Operational Excellence

UW–Madison released its updated Strategic Framework, focusing on what it means to be a leading university in the 21st century, recommitting to a modern conception of the Wisconsin Idea, and defining the Badger Way as how we deliver on our mission.

One pillar of the new framework, to “cultivate a culture of excellence to ensure a resilient future,” helps guide the university’s ongoing work in Operational Excellence, where we will build on our history of customer service and improvement. Operational Excellence in the new strategic framework will:

• Seek to continuously improve coordination and efficiency, consistency and customer service, and transparency and stewardship across administrative services;
• Enable the stronger use of metrics to provide evidence of progress;
• Focus on providing value and advancing the mission.

This work is not new — several years of coordination to standardize compensation and titling (Title and Total Compensation), research administration services (RAMP), and business operations (the ongoing Workday stabilization) — have led to this next phase of operational excellence efforts.

Here are some key programs in our Operational Excellence portfolio of work: