At the March Northwestern IT Extended Staff Meeting, teamwork and collaboration were celebrated during the announcement of the FY24 quarterly and annual Project Team Excellence Awards (PTEA). This year's quarterly winners included the following projects:
NU-Q Student Finance Tuition and Billing Information
ITSM Platform Replacement and Northwestern IT Website Refresh
eProcurement Punchout and Catalog Management Application Replacement
June 2024 Quest Downtime
Each team was then eligible for the Annual Project Team Excellence Award as a quarterly winner.
Projects are evaluated by the PTEA committee based on criteria including collaboration (within and outside of IT), impact on the University community, and satisfaction among the project team members.
Congratulations to all the project teams!
Annual PTEA Winner
Andrew Ludington, senior director of Enterprise Systems, announced the eProcurement Punchout and Catalog Management Application Replacement project as the FY24 Project Team Excellence Award winner.
The project replaced the Aquiire application that facilitated the functionality behind iBuyNU, the University’s web-based ordering tool that provides departments and schools with a streamlined and cost-effective way to order from preferred vendors. The primary work associated with the project involved the development of several integrations between the selected application and PeopleSoft Financials.
The project also included onboarding approved suppliers, testing all developed integrations, and testing direct access to the vendor's solution for users who do not have access to NUFinancials.
Not only did the project finish in a tight five-month period, but the team was able to onboard even more suppliers before the go-live date than initially intended. A large team collaborated on a complex project within a tight time frame to implement a newer, better application with complex integrations and required supplier onboarding.
Core Team Members: Neha Sultana (Project Manager), Jared Shields, Sam Kustra, Joy Caluag, Steve Wohlfrom, Suilan Rong, Wil Tumbaga, and Steve Christensen
Most implementations of this magnitude take nine to ten months. This team completed the project in five months and exceeded the scope. However, what stood out most about this team was the remarkably positive things each member had to say about collegiality. ”
Andrew Ludington
Senior Director, Enterprise Systems
Northwestern Information Technology
Quarterly PTEA Winners
Four outstanding projects, including the eProcurement Punchout and Catalog Management Application Replacement project, received a Quarterly Project Team Excellence Award. Each project was comprised of cross-unit teams whose participation resulted in the successful implementation of a significant project during fiscal year 2024.
NU-Q Student Finance Tuition and Billing Information
NU-Q was seeking to implement tuition calculation and billing within CAESAR to address internal audit findings to align NU-Q with Evanston student finance operational practices and to improve the NU-Q student experience. With this charge, the project team was able to complete several integrations of NU-Q student information into CAESAR, NUFinancials, and the main campus financial aid process.
This project showed exemplary collaboration among teams over 7,000 miles apart, with a nine-hour time difference between Evanston and Doha. Throughout the project, it became apparent that team members went above and beyond to be responsive and flexible with scheduling, communication, and troubleshooting