As part of Portland State University's Bridge to the Future initiative, the Operational Excellence plan is dedicated to improving our administrative structures in ways that not only address financial sustainability but also prioritize the support and service we provide to our faculty, staff, students and community. In response to a projected $18 million E&G budget deficit, PSU will implement some of the strategic changes recommended in the 2022 Huron Support Services & Operational Review.

Objectives of Operational Excellence

The Operational Excellence plan is focused on delivering measurable improvements in PSU's administrative functions while keeping student support at the forefront. Key objectives include:

  • Aligning Administrative Structures: Streamline PSU’s administrative services to align with current needs, creating a more efficient system that reduces redundancy and enhances service delivery for students and staff.
  • Reducing Duplication: Centralize and reorganize administrative functions to eliminate overlapping efforts, resulting in improved operational efficiency and allowing for more focused support for student needs.
  • Achieving Excellence and Compliance: Centralized administrative services will ensure consistency and stronger compliance in key areas like Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing and Communications.
  • Career Pathways for Administrative Staff: Provide specialized training to support career development for administrative employees, increasing employee retention by offering satisfying professional growth pathways.

Steps to Achieve Operational Excellence

PSU will take a comprehensive approach to redesigning its administrative functions. The following steps guide the process:

  1. Consultant Selection and Design Planning
    A consultant and project manager will be hired to help develop a detailed design for streamlined administrative services. This will focus on optimal workflows and accessibility, incorporating best practices to enhance service delivery for students and staff.
  2. Process Improvement
    Detailed process mapping will be conducted for Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing and Communications, with proposals for improvements that include technology integration and workflow enhancements. Performance metrics will also be developed to assess the success of these changes.
  3. Implementation
    A temporary project manager will oversee the implementation, which will continue through Fiscal Year 2026 as employees are trained to operate within the new structure. The implementation timeline must allow for staffing adjustments and transitions, focusing on retaining current employees and minimizing new hires while aligning with collective bargaining agreements.
  4. Communication and Change Management
    PSU leadership will maintain clear communication with campus stakeholders throughout the transition. Regular updates will be provided to track progress and ensure that changes support both administrative efficiency and student needs.

Governance and Decision-Making Process

The Operational Excellence plan will be overseen by an Operational Excellence Team, which will include key campus leaders who will make recommendations to the President. This team will include:

  • Vice President for Finance and Administration
  • Vice Provost for Academic Budgeting and Planning
  • Associate Vice President for Human Resources
  • Associate Vice President for Communications and Marketing
  • Vice President for Public Affairs and Chief of Staff
  • Director of Fiscal Operations and Services
  • Chief Information Officer

Additionally, three Work Area Teams will be established for Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing and Communications to provide recommendations on the new structures.

Operational Excellence Project Charter

Financial Impact and Staffing Adjustments

The Operational Excellence plan is projected to deliver a financial impact of $2 to $4 million through staff reductions and increased efficiencies. These reductions will occur through natural turnover or, where necessary, reductions in force. PSU's application for sustainability funding from the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) includes a request for seven temporary staff to support the transition to centralized services.

Employee Engagement Opportunities

Portland State employees who handle tasks related to marketing and communications, human resources, or finance are invited to participate in a survey to help the Operational Excellence Steering Committee prioritize which processes should be focused on first for efficiency and improvement:

In March, MGT Consulting hosted Listening Sessions with PSU employees to gather feedback on which processes to prioritize and where the pain points are in each of the processes.

DateTimeTopic & Link to Session
Tuesday, March 119 a.m.Marketing & Communications
Wednesday, March 1210 a.m.Human Resources
Thursday, March 131:30 p.m.Finance

Workgroups Identify Issues for Review

The Operational Excellence plan is focused on delivering measurable improvements in PSU's administrative functions while keeping student support at the forefront. The workgroups evaluating tasks in the areas of finance, human resources and marketing and communications identified issues to be evaluated and improved upon. Below are links to the lists for each area, describing the task category, description and reason it was identified for improvement:

Marketing Communications Team Processes

Finance Team Processes

Human Resources Team Processes

Listening Session Summaries & Survey Results

In March of 2025, MGT Consulting held three listening sessions with a total of 320 participants. The sessions were followed by a survey that was shared in PSU's employee newsletter — 92 people provided feedback through the survey.

