University of Wisconsin System

Problems Solved: Facing an Intractable Problem, Anxiety Over Change, Rapidly Rising Costs.		Strategic Focus: Leading/Navigating Change, Crafting/Executing Strategy, Leveraging Technology to Achieve Value on Investment, Transforming Organizational Culture, Developing Staff and Organizational Capacity.
Thought Leader and Project Manager: Donald Norris, Anne Keehn, and Phil Taylor

The University of Wisconsin System includes 13 university campuses, UW Colleges (two-year) and UW Extension. Beginning in January 2004, Dr. Norris led a team that met with a broad cross-section of leadership from the UW campuses to assess the efforts of the System to implement Common Systems - ERP, LMS, enterprise portal, library, and the like. These meetings have both assessed past efforts and explored how the common systems could be leveraged to create new learning experiences for students and other stakeholders.  

Strategic Initiatives’ final report was used to shape the development of future strategy for common systems at the University of Wisconsin System and the charge to the revamped Common Systems Strategy Group.  Dr. Norris is continuing to work with the Sytem staff in identifying new value propositions that can be achieved by leveraging common systems.