Enough with the Shadow Systems! - Replacing Penn State University's Home-grown Budgeting Process with Connected Planning

Justin Martin - TruED Consulting

Penn State University recently completed an overhaul of their multi-year planning process as part of a broader initiative to upgrade campus technologies and strengthen financial sustainability. This session will bring together key but unique voices from different functions of the project, including the budget office champion, IT project management leadership, as well as Tru Consulting, the implementation partner serving as moderator. This session highlights a public research institution, but the challenges of a modernization project are directly transferable to institutions of all sizes.

For years, Penn State University had been building, managing and forecasting their annual budgeting process with a series of homegrown solutions, tabulated spreadsheets, emails, and handshakes. Not only were these shadow systems supporting the flagship State College campus, but it was also allocating out budgets to the 19 Commonwealth Campuses across Pennsylvania. As you can imagine, versioning was a constant challenge, manual inputs had severe impacts, and flexibility around both inputs and outputs were largely impossible. Enter an opportunity to change, with a little help from Tru Consulting!

Marilyn Presto (PSU Budget Director) and Rachael Lucas (PSU Project Manager, IT) will share their unique perspectives of Penn State's entire journey, including the "before" state, their RFP selection process, as well as the multiple phased implementations that went live last fiscal year for inputs by over 100 end users across all campuses.

Learning Objectives

  1. Develop Effective Stakeholder Engagement Strategies: Learn how to foster a culture of collaboration by engaging diverse stakeholders in the development and use of modernization tools like Anaplan, ensuring a shared vision and alignment in transformation initiatives.
  2. Analyze Current Planning Processes: Emerge with clear examples of process changes that deliver meaningful and beneficial impact to the core missions and values of three universities.
  3. Replicate Success Stories and Lessons Learned: Identify common challenges, such as functional silos and resistance to change, and explore actionable solutions to modernize the planning process alongside trusted partners

CPE Available

  • 1 Credit: Management Services