Here are the key takeaways and survey results, as provided by MGT:

Listening Sessions Summaries

Community Survey Results


Operational Excellence: First Year Report

In August of 2025, the Operational Excellence steering committee prepared a report for Portland State University’s Executive Council, outlining the process followed by the Operational Excellence project's workgroups during the first year of the initiative (2024-2025) and their recommendations. The project's goal is to build upon previous operational reviews and allow PSU to improve efficiency and dedicate more resources to mission-critical areas. The project's four key objectives are:

  • Aligning Administrative Structures: Creating a more efficient system that reduces redundancy and improves service delivery for students and staff.
     
  • Reducing Duplication: Eliminating overlapping efforts to improve operational efficiency and provide more focused support for student needs.
     
  • Achieving Excellence and Compliance: Improving quality, consistency, and compliance in the key areas of Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing and Communications.
     
  • Career Pathways for Administrative Staff: Increasing employee retention by offering professional growth pathways and specialized training to administrative employees.

The project, which launched on November 5, 2024 with the formation of a steering committee, involved three work area teams focused on finance, human resources, and marketing and communications. Consulting firm MGT Impact Solutions (MGT) was hired to assist with the design and implementation planning phases, helping to identify and streamline processes.

Process and Findings

Each work area team, composed of PSU employees and led by a subject matter expert, was tasked with identifying and prioritizing processes to be mapped and streamlined. 

MGT hosted three virtual listening sessions to seek stakeholder feedback on the selected processes, and conducted a survey that allowed respondents to offer feedback in all three areas. The marketing and communication listening session drew 94 participants, human resources had 103, and finance had 123. The survey received 92 responses.

Finance Work Area Team

The finance team, consisting of seven members from various university finance functions, met nine times to create a list of processes that were inefficient or overly complex. Additionally, insights were provided by finance area leaders to ensure the perspectives of our centralized teams were represented. The team also conducted outreach to individuals and groups including the Faculty Senate Budget Committee, the Academic Leadership Team, and the campus Senior Fiscal Officers’ group. 

The team's findings, confirmed by stakeholder outreach, included frustrations with complex processes, long turnaround times, poorly suited technology, and confusing roles. The highest priorities identified by stakeholders were training and documentation, assistance with contracts, and improved PCard processes. While respondents were less concerned about items appearing in the strategic budgeting and financial guidance section of the workgroup’s list, this was still selected as a high priority by a number of finance area leaders considering the overall objectives of the Operational Excellence project, the high-risk nature of this work, and increased scrutiny from PSU’s Board of Trustees of financial reporting. Therefore, recommendations in this area reflect these priorities as well as those received from the listening session and survey.

Human Resources Work Area Team

The human resources team, with eight members who engage in HR functions as part of their jobs, met five times to evaluate and improve processes. The team noted challenges such as a large number of people engaged in processes infrequently, a lack of backup personnel, compliance risks, and inconsistent work processes between units. Feedback from campus outreach confirmed the team's perceptions and highlighted the need for improvements in training, hiring approvals, and recruitment searches. There was also broad support for centralizing some HR functions to simplify training and improve compliance.

Marketing and Communications Work Area Team

The marketing and communications (MarComm) team, consisting of six members, met nine times to address issues related to marketing processes within their units. The team noted inconsistent brand application, a lack of coordination between units, and a large number of practitioners with limited training and experience. Stakeholders and survey respondents highlighted challenges with student and employee communications, website maintenance, creating brand assets, and measuring ad performance. MGT developed new process maps to improve the experience and outcomes in these areas. A decision was also made to engage RW Jones, a consulting firm specializing in marketing and communications, to evaluate the unique challenges related to university-wide marketing strategy. RW Jones's assessment found that PSU's central marketing unit (UCOMM) is under-resourced and structurally misaligned compared to its peers.

