New process aims to improve improvement

Don’t you sometimes wish you and your colleagues could make decisions faster and better?

A number of academic departments and other campus units are doing just that using a new way of working together, called Accelerated Improvement, a tool for quickly improving or creating a process.

Details: The Office of Quality Improvement is accepting applications for Accelerated Improvement projects. Information: John Elliott, 265-5122, elliott@mail.bascom.wisc.edu

“We know that UW–Madison is one of the most preeminent universities in the world. We also know that in today’s environment, we have to keep improving everything we do in order to maintain that preeminence,” says Maury Cotter, director of the Office of Quality Improvement.

A recent half-day Showcase for Accelerated Improvement at the Pyle Center introduced 50 participants to the concept, which is based on the work of Ian Hau, a UW–Madison doctoral recipient who has “improved the improvement process” for several universities.

OQI consultant John Elliot explained that reducing the time it takes to make improvements is a key principle of Accelerated Improvement.

Under the Accelerated Improvement model, group meeting time is concentrated into two very structured three- to four-hour meetings. A majority of the project work – data collection, flowcharting, benchmarking – is done outside meetings by a few members of the group and a facilitator. Meetings can then be spent developing solutions and action plans.

Compressing meeting times eliminates bureaucratic drag and rework. “Accelerated Improvement can help you see that in any process, there are steps that can be done simultaneously or much earlier in the sequence,” Elliot says. “You realize that you don’t have to wait till one thing is done to complete other steps.”

The recent showcase included mini-sessions and poster displays highlighting recent campus improvement projects. Among the projects:

• SOAR – the Student Orientation, Advising and Registration program – used Accelerated Improvement to redesign the summer registration and check-in process for new students and their families.
• The School of Business and the Graduate School have used Accelerated Improvement to collaborate on a pilot graduate-admissions project.
• The cluster-hiring process, aimed at advancing interdisciplinary research, has used Accelerated Improvement to enhance the application process, establish a timeline, clarify roles, identify means to ensure diverse pools of candidates, establish a web-based information system for cluster hires, and more.

Linda Greene, associate vice chancellor and Law School professor, is the “point person” for the process, which provides funds to hire faculty in clusters around new areas of knowledge that cross traditional disciplines.