caseload reports to Deans Offices • Feedback loops on operational snags • Identification of training needs • Managing perception • Data influences opinion - TRUST

18. Relationships and Culture • Be the change you wish to see in the world (or at least at the University) • Leveraging relationships among stakeholders is essential to the success of managing change - if you don’t have the relationships, change is much more difficult • Continuous improvement depends to a great degree on relationships established through collaboration • Change in culture takes time and patience • People are everything • Celebrate team wins • Effective change agents recruit into the new culture

19. Re-engineering Subcontracting Timeline • Outgoing subcontract issuance function centralized and partially dedicated FTE • Cross-unit workgroup recommendations presented • New business processes established, allowing enterprise system-level reporting on subcontract negotiation/issuance • FFATA reporting assigned to subcontracting function • Subrecipientcommitment form finalized (NIH and NSF, etc.) • March 2012 • April 2012 • May 2012 • August 2012 • September 2012

20. Re-engineering Subcontracting Timeline • Partial signature authority granted • FDP subcontract updates in BI Publisher • Grants Assistant support added to subcontract function • Outgoing subcontract issuance function centralized and fully dedicated FTE • ESPR (electronic requests for subcontracts) go live • Maximal signature authority granted • Subcontract policy draft submitted to University Policy Review Committee • October 2012 • March 2013 • June 2013 • July 2013 • July 2013 • November 2013 • April 2014

21. QUESTIONS