2009 ACTION LEARNING PROJECTS SUMMARIES

• Develop and use their project management skills
• Apply information learned from the B&F Leadership Academy courses
• Contribute to the overall effectiveness of B&F by working on projects identified by B&F senior staff

1. Energy Conservation Incentives

Develop incentives for B&F units to conserve energy. Central units, unlike the schools and colleges, do not realize direct financial savings from reduced use. The program should be based on measurable activity levels, but the incentives do not necessarily need to be financial.

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2. Creating a Flexible Work System

B&F is a multifaceted organization with diverse work requirements and environments, yet there may be ways that a flexible work system can support organization/department goals, support cost saving (and space saving) initiatives, and improve employee satisfaction. The goal of this project is to develop recommendations to help guide B&F managers and staff to improve consistency in the application and evaluation of flexible work arrangements.

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3. Managing the Administrative Impact of Organizational Changes

Hundreds of changes in organization structure occur every year at the University: departments merge, split, move to different units, etc. Changes in organization structure create the need for changes in business processes, routings and approvals, system access, data structures, organization codes, official organization charts, and more. This project analyzes all administrative impacts of an organizational change and documents them in a user friendly way. The deliverable is a "guide" for departments to use when going through an organization change.

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4. Engaging Staff in Cost Reduction Strategies

Process improvement strategies in other organizations have enjoyed some success in goal achievement by engaging all staff in idea generation and commitment to outcomes. This project is to prepare a proposal for B&F to effectively use an employee engagement strategy to identify the next cross-functional cost saving ideas and contribute to a culture where staff feels a sense of ownership and pride in the value they add to the U-M.

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5. Knowledge Transfer and B&F High Performance Network

The U-M will experience a significant number of retirements in the next five to seven years. Develop a compendium of strategies to assist leaders in planning for effective ways to ensure the transfer of knowledge required to sustain and advance the University. Additionally, in thinking about how we can best prepare our next generation of managers, consider that many successful managers report that having a mentor was a valuable part of their development and career success. Include in your project deliverable, a high performance network proposal for B&F. What would it look like? How would the high potential employees be identified, the goals and potential outcomes of a high performance network, etc.

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