GCA Overview
GCA Help
consists of four Grant Analysts
• Amy Liu
• Cheryl Haycox
• Colleen Laing
• Meg Russo
GCA Help is campus’s single point of contact for
grant and contract budget issues
GCA Help can be reached at
gcahelp@uw.edu – 206-616-9995
GCA and LEAN
• GCA has restructured our work and is striving
to serve campus better
• Using LEAN, an approach focused on reducing
waste and improving flow in work processes
• As a result, we are improving processing times
with a goal of providing a more consistent
response to campus
LEAN Process Lessons
• Group like work in buckets to speed processing and
identify process backlogs and hitches
• Focus on process flow
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Work one bucket at a time
Group work ion stations
Set core hours
Work uninterrupted
• Measure progress
– Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and
time-framed)
– Measure progress toward goals
– Identify and address process issues when goals aren’t met
GCA through 2004
Three teams
• Budget set-up
• Invoicing
• Reporting
No single point of contact
No focus on closing
No cross training
GCA 2005 - 2010
• Organized by School/Department
• Campus clients had single point of contact (Teams 1 - 6)
• Everyone worked on all processes, set-up through
close-out
• Processes were applied inconsistently
• Process hitches went unidentified
• Constant interruptions (phone, e-mail, GT) impeded
flow
• Backlogs accumulated – backlogs, process hitches and
bottlenecks were not apparent to whole office when
we were broken into 6 teams by School/Department
GCA 2011 - Organized by Process
Core Process Teams
• Budget Set-Up
– New & renewal
– Supplements
– Extensions
• Invoicing
– Interim
– Final
• Reporting
– Interim
– Final
• Closing
– Cash
– LOC
We help the Core Process Teams "flow" their work
by pulling work that interrupts them into GCA Help and
work that is hard to "bucket" into a Changes team
• GCA Help - Single Point of Contact
– Acknowledges receipt
– Does quick work
– Triages involved work to core process teams
– Campus liaison & training
• Changes Team – Adjustments on active grants
– Cost Share adjustments
– IDC
– Possibly supplements and extensions
Benefits
• Teams “flow” work by focusing uninterrupted
on buckets of like work
• Staff rotates to retain process skills
• Grouping work by process allows us to identify
process hitches
• Backlogs are being reduced
• Work assigned to stations, not individuals, and
staff cross-trained to prevent hold-ups
Continuous Improvement
We continue improving our processes with the
aim of reducing processing time and
improving quality
The GCA Landscape
• GCA manages 24,000 active budgets
Workload is growing much faster than staff
Budget set-up turn-around times are back to
pre-restructuring times and continue improving.
We have closed nearly 5,000 backlog budgets (expired
2+ years) and are staying current on new budgets
Of 1,525 un-completed Grant Trackers,
more than half are in the Closing topic.
2010 Monthly Core Process Workload
Averages
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•
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•
Budget Set-Up:
Invoicing:
Reporting:
Closing:
661 items
2,787 items (769 manual)
136
368
GCA Help Daily Volumes
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•
•
•
100 E-mails
40 Grant Trackers
30 Phone Calls
20% are thank you’s, duplicate requests, out
of office or undeliverable messages, etc.,
requiring little work
• Actual items processed per day ~130
Requests to GCA
616-9995 or GCAHelp@uw.edu
– Phone Calls to GCA Help
– E-Mails to GCA Help
– Grant Trackers
– Calls and E-Mails to GCA Managers
Are all funneled through GCA Help
• GCA Help is staffed by four Grant Analysts
• 8 – 5 Mon - Fri
Core
Process
Teams
GCA Help
Triage
GCA Help ‘Just Do Its’
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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FIN changes
Status changes
Provide info from GCA systems
Rebudgeting
Cancel duplicate budgets
Close gift budgets
IDC adjustments
Extend non-grant budget and sub-budget end dates
Transfer deficits on non-stand-alone budgets
Collect information and initiate research on other
requests
Grant Tracker
• Grant Analysts reading new messages in these topics (as of 2 weeks
ago):
* Budget set-up
* NOE
* IDC
* Other
* Invoicing
* Reporting
• Responding directly to "Just Do Its"
• Referring Team work to Teams
• We are working toward reading new GT's daily, but still have a lagtime in processing GT's
• Other Teams also have GT backlogs, some substantial
Turn Around Times
GCA Help will respond within one business day to
- acknowledge receipt
- resolve simple matters
- provide information about processing of more
complex matters
• Currently we respond timely to 95% of phone and
e-mail inquiries
• Grant Tracker response times are improving but
are not meeting our turn-around goal yet
Budget Set-Up Turn Around Time
Goals
Up To Three Days
• New and renewal budgets
• New sub budgets
• Extension PACs
• Cost Share Pledges
Within Ten Days
• Other EFAs
• PACs
• TPUs
Invoicing Turn-Around Time
Goals
Within One Week
• Revised final invoice
Within Two Weeks
• Invoice detail request
Within One Month
• Revised interim invoice
• Past due invoice
Reporting Turn-Around Time Goals
On Deadline
• Current reports
• Contractor release forms
Within One Week
• Past due reports
• Revised interim reports
• Termination notices
• Ad hoc reports
Within One Month
• Revised final reports
Closing Turn-Around Time Goals
Within Three Weeks
• Closing PACs
By April 30, 2011
• Closing backlog budgets expired pre-11/09
Within One Month of follow-up inquiry
• Closing backlog expired between 11/09 to 12/10
120 days after expiration
• Budgets expiring 1/1/11 to Current
The purpose of our process
improvements is to shorten these
turn-around times so we can deliver
timely, quality services and effective
communications to campus and
sponsors
Turn-Around Time Caveat
We can serve you best, and meet our deadlines
if everything is in good order, for example:
- prior budgets are closed
- encumbrances are liquidated
- cost share obligations are met and documented
- deficits are transferred
- charges are transferred and
- any needed concurrence is provided
- Sponsor has paid
Tips
• If it is urgent, please tell us why and what deadline you are
working under
• E-mail or call for urgent matters (use 'high priority' e-mail setting)
• E-mail or call if you haven't received a timely response
• Put a budget number in the subject line of e-mails
• Be strategic in use of Grant Tracker topics
– Use GT topics "Transpasu" and "Advance Budget“ and attach signed
forms for quickest processing
– Food approval goes under "Compliance"
– Put status changes in "Other" rather than "Closing"
– IDC has its own topic
– GT requests should contain single topics, not multiple issues
– Once closed, please only reopen if issue is unresolved (not for thank
you’s or new issues)
Request Tracker
- Provides a single process for all modes of
communication
- Assigns ticket numbers to enable tracking
- Preserves a record of communications
- Is assignable to individual staff
- Can link tickets and create dependencies
- Collects metrics
* inquiry volume
* response time averages
* average length of time to completion