In April 1996, after nearly three years of study and preparation, Harvard officially began Project ADAPT, a multi-year project to improve and simplify the University's basic business transactions and to provide significantly improved information to the Schools and departments. In June, Deb Mauger was appointed director of the Project. Previously, she was chief financial officer at the Harvard Business School. Mauger recently spoke to the Gazette about what's been happening in Project ADAPT since her appointment and when those around the University can expect to feel the impact of the Project in their day-to-day work.

Q: Iíve certainly heard of Project ADAPT, but I have to admit Iíve never really understood what the Project is about. What is it going to mean for most people at Harvard?

A: I like to compare the impact of Project ADAPT to the changes that have happened in banking in the past few years. Consumer banking used to be very paper oriented. You had to remember when to use the pink form versus the green form and what your bank account number was and the correct code for your branch, and all sorts of other things. These days, it's possible to do almost all your banking using an ATM machine. You identify yourself by means of your ATM card and a password, and the system then uses that information to figure out what accounts you can access and what actions you can perform. All the necessary checks and balances are built into the system. In just the way that automated banking gives us easy access to information like account balances -- without filling out forms or waiting for your bank statement at the end of the month -- Project ADAPT will make it possible for faculty and staff to get financial and human resources information from their desktop machines when they need it.

Q: Why couldn't we just fix the old computer systems to effect this change?

A: The problem is that the Universityís core administrative computer systems ñ for example the general ledger, the accounts payable system, and the payroll system -- are very old. They simply can't be adapted to perform up to today's standards. Also, our current business processes are not very efficient. Most basic administrative tasks still involve paper forms which get filled out in the local departments and then sent to a central location to be processed. Often information gets repeated on several different forms before it finally is keyed into the appropriate computer system. More often than not, the whole process involves far too many steps and takes much more time than you think it should! Project ADAPT is going to enable us to simplify much of that work.

Q: What is motivating the University to do this Project now?

A: Well, containing costs is certainly one factor. It's expensive to run the current administrative computing systems, and costs are certain to rise as the systems age. Also, Project ADAPT should remove the need for the "shadow" systems currently in place in the Schools and departments that essentially replicate pieces of the central computer systems. So, there will certainly be opportunities for costs savings, both in the local departments and in Central Administration.

However, there are other motivations beyond cost. Perhaps the strongest is the need to more efficiently manage the University's resources. Strategic planning is really hampered today because it's very hard -- if not impossible -- to get the kind of information required. Even finding out the total number of employees at the University is difficult. We also have problems reporting back to outside agencies such as the federal government and we may miss reporting deadlines on sponsored accounts because, again, it is so difficult to pull together the needed information.

Q: Where are these new computer systems going to come from?

A: We have chosen Oracle Corporation as the software vendor for our new systems. The vendor decision is obviously a very important one, and we spent a lot of time making sure we made the right choice and crafting an agreement with Oracle that really lays the groundwork for us to work together in the future. Now that the selection process is behind us, the Project ADAPT team will be spending the next four months becoming experts in the Oracle software applications ñ such as accounts payable, the general ledger, payroll -- and building a detailed plan for how to implement those systems at Harvard.

Q: So how close are we to this "new world"?

A: Well, it's not going to happen tomorrow and it's not going to happen all at once. We'll be implementing the new financial systems first. This has been our strategy from the beginning and it fits well with our decision to go with Oracle Corporation because their financial applications are more mature than their human resources applications. The first step in the process will be to redesign what is known as the chart of accounts. The Universityís current chart of accounts is a 14-digit billing code scheme that is not flexible enough to serve our current needs. The redesign process should be completed by March and the new financial systems will be built around the revised coding scheme. We expect the financial systems to be available by July 1998. The new human resources systems will follow in 1999. This timing is preliminary because we really need to complete our implementation planning before we can develop a detailed schedule.

Q: From what little I know about Project ADAPT, it seems like youíve been spending an awful lot of time planning! Haven't there already been several years of planning?

A: You're right. I think there are a couple of reasons why planning has occupied so much of our time. First, any project to implement new technology really requires rigorous planning. I'm convinced that good planning at this stage really will help us avoid needless delays in implementation. Also, when you do a Project like this in a highly decentralized environment such as Harvard, it takes time to lay all the necessary groundwork and to build the consensus to proceed. So much of this work is invisible that it can seem like nothing much is happening for long stretches of time, but skipping over the planning and consensus building steps would be disastrous. They are absolutely critical for success.

Q: Finally, in your opinion, what's going to be hardest thing about doing this Project?

A: Technologically, this Project will involve lots of challenges. Implementing the new computer systems will not be an easy task, especially in the highly decentralized technological environment that exists at Harvard. However, I firmly believe that the hardest part of this Project will be on the human rather than the technological side. Project ADAPT is going to change the way procurement, payroll, hiring, and accounting get done and people will need to adapt to new ways of doing things. This is where the real heart of the Project lies. In fact, the name ADAPT was chosen precisely because this Project isn't just about data or systems but about adapting to new and better ways of doing our work. I'm really looking forward to working closely with the local units to help them accommodate and take advantage of the coming changes.