Old Main on the University Park campus.

Organizational Processes

Penn State will lead nationally in the design, development, and deployment of effective and agile organizational processes that support the University’s mission.

Strategy should drive organizational processes, not vice versa. The following steps address the planning and development of new processes, the alignment and integration of current processes through system-level approaches, and continuing improvement and innovation—all geared to promote quality education, scholarly and creative endeavors, and service.

Improve the design, oversight, integration, and effectiveness of organizational processes.

Penn State will continue to systematically and strategically identify key processes that drive value creation and employ leading‐edge principles of process design and control to optimize effectiveness and efficiency. The University will increase service quality by continuing to improve the enterprise systems that make up the backbone of business processes. Penn State will manage budgets and resource allocation to provide necessary stability while aligning the allocation of resources and incentives with institutional priorities.

Establish processes for continual institutional assessment, improvement, and innovation, including more systematic review of administrative and academic organizational performance and financial stewardship.

Penn State also will identify and implement best practices through benchmarking with peer institutions, affiliates, and industry networks, and create productive mechanisms for regular stakeholder feedback on services and process improvements. The University will continue to develop and implement business intelligence tools and techniques to promote intelligent, data- and evidence-driven analysis and decision making. Penn State also will promote innovation to strengthen institutional capability while effectively managing risk and ensuring legal and regulatory compliance.

Develop a culture of academic business modeling to support innovation.

The University will encourage faculty, staff, and students to pursue new and innovative ideas that will advance academic and operational excellence. When new innovations or opportunities emerge and initial investments are warranted, multi‐year plans that provide realistic, well-defined metrics, and targets that contribute to operational excellence will be required.