Below are just a few scenarios where our services may work for your organization, but please keep in mind that these examples by no means capture all that we can do for you.
Please keep in mind that every project is unique and we tailor the solution to your needs.
The Empty Chair Problem
Your chief institutional research officer left unexpectedly. You think the remaining team is great, but they are lean and you’re not sure if any of them are ready for interim leadership, especially with some big projects on the immediate horizon.
How We Will Help
We can provide an interim leader who knows the field, is adaptable, and knows how to integrate with an existing team. The interim will keep trains running, work with the team to tackle any new projects, provide a confidential evaluation of the team’s strengths and challenges, and assist you in your search for a new, permanent leader. We can work with you onsite, hybrid and remote options.
The “We Need a Plan” Problem
Your new president inherited a strategic plan that’s a mess. It’s full of grand ideas, but there are no actionable specifics and nothing you can measure to report results. You’re excited about the project, but you feel like you don’t even know where to start.
How We Will Help
We can help you design a process that works for your institution that leads to a meaningful, actionable and measurable plan. We will start by reviewing your stakeholders — who should be part of the process — and how to engage each group (and even engage groups with each other). We will synthesize the data collected and bring it back to your strategic planning group. After we brainstorm together, we will start crafting a plan that is sure to garner support from all quarters and help you sail through that tough process of getting approval from your Board!
The Unusable Dashboard
The Chair of your Board of Trustees recently complained that the institutional dashboard that the trustees have access to is completely “unusable” and has demanded that something be done about it. You’ve got a lot of technical expertise in-house, but you don’t want to make the same mistakes again with the same team.
How We Will Help
We will bring a human-centered design process to bear on solving this problem with you. First, we will work together to interview the chair and a few other trustees to find out what they really want. Once we have a sense, we will quickly put together a prototype or two to get a sense of how they would engage with it and if it meets their needs. When we are confident together that we have a strong design concept, we will work with your team to implement it.
The “How Many Students?” Problem
You have come to the conclusion that no one seems to be able to answer the question “How many students are we expecting next year?” with any confidence. Academic units seem to be planning out course schedules with one set of numbers, while the Finance Office is using a completely different set to plan next year’s budget, Student Affairs has their own thoughts for housing, and no one has even talked with Enrollment about the admission targets.
How We Will Help
We will start by listening to you and your stakeholders about what you need and ensuring that there is clarity on how everyone perceives the deceptively complex question of what “enrollment” means. Then we will work with your data to build and iterate on a model that meets those needs to present it back to you. We will also train your team to update the model themselves. It won’t be a “black box” solution where you need to come back to us every time you want an update, but you will always be welcome to work with us to reevaluate the model and refresh it as conditions change on your campus.
The Assessment Problem
Your institution just received the report from your latest assessment visit. The results were mostly great — but they are concerned that your assessment practices are not up to snuff. You have folks who are interested in assessment, but without the in-house expertise to really set up a fully functioning program.
How We Will Help
We will work with you, your faculty and other academic and instructional staff to design new and evaluate existing learning outcomes from the institutional to course level. Together, we will make sure they are achievable and measurable before we dive in to designing methods to assess them and document data. We will work with your team to transformation that data into meaningful insights you can apply back to your learning experiences.