Innovo Scholars Tackle University Business Processes

Many universities face academic and administrative business processes that are inefficient and ineffective, yet seemingly immune to improvement. Despite significant investments of human, capital, and IT resources, there can be little resulting payback. 

The Innovo Scholars Consulting program has yielded a prototype for helping universities address change and innovation-resistant business processes: leveraging students to identify underlying causes and recommend solutions. 

In the spring 2016 semester, six Innovo Scholars, elite undergraduates in the University of Maryland’s Robert H. School of Business, tackled the process by which students change their major. Using design thinking and stakeholder analysis, the students dug into the change-major ecosystem to unearth relevant policies, motivators, workflow, facilities and structures. The students presented their findings to UMD President Wallace Loh’s cabinet, along with ideas to streamline the process and leverage technology. 

Key to an efficient process is clear and accurate information that is available to all stakeholders,  Isaac Adeeku, a sophomore management major, told the administrators during the presentation. “With a single source – a single website – to go to, students can make better change major decisions and advisors can rely on current, complete information.” 

The students also cautioned against relying on technology alone to resolve process challenges.“Technology is an amplifier,” said Sylviane Alexion, a junior accounting major. “It exacerbates the quality of the underlying design. Technology overlaid on a well-engineered process heightens its effectiveness and impact. But technology on top of an inefficient process can make everything worse.” 

The importance of innovating business processes ahead of IT implementation is echoed by UMD Vice President and CIO Eric Denna. “By focusing first on process, we better understand the problem and have a greater chance of building the appropriate system of process, data, people, and tools,” he says. “We are fortunate to have such outstanding students who are helping us identify opportunities to improve and design new systems to address the opportunities.” 

The presentation to UMD’s vice presidents culminated a semester-long effort by the Innovo Scholars team that also included Allison Herskovitz, Cynthia Jih, Allison Leap and Daniella Mazel. The scholars engaged with students, advisors, administrators and central administrative units across UMD, including the Division of IT, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the Smith School.

Practicing and former management consultants from Deloitte Consulting, Education Advisory Board, Gartner and Accenture Consulting advised the Innovo Scholars through the project. 

Partnering with students to help reengineer university business processes is a promising model, says Joseph Drasin, director of the Office of University Process Innovation, who oversaw the project. “Students provide a valuable perspective, which is often not at the table when administrative decisions are made. They ask “why” a lot, which triggers us to look closely at things – processes, activities, structures – we take for granted.” 

The project represented a broadened scope for the program that previously focused on course delivery: “Within the first two semesters of the Innovo program, more than 20 undergraduate courses were revitalized,” reported the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business’ BizEd Magazine in its May-June 2016 issue. “Teaching Tools developed by Innovo Scholars include curated videos for flipped classroom instruction, anchors and prompts for online discussion boards, projects that apply course concepts to current events, and resources that help students develop a global mindset during faculty-led global programs.” 

“Students are an incredible, but often overlooked resource for innovation in higher education,” says educational psychologist Sandra Loughlin, who directs the Innovo Scholars program as the Smith School’s director of the Office of Transformational Learning. “I hope the Innovo idea – working with and through students to drive valuable change – will grow to touch even more of the university.”