Building Excellence and Innovation at Carleton University

Ed KaneAssistant Vice-President

(University Services)

Carleton University• Canada’s Capital University• Founded in 1942• Approximately 27,000 students (Bachelors,

Masters, Doctoral)• Six faculties• Comprehensive university• $338M operating budget• Research-intensive institution• “Ours the task eternal”

Innovation is….

• Improved products, processes, services, technologies and ideas

• “Introduction something new”• What you do (need to do) when your platform

is burning• Questioning the status quo

Challenges to Innovation

• Organizational structure • It comes with the territory• What’s in it for me?• It’s the way we have always done it• Lack of vision & commitment

Innovation Barriers

• Punish failure • Reward complacency• Never ask your staff• Micromanage your organisation• Don’t make it part of performance reviews• Add concrete to the silo walls

Innovation is driven and focussed on

• Market research• Perceived customer

needs• Innovation teams• Employees• Outsourcing

• Breakthrough• Significant

improvement• Small improvement• Service innovation

The Carleton experience - Collaboration

• When was your best experience at Carleton?• Someone has to be leader• It does require agreement on the goal(s)• Cross functional teams• Moving from “ego” to “pride”

What are we doing at Carleton?

• Office of Quality Initiatives• Cross functional teams• Strengths Based Approach• Benchmarking projects• Lean transformations• Ideas@Carleton• Service Excellence• Strategic planning• The Ripple Effect

Some examples

• Academic Interdisciplinary offerings• Congress 2009• 25+ Benchmarking projects• Lean projects

• Setting Service Excellence standards• Strengths based change approach

Implementation Progress

Health & Counselling

Email & Network Storage

Employee Wellness & Recognition

Residence Operations

Integrated Science Institute

Centralized Space Booking

Student Communication

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

77

33

58

90

25

20

0

15

50

32

4

75

80

63

8

17

10

6

0

0

37

CompleteIn ProgressNot Started

Embedding Staff Involvement

• Selection of participants• Selection of data collection• Empowerment of teams• Inter-team communication – no titles• Presentation of findings & recommendations• Responsibility of implementation• Onus on sustainability of change

Questions?Go Ravens ...