How To Launch an Overdue Project With High Expectations and High Visibility

Scott Leaf, UC ANR Project Manager

Jaki Hsieh Wojan, UC ANR Deputy CIO & CISO

Kit Alviz, UC ANR Program Policy Analyst

Agenda

• Introductions
• About UC ANR
• Project Background and History
• Root Cause
• Pivot to MVP
• Actions Taken
• Lessons Learned

Introductions

UC ANR Role:

Project Manager

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Project Role:

Took over project as Project Manager & Product Owner

UC ANR Role:

Interim CIO and CISO

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Project Role:

Assumed Sponsor of the website project

UC ANR Role:

Program Policy Analyst

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Project Role:

Internal Consultant of the website project

About UC ANR

Our Mission: UC ANR cultivates

thriving communities,

sustainable agriculture,

resilient ecosystems, and

economic prosperity

in California through development and sharing of equitable and collaborative science-based solutions that have national and global impact.

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• Land Grant Universities established by Congress in 1862​
• The University of California created in 1868​
• Congress authorizes Agricultural Experiment Stations (AES) at Land Grants in 1887​
• Cooperative Extension established by Congress in 1914​

UC Cooperative Extension

• 180 Advisors conduct research in local communities
• 300+ Community Educators delivering programs
• 110 campus/county-based Specialists

Agricultural Experiment Station

• 510 researchers on 5 campuses

Research and Extension Facilities

• Nine Research and Extension Centers and Elkus Ranch Environmental Education Center: 12,500+ acres

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Statewide Programs and Institutes

Over 18,000 volunteers contribute 1.3M hours in donated public service

• 4-H Youth Development
• Community Nutrition & Health
• California Institute for Water Resources
• Informatics and GIS
• Nutrition Policy Institute
• UC ANR Fire Network
• UC ANR Innovate
• UC ANR Policy Institute
• UC Environmental Stewards
• UC Integrated Pest Management
• UC Master Gardener
• UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

Project Background: Integrated Web Platform

• Objective: Replace UC ANR’s homegrown web infrastructure as it needed to be redesigned in alignment with industry best practices - a modern cloud-based technology platform, a taxonomy-driven content strategy, and a unified branding strategy.

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• Simply put, our UC ANR website platform was made up of over 700 sites and blogs needed to be replaced due to:
• Aging technology with security challenges, maintenance issues, and poor user experience lagging behind the industry standards
• Lack of a content model with no consistent standards for content and no controls
• Replace the existing homegrown Site Builder and Blogs platforms

That didn’t happen…

• The promise that was made to leadership was a “fancy car” but that was not reality
• The deliverable was various proof of concepts rolled into one

Project History

• Project Scope:
• Migrate from homegrown content management system and blogs to new modern Drupal platform
• Support 1200+ employees, academics, volunteers to get information out to the state of California

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• Project History Timeline:
• Started in 2017 with a design audit and homepage redesign
• Changing resources and changing understanding of the goal
• Years of starts and stops
• A Crisis Point: UC ANR homegrown platform downtime
• Reassessment with leadership
• Intervention: New Project Manager, dedicated leadership with project team, new vendor partnership and a governance reset

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

Root Causes of Years of Delays

Critical Internal Failure Points:

• Wrong People, Wrong roles
• Foundational Gaps in Readiness
• Sequenced Wrong
• Pandemic Impacts
• Unclear Requirements
• Steering Committee Instability
• Shifting Vision and Direction
• Misrepresented Deliverables
• Lack of Transparency on Status

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Impacts:

• Project scope and timeline significantly exceeded original plans
• User confidence dropped across UC ANR including lack of trust from leadership
• Homegrown platform became increasingly unsustainable
• UC ANR faced failure without alternative
• Lack of engagement when needed from stakeholders
• Confusion including thinking there were no “stops and starts”
• Increase change fatigue due to other systems

UC ANR IT BECAME THE TARGET!

• Recap of the Situation:
• Failing legacy platform with no alternative
• High change fatigue across UC ANR
• Stakeholders losing confidence in any solution, but still high expectations based on promises
• Replacement needed as soon as possible

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• Strategic Decision:
• Pivot to minimally viable product (MVP) approach
• Focus on Drupal implementation with core website functionality and migration
• Utilize a core project team with leadership rather than a steering committee
• Press forward as sometimes you must proceed to make progress

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Taking Over the Project: Pivot to MVP Delivery

1. MVP-Driven Delivery with Planned Governance

2. Open & Honest Communication/ Change Management

3. Leadership Alignment & Support

So what did we do?

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MVP-Driven Delivery with Planned Governance

• Focused on the delivery of a “foundational build”
• Reviewed existing requirements and prioritized with project team
• Hired a vendor with clear understanding on the history of the project
• Incorporated internal development resources to complement vendor
• Treated initial launch as a requirements discovery phase
• Dramatically reduced scope using the formation of a new governance

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• Established a content governance council
• Representative model with leadership buy-in
• Clear charter: Defined roles, responsibilities, and decision-making
• Required ongoing structure to guide enhancements and priorities
• Future-Focused/Address challenges of the past

Open & Honest �Communication and Change Management

• Directly open with past challenges to rebuild trust
• Messages were honest to reset expectations
• Reframed the reality: "Homegrown system is unsustainable - we need modern foundation first"
• Provided preview access for hands-on experience
• Focused on post-launch readiness over pre-launch perfection
• Braced for negativity with:
• Weekly outreach communications
• Direct leadership engagement and message review
• Proactive tools: content cleanup pages, office hours
• Utilized the new content governance council

"We're building the foundation that will support future needs"

Leadership Alignment and Support

As part of the MVP build, engaged leadership:

• Held honest conversations to clarify true needs and vision
• Asked for what was needed and why prior efforts failed
• As a PM, dedicated to keep leadership apprised and be transparent

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Key outcomes:

• Stronger support of the project team and helped reduce roadblocks
• Recurring leadership engagement - meetings with high focus on messaging
• Formed a small, diverse and responsive project team to handle feedback and manage sentiment
• Created a new content strategist position to run the future governance
• Established and backed a future governance structure to prevent the past but not impact current efforts

Honest Conversation

Recurring Leadership Engagement

Asked For What Was Needed

Press Forward Regardless

Lessons Learned to Inform Future Decisions

• Red Flags to Address Early:
• Don't be afraid to call out fundamental problems - early intervention could have prevented years of delays
• Pause and rebuild requirements when inherited ones are fundamentally flawed
• "We don't want a fancy car, just a car that runs" – start foundational approach
• Address resource needs upfront - unrealistic expectations lead to endless restart cycles

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• What Worked - Building the Right Team:
• Bring in both internal and external expertise - We used Drupal vendor for platform-specific knowledge as well as internal experts
• Expand team beyond IT - Include representatives from across the organization

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• Communication That Delivered Results:
• Address unrealistic expectations directly - Better to have difficult conversations than continued delays
• Cross-functional perspective - Made it organizational transformation, not just IT project

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• Decision-Making for Future:
• Sometimes the right choice is to stop and rebuild rather than continue with flawed approach
• Crisis situations require different rules - ask for what you need to succeed

Questions?

Platform Modernization: Lessons Learned Discussion

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

• Audience Questions
• How do you manage diverse user expectations? How about high expectations?
• How do you handle inherited projects with fundamental problems?
• What similar modernization challenges have you faced?