Who

Michael Cusic - initial idea and implementation, Normandy Roden - approval and support

What

At the semi-finalist stage of the CUI&E Awards, 10 finalists from across the four campuses must present their submissions in front of a board of Campus Controllers. In the past, this process was all done in person, with each finalist driving to the System Office on one particular day, from their respective campus location. Presentations were supposed to be no longer than 10 minutes but would inevitably drag on much longer. This resulted in a backlog of presentations, many hours of wasted time, and frustration for both the finalists and for the members of the board.

For the 2017 CUI&E Awards, the FPBS team decided that in place of bringing every finalist to the system office, the OUC multimedia specialist would instead make a trip to each campus and do a video interview of each finalist. We asked identical questions to each finalist to maintain consistency, each interview took about 15 minutes of the finalist's time. After conducting the 10 finalist interviews, the video footage was edited down to about 4 minutes for each presentation.

Why

On the day of presentations to the board of Campus Controllers, we played each video interview followed by a conference call with the finalist. The conference call allowed the controllers to ask clarifying questions and was limited to 5 minutes of conversation.

The result of the change was that the presentation schedule was perfectly maintained, the finalists' content was stripped of unnecessary information, and many hours of time were saved on all ends of the process. Since the interviews were conducted over video, we were also able to post the submissions online for anyone who was interested to see.

Where

Innovation was needed to improve selection processes that had previously been a logistically challenging and time-consuming experience for everyone involved. After the change, many collective hours were saved, finalists did not need to take a half-day off work to drive to the system office, and the campus controllers had a much easier time getting the information they needed to make their final decisions. This innovation was implemented for the FPBS team in the Office of University Controller. As it is specific to the annual CUI&E Awards, which is hosted by just one org unit, there is no plan to expand.

When

This process innovation was implemented in March 2017.

Submitter's Information

Submitter's Name: Michael Cusic
Submitter's Email: michael.cusic@cu.edu​
Submitter's Org: Office of University of Controller