Sitting down with the R3 Project Sponsor

Posted on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2022

When Laura Stanbra, Vice President, Student Services came on board as the R3 Project Executive Sponsor, she knew she was going to be involved in something special.

A project sponsor champions and leads the change by consistently articulating the Project’s vision and how it links to the College’s overall strategy.

As we move into the Design and Develop (or Personalize) Phase of the Project, we connected with Stanbra and asked about her experience thus far within the Project, including surprises she’s witnessed along the way and her ultimate vision once the Project fully comes to life.

Here’s what she had to say:

1. Why did you choose to sponsor the R3 Project?

I really enjoy being involved in collaborative cross-College projects that will make a meaningful difference to the way we work and that improve the student experience.

2. As the R3 Project Executive Sponsor, how would you describe your role?

The R3 Project is a five-year implementation project that will transform the way we work. It is budgeted within the range of $58 to $78 million, so it’s very important to have a visible and engaged project champion. In fact, major projects are successful when there is support and involvement at all levels of the organization.

As for my role, I’m a liaison between the Project Group, our new system supplier, Thesis, the Executive Team and the Board of Governors. I’m not a Subject Matter Expert on systems, but I’m guiding the project from a governance perspective as a major capital development project.

3. What are some surprises, challenges, or milestones you’ve encountered throughout the R3 Project?

One of the most pleasant surprises is the interest and enthusiasm of people wanting to be involved, like our Project’s Change Champions and all the participants in our Showcase events.

In terms of challenges, there will always be challenges on a project that is as large and complex as this one. Our Student Information System (SIS) is completely unique because it is a “home grown” system. The complexity of the R3 Project is heightened because our SIS connects with so many other systems at the College, and it took longer than anticipated for us to work with Thesis on determining a path forward on the integrations of all our systems.

Also, like most organizations, a challenge we have experienced is recruiting specialized talent. However, we’ve done well in this regard. It just takes time.

An important milestone that comes to mind was the successful completion of our Multi-Factor Authentication process for all employees. Cyber security is critically important, especially with so much remote work going on.

Another major milestone was recently achieved when we concluded our Familiarize Phase, where we were able to understand what the vendor, Thesis, could do to meet our needs. This time allowed for Thesis to understand how the College operates in order to recognize business needs and requirements to configure the system. We developed a very detailed Master Project Schedule that will guide us through the remainder of the R3 Project.

4. When the R3 Project is over, what do you envision for Algonquin College?

Having a state-of-the art system that is very user-friendly for both employees and students will allow us the flexibility to do things differently and leverage our technology to easily adapt to changes we want or need to make. I see redundant, repetitive, and manual entry as a thing of the past for our employees, and students being able to navigate a system that will easily inform and support their experience in a way that is meaningful and personalized to them.

5. Any final reflections?

I’m excited about the phase we are entering—Personalize—because this is where we really look at the processes we currently have and see where we can make process improvements that will streamline our work.

I also want to emphasize that we recognize that changing a significant system at the College and managing this change is very important. When the time is right, we will be investing a lot of time in training people to be ready to use this new system. We will make sure training is robust and that people feel they have the information and practice that they need to move over to a new system.

The R3 Project team is an amazing group of talented, caring, and dedicated people. I feel very fortunate to work with such an exceptional group of people!

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