Ten weeks into his new job as senior director of Johns
Hopkins Business Systems and
HopkinsOne, John Tikka says he is encouraged by signs
that users are adapting to the system. But, he
says, he also appreciates and understands the remaining
hurdles, including providing faster response
time to user issues and problems and a more focused
approach for making system fixes.
An IT veteran with extensive project experience,
including with the SAP software that
HopkinsOne uses, Tikka joined Johns Hopkins in June to
oversee the institutions' initiative to update
their business software systems in finance/sponsored
projects, human resources/payroll and supply
chain. He recently sat down to answer some questions about
his early impressions.
Given what you've seen and heard so far about
HopkinsOne, what's your overall assessment of this SAP
implementation?
Overall, this implementation has gone as well as can
be expected given the ambitious goals of
harmonizing a common system across the different cultures
and ways of doing business in the health
system and university. Most institutions — whether
they're in the commercial sector, higher education
or health care — struggle with the types of things
that we're struggling with now.
How would you describe the size and scope of this
project?
In terms of the size of the implementation and what
was done at "go-live," it's big, no doubt
about it. But it's not atypical of SAP implementations. I
think the degree of new functionality that
SAP needed to deliver for Hopkins surprised many of us. For
example, the way we manage grants, and
our volume, posed challenges that we haven't fully resolved
yet.
What are some successful aspects of this project?
At a high level, the fact that the organization went
live with a single solution across
finance/sponsored projects, human resources/payroll, and
supply chain across the JHHS, JHM and
JHU organizations is a tremendous accomplishment. It's one
that comes with a lot of the pain that
we're feeling. And certainly the benefits of being on one
system haven't fully been realized yet. But
they're going to be.
Could you describe some of the challenges we
face?
Our most important challenge rests with stabilizing
the end-user experience. When users feel
that they've returned to business as usual, we will have
stabilized. Another big challenge is how we
prioritize the literally hundreds of requests that we get
from the user community. It is a monumental
task to prioritize and then deliver on all the requests.
For things to improve, what needs to happen?
There are three problems I'm trying to solve. One,
improve our responsiveness and resolution
times of problems reported. The simple questions need to be
answered quickly. The complex problems
need regular follow-up and progress communication. Two,
create sharper focus on HopkinsOne teams.
At the moment, each analyst has on average 10 to 15 items
they need to work on. Getting focus to
complete items without interruption will improve our
turnaround times for complex problems. Three,
create stronger relationships with our end-users. This will
happen through deploying teams of
HopkinsOne team members to work with our customers in the
business directly.
How will you address these challenges?
One thing we're doing is establishing a permanent
HopkinsOne help desk. In addition, we're
reorganizing the project team and, as part of that,
creating a new team of specialists called business
solution managers. They will be assigned to different parts
of the organization, and their main job is
to resolve issues, help users understand SAP and become a
conduit for positive changes to the system.
These individuals will understand SAP, the Hopkins-One
solution and JHHS and/or JHU policies and
procedures. Secondary skills may include business process
design, training, organization development
and project management. As this team deploys in early
September, we believe responsiveness and
communication will improve. As users gain knowledge and
work with their business solution managers,
the HopkinsOne team will be able to focus on completing
their work. I think the whole process will
work better that way.
Now that you've been at Johns Hopkins for a few months,
is there anything that's particularly
impressed or surprised you about the organization?
I'm impressed with the commitment of each member of
the HopkinsOne team. This group of
individuals has persevered [through] an almost yearlong
sprint to support this application. During the
early days, this team worked around the clock solving a
myriad of issues to keep the institution running
and truly deserves our gratitude. Also, the business users
across all three organizations have also
endured a major change and long months of frustration. The
dedication and patience are appreciated,
and help us make the system better. Finally, and this is
rather personal, I'm most impressed with how
supportive the leadership team has been during my
transition onto the project. It's motivating and
humbling.
Is there anything that you would like to convey to
employees who use the HopkinsOne system?
What I'd like to say is, HopkinsOne hears you,
understands the challenges that you're
experiencing with the system, and it will get better. We
will focus on making improvements to the
system so that our system supports and enhances our
mission.
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