Recommendations

The following recommendations will provide pathways for streamlining service delivery and achieving the project's overall goals.

Organizational Effectiveness

  • Workflow documentation: As a standard practice, processes should be documented to identify who is responsible for them and to encourage feedback. The lack of clear and available documentation causes confusion for employees.
     
  • Process ownership: Departments responsible for workflows should be recognized as the owners and be responsible for documenting them and identifying the last review date.
     
  • Process communications: Standards should be developed for process communication, including where they are posted and what information is included.
     
  • Organization charts and contact information: Organization charts and contact information for support areas should be standardized to make it easier for employees to find who they need to contact.

Finance Recommendations

  • Create a Financial Services Campus Support Center: Centralizing financial transaction processing will reduce administrative burdens on faculty and staff and reduce duplicated efforts from a large number of low-volume users. Functions to be centralized include customer service, purchase orders, invoice entry, and PCard transaction processing.
     
  • Create Strategic Budgeting Campus Support Hubs: This recommendation presents two options to address the issues of SFO turnover, inconsistent training, and lack of direct accountability to central finance operations.
     
    • Option A: Organize Senior Fiscal Officers (SFOs) into service hubs. SFOs would be co-located with the areas they support but their direct reporting lines would shift to professional financial management staff under the Vice President for Finance & Administration. This would provide mentoring opportunities and allow for cross-training to cover absences or turnover.
       
    • Option B: Maintain the current structure where SFOs report to unit leadership, but strengthen fiscal accountability, training, and alignment with institutional priorities through a technical reporting line to a central position, a standard position description, and a Service Level Agreement with the Finance & Administration division.
       

Human Resources Recommendations

  • Create HR Campus Support Hubs: The proposal is to consolidate decentralized frontline HR work into specialized central positions to increase dedicated support resources for all business units. This involves expanding the HR Partner role and creating five HR service hub teams.
     
  • Expand Training Resources: Expand HR training capacity by adding additional training positions to address ongoing deficits in training and onboarding frameworks. This will centralize and standardize training efforts, reducing the need for individual departments to create their own materials.
     
  • Consolidate Protected Leaves: Consolidate protected leave programs under a unified, PSU-centric management system. This will simplify the employee experience by creating a single administrative path and streamline administrative efficiency by reducing duplicated efforts and improving data accuracy.
     

Marketing & Communications Recommendation

  • Implement a centrally led and coordinated marketing and communications strategy: Centralize the development of the university's strategy and coordinate its implementation. This will be led by an interim Chief Marketing and Communications Officer (CMCO). The strategy involves a phased approach to increase the connection and responsibility distributed units have to a strong, centralized strategy and operation. Along with new processes developed by MGT, this is expected to improve adherence to brand guidelines, increase accountability, and ensure that marketing efforts are efficiently directed toward the university's goals.

Timeline for Implementation

  • August 30, 2024:
    • Release request for proposals (RFP) for consultant selection
  • November 4, 2024:
    • Hire consultant to develop detailed design plan
    • Bring project managers on board
  • November:
    • Stand up Operational Excellence Team and work area teams
    • Develop communications plan
  • November - December 2024:
    • Work Area teams begin process analysis,
  • January to June 2025:
    • Detailed process mapping for Human Resources, Finance, and Marketing and Communications processes.
    • Propose and design process improvements, including technology integration and workflow enhancements.
    • Design and propose organizational charts.
    • Develop implementation strategies and performance metrics.
  • May-September 2025:
    • Develop training materials for new positions.
  • July 1, 2025:
    • Begin Implementation of the new administrative structure
  • June 30, 2026:
    • Full implementation of new administrative structure

A Sustainable Future for Portland State

The Operational Excellence initiative is a crucial element of PSU’s Bridge to the Future. By streamlining administrative functions, enhancing compliance, and supporting the professional growth of staff, PSU is positioning itself to better serve students, employees, and community partners while achieving financial resilience.

For further details or to provide feedback on how these changes may affect your role or department, please reach out to your supervisor.