Responsibililty for completion of a task, held by a person or persons who answers on behalf of an organization. In redesigning how work gets done, resolving accountability is a complex challenge.
Terms
The OE Glossary has selected some terms that are more common to OE but may have different meanings to different people. These definitions have been tailored to the OE and UCSF community usage.
Accountability
Advocate
Person or group who supports an idea or group: he/she speaks on behalf of, or is a strong proponent of, an idea or action. The Chancellor acts as a strong advocate for the very best UCSF employees by creating a supportive environment and cultivating strong and capable managers.
Attrition
Gradual reduction in work force; the result of workers resigning or retiring and not being replaced.
Case or Portfolio management
Coordination of services on behalf of an individual or group. Supporting a faculty portfolio would include managing their research, their gifts, endowment, and other efforts related to their appointment.
Change Management
'Change Management' focuses on individuals, teams, and/or organizations so that they can suceed during organizational transitions whether the changes are intermittent and minor or represent a significant transformation. Change Management encompasses activities that support an individual's ability to manage his or her own career and emotional well being during a time of significant change. It also supports supervisors so that they can lead and inspire their staff during transitions.
Cluster, Pod, Service Center
Some of the many words that may be used to describe a grouping of providers of an administrative service gathered into a group to better deliver that service. Example: A cluster of HR specialists.
COA
Chart of accounts; the organizing framework for budgeting, recording, and reporting on all University financial transactions. It is a listing of all the general ledger accounts that are used to record all accounting entries. Ideally, the COA provides accurate and consistent financial reporting across the campus and ensures that accounting regulations, donor restrictions and sponsored project requirements are met.
Consultative
In a consulting position or role; providing guidance, technical assistance, advice, or policy interpretation, all with an eye toward effective resolution and support.
Continuous or iterative improvement
Ongoing effort to improve processes and services.
Delegated authority
Authorization of one person or group to act on another’s behalf; in this case delegation of authority that usually resides within a Central Office at UCSF to someone more local in the School or department. Example: Delegating signature authority for proposal submissions would mean that someone at the School or cluster level would be authorized to sign off on behalf of the institution.
Escalation
The steps involved in resolving a complex challenge, sometime hierarchical, sometimes based on depth of subject matter expertise.
FAS
Financial and Administrative Services, UCSF Campus organization that supports the work of the broader Chancellor's office
Fragmentation
Condition of having multiple work responsibilities in different disciplines. Generally refers to an individual who has multiple work responsibilities that makes expertise in one area more difficult to achieve. Example: By working 15% on gifts, 20% on HR, 35% on Post award, 15% on pre-award, and 15% Finance, significant expertise in each area may be difficult to achieve.
Governance
In a position of defining how the decision structure will work for an organization. Governance describes who sets the management, policies, processes and decision-rights for a given area.
Industry standard (benchmark)
"Best practice" within an industry, used by an organization to evaluate various aspects of their processes in regard to their peers. UCSF might look to other similar institutions for staffing ratios or operational costs.
Integration
Process of creating better connections within administrative services to provide more efficient support. Whether seated in close proximity or not, it is important that pre award and post award activities are inextricably interrelated.
Job families
Grouping of positions within a similar functional area; jobs involving the work of the same nature. A job family facilitates the classification process, salary equity, and career ladder and promotes more equitable approach to the assessment of a position. Example: The job family for research administration or Human Resources would have all the positions that perform work related to that function in a job family.
Knowledge management
Practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice. Through knowledge management, the collective experience and perspective of the UCSF community can be tapped to solve and manage the complexities of OE.
Low-hanging fruit
Goals that are easy and not as complicated to achieve, or problems that are more easily solved than others.
MPM (Magical PAF Machine)
An online personnel action system where data is entered once and the system takes the raw figures, calculates new figures and checks them automatically against the various rules, thus eliminating the need for routing to various offices and handwritten hard-copy forms. Once the MPM is approved by the Dean’s Office, the data is entered into OLPPS and no further work is needed.
OE Coordinating Committee, OECC
The OECC is the committee that gives final approval for the OE recommendations that come up from the Work Groups and Senior Work Group. This committee is co-chaired by Jeff Bluestone and John Plotts.
Operational Excellence, OE
Operational Excellence is an ongoing initiative designed to advance UCSF’s discovery, education, and patient care with upgraded services and systems that are effective, efficient, and empowering to the University’s staff of expert professionals. OE isn't one massive program, it represents hundreds of incremental improvements.
PAF (Personnel Action Form)
A hard copy, hand written, five-sheet carbon-copy form that has to be routed to various offices to make payroll changes for faculty. (See MPM)
PI
Principal Investigator, the faculty member responsible for the conduct of a specific research project
PMO; PMO Office
Project Management Office; provides project management, analytical and process redesign support throughout UCSF
Project management
Process of providing leadership, support, and structure so that a project succeeds. Project Management can support the creation of governance structures, leadership, participants, timelines, programmatic and fiscal objectives, work plans, reports, analytical support, and communication, etc.
Quality assurance
Systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service, or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being met. This is a key element in determining the success of any OE changes.
Senior Work Group (SWG)
The Senior Work Group’s mission is to create service delivery models, process and policy improvements, and pricing models that will reduce costs and boost effective administrative support. Marie Caffey chairs this group, which is comprised of co-chairs, school representatives, and PMO and FAS representatives.
Service delivery model
Organization structure for delivering a particular administrative function. Example: A Service Center or Cluster may be a service delivery model for providing HR support to a department.
Service tiers
Services grouped together in levels of increasing complexity. Also, separate, incrementally distinct quality and pay levels.
Shadow system
System developed independently by a department because it is believed that no central system supports the needs of the local organization.
Span of control
Level of responsibility; may refer to the number of staff an individual has reporting to them or the extent of responsibility a unit has
Specialist
Individual with a significant degree of expertise in a particular area. Example: A Pre-Award specialist may pass exams to achieve a professional level of expertise.
Stakeholder
Person, group, organization, or system who affects or can be affected by an organization's actions.
Standardization
Process of developing and agreeing upon a uniformed way of conducting business or a system.
Strategic planning
Planning that identifies an outcome and the actions required to achieve that objective.
Subcommittee
Smaller team within a Work Group charged with more specific tasks. Example: A subcommittee was formed to look at work load volumes, while another looks at training requirements
TAVLA
TAVLA is UCSF's time-keeping system for tracking hours worked, attendance, and Vacation Leave Assessment. Vacation Leave Assessment is a project mandated by UCOP policy which requires all campuses to create a pool of funds for the purpose of funding vacations
Transactional
Type of activity strictly defined as data entry. Forms preparation is part of a transactional activity. Relating to HR, updates to EDB, OLPPS would be considered transactional
Work group
A work group is a team of individuals from various departments assembled to work on a designated challenge. OE formed five Work Groups with over 150 staff; HR/Academic Affairs, Research Administration, Finance, IT, and Communications.