Getting the Project Off the Ground and Hiring Good Help
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland ―
KIPP LA’s struggle to complete basic tasks in its human resources software was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, triggering a broad review of the nonprofit’s human capital technology systems.
In March 2015, KIPP LA’s CEO, Marcia Aaron convened a cross-functional Internal Systems Task Force comprised of her Chief of Staff, Chief of Employee Solutions & Legal Affairs, Chief of Finance and Operations and Chief of Innovation and Technology to complete a technology review and determine next steps.
In 90 days, the Internal Systems Task Force met 6 times and the senior team made the decision to upgrade its human resource systems and hire an external consultant. Here are three lessons from this process.
Lesson #1: Focus on the desired future state, not just the problems of the day
At the time of the technology systems review, KIPP LA operated 11 schools serving 4,000 students. But in 2020, the organization expects to serve 10,000 students across 20 schools. As painful as KIPP LA HR systems were in 2015, the team had the foresight to ask, “what are the systems we will need five years from now?”
For each major HR workstream, the team reviewed:
- Description of key process
- What does this look like in 2020?
- Current technology systems
- Future systems ideas
- Pain points today
- Anticipated pain points in 2020
- Ideal vision / state for 2020
Lesson #2: Collect data to build the case for change
KIPP LA learned that its HR and talent functions were spread across 18 different software applications. In addition, schools and department created dozens of “workarounds” on Google documents if the “official” systems did not work well or simply did not exist.
Notably, the Internal Systems Task Force only found one employee in the entire school leader community who liked the current Human Resources Information System, which simplified the case for change.
“Everyone was bought into the idea that we needed to change [our HR systems],” said Sarah Hughes.
Lesson #3: Get the right expertise on the team
By June, KIPP LA got to the point where they knew they needed to do something but they also acknowledged that the organization did not have the expertise to lead this change. This was an extraordinary admission: KIPP LA has one of the top management teams in the country and part of the ethos of high-performing, high-growth organizations is to “just figure it out.”
The team decided to look externally for consultant help and began making inquiries in July 2015.
See Harder Than You’d Think: Hiring an HR Systems Consultant to Help Schools.
