Operational Excellence Terms

Success for Operational Excellence @ Illinois depends on a common understanding of key concepts and terminology. Over time, relevant terms and their definitions may be collaboratively revised to best reflect the needs, preferences, and decisions of the initiative. These concepts collectively contribute to the function of the new operating model and do not operate in isolation.

Scope of the Proposed Operational Excellence Operating Model

An operating model is the structure through which an organization or a component of an organization delivers on its strategy and mission(s). In the case of Operational Excellence @ Illinois, the administrative operating model describes the organizational and functional structure of the in-scope functional areas that enables their support of University missions. Realizing benefits from adjusting service delivery to the high-level operating model is one of the key opportunities pursued by Operational Excellence. The in-scope areas include:

Budget
Data (management and governance)
Human Resources
Information Technology
Procurement
Marketing & Communications
Space (management, allocation, and leasing)

The graphic below represents the intended operating model, illustrating Dedicated Support in which each Support Team offers services to only one unit. However, units may elect to receive either Dedicated Support to leverage a Support Team that supports a single unit or Shared Support to share one or multiple Support Teams with other units based on their preferences, resources, and needs. Importantly, this graphic is not an organizational chart, and it does not denote reporting structures. Rather, this is a flow chart that demonstrates how various elements of the model connect and support each other.

Centers of Expertise

Center of Expertise (COE): A Center of Expertise is an organization of the top experts in a specific functional area that provides skills and support to campus (e.g., Marketing & Communications) or specialty (e.g., Web and Content Management). The creation of Centers of Expertise helps us identify and define expertise across campus and deliver our highest quality of service to all community members. Staff aligned to each Center of Expertise have specialized skillsets to deliver some or all of the following:

Leverage combined knowledge and expertise, define best practices, create efficient processes, and plan the continuous improvement of their functional area
Define functional area-specific strategy
Develop, interpret, and/or implement policy for units across campus
Provide core strategic/advisory support services, for all campus units
Define functional services and develop standard for service quality
Provide core training for all corresponding functional roles on campus, including strategic partners and support teams

Discipline- and unit-specific support will continue to serve/be located within schools/colleges and centrally budgeted units. CoEs will function as a source of support to unit-specific functional service, not as a replacement of local functional expertise.

Functional Specialists: Staff located within a CoE who exercise specialized expertise in a specific administrative functional area to ensure the effectiveness of CoE operations and its interactions with other units and staff on campus.

Support Teams

(Service Delivery) Support Teams: A group of administrative, functional area-specific staff that manages the day-to-day transactional operations within a specific unit/division or across several units/divisions that elect to pool administrative resources related to that functional area. Support Teams consist of functional staff members – who hold both functional knowledge and unit/discipline-specific expertise and work directly with requesters – and Strategic Partners who oversee the Team’s operations and work with unit leaders and CoE Functional Specialists.

Strategic Partners: Leaders who are embedded within and oversee Support Teams. As part of their responsibilities, strategic partners assume the role of unit-level functional strategists, thought-partners to unit leadership and CoEs, and conduits between CoEs and unit-level Support Teams. Strategic Partners exercise both functional area expertise and a keen understanding of unit-/discipline-specific needs to ensure that tactical operations of their reporting team are informed by a robust strategy that aligns institutional and unit-specific missions. Strategic Partners may hold senior administrative positions and be part of the college/unit’s leadership team.

Service Desk and Self-Service

Service Desk: Support administered by functional area generalists who address routine requests and provide live help directly to requesters. The Service Desk manages only routine activity and does not replace the localized function of Support Teams.

Self-Service: Technology-enabled and often automated functional area support that allows requesters to quickly identify answers to common questions or make routine changes and updates.