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MIT Conducts Its Third IT Customer Satisfaction Survey

Stanford and NYU Engage in Parallel Efforts
Tailored to Their Environments

In October and November of 2003 the IT organizations of MIT, Stanford and NYU administered campus-wide surveys to gauge customer satisfaction with the IT services provided at those schools.

For MIT’s IS&T, this was the third in a series of surveys that began in 2000 and have been conducted about every eighteen months. These surveys have proved to be important tools for documenting where people are satisfied and dissatisfied, and for prioritizing initiatives to improve services.

At MIT, many of the efforts inspired by the survey have paid off with tangible service improvements, but perhaps just as important is the change wrought in the culture of IS&T: its transformation from a technology-focused organization to a customer-focused organization.

It is important to understand that this has been driven by four realities: the CIO has fully supported the survey; the survey has been consistently used as a tool for framing the work of the organization; the survey has been repeated often enough so that it has become part of the way IS&T does business; and the survey questions have been designed to return actionable data.

Building on a relationship that began with IT benchmarking efforts, Stanford ITSS signed on to conduct their own customer survey in coordination with IS&T. MOR Associates facilitated a series of meetings between the schools as they worked to enhance the design of the survey to leverage learning opportunities.

NYU ITS also joined in MIT’s and Stanford’s coordinated survey initiative, participating in efforts to align the survey designs while allowing for unique differences between the institutions.

For each of these schools, MOR Associates facilitated the design and administration of the surveys. We also analyzed the data, prepared reports, and consulted on the action-planning phases. We also facilitated a post survey meeting attended by all three schools to discuss the results, to capture lessons learned, and to leverage shared opportunities for improvement.

Click on the link below to see MIT's survey and final reports.

http://web.mit.edu/ist/survey/2003/

Click on the link below to see more about Stanford's survey.

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/itss/organization/surveys/customer2003/

To learn more about the NYU survey, go to:

http://www.nyu.edu/its/pubs/connect/spring04/hochberg_survey.html

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Charting the Future of
Massachusetts Newly Unified Parks System

In February 2003, promising better services for less money, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney unveiled a new Division of Conservation and Recreation to oversee the management of all state-owned parks, skating rinks, swimming pools and other recreation facilities, merging the functions of the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) with the Department of Environmental Management (DEM). A stated goal was “eliminating duplication between the two agencies and allowing them to maximize expertise and equipment.” Within the Division, a Metro Parks Bureau was also created to address the needs specific to urban parks and recreation centers.

The merger created a number of opportunities and substantial challenges. In addition to the integration of existing staff and functions of two large agencies, the merger heralded other changes, including a new leadership team, a new Stewardship Council, and the introduction of a number of other people who were new to their positions.

MOR Associates was asked to assist with the transition, specifically:

• To work with the newly selected senior staff and others to outline a strategic direction appropriate for the newly formed DCR.
• To support the Commissioner’s effort to shape the culture and work environment that emerges from the integration so that all employees feel motivated to provide the services needed to support the agency’s mission.
• To provide the skill building and team building activities needed to enhance the performance of the managers, so they build some key competencies and model these to their employees.
• To provide consulting on change management, process improvement and other related areas that will help DCR accelerate its ability to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.

Toward that end, we worked with a team of leaders drawn from a broad spectrum of the new agency to design and present a one-day conference that brought together some 400 staff members from every corner of the state. With Brian McDonald acting as MC, and the conference officiated by DCR Commissioner Kathy Abbott, participants were treated to a tightly choreographed event that was replete with cutting edge multimedia, old fashioned pencils and paper, and not a small amount of fun.

Brian led the gathering through table group exercises designed to help them connect with people from other departments within the Division. They heard a presentation on “Living with Change” and Commissioner Abbott spoke about her vision for DCR’s future. Participants then worked in small groups to capture their thoughts on five key strategic questions under the banner of “Charting the Future.” Later, representatives of the groups reported out the results of their discussions to the entire conference.

Toward the end of the day, in a much-anticipated segment, the Commissioner introduced all the members of her new leadership team and they took turns answering questions that participants had written down at the lunch break. To their credit, they did not flinch from answering some tough questions; as one of the conference-planning team members put it, they covered, “the good, the bad-and some of the ugly.”

Feedback collected from the participants at the end of the conference was generally quite positive. People especially valued the opportunity to interact with senior leaders. One person wrote, “Its wonderful to see this level of presentation and accountability along with an open invitation to be involved by our top management.”

Through the conference, the people of DCR made huge strides in moving to embrace their new organizational identity; senior leaders connected with the staff in a way that will have lasting and far reaching effect; and the groundwork was laid for future conversations about building a better DCR.

 

"I thought you did an expert job,
and Kathy felt it couldn't have gone better."

Larry  Dorman

"Transitioning from recent major departmental upheavals toward a future of stability and hope - while bringing a mostly skeptical audience with you - was no easy task. But your work in facilitating this outcome over the past five months produced the climate of Friday's success."

Paul Galvin

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The United States Postal Service
and the National Association of Letter Carriers
Team Up on a New Intervention Process

In an organization as large as the USPS, it’s natural that there will be occasional conflicts between labor and management. In most instances, these conflicts are resolved through their normal dispute resolution process, but where conflicts become intractable at “troubled” installations or large geographical units, some form of intervention becomes necessary.

A national joint USPS/NALC committee working on this issue retained MOR Associates to conduct an assessment of what was needed for interventions to succeed, and to then design the tools that labor-management teams could use to achieve the desired changes at the local and regional levels.

We began with people from labor and management who has long experience with interventions, interviewing them to ascertain what had been most effective. We then mapped out an intervention process and produced a workbook describing the process. The workbook included a menu of possible actions and strategies people could use to get to the desired results.

Dramatic change has been achieved in a number of sites across the country. In an article in the February 2004 issue of Postal Record, NALC Executive Vice President Jim Williams said of this intiative, “The training gives them the tools to functions as teams, so they can carry out a three-fold mission: Assess the problem, determine the proper level of intervention, and follow up on the solution.”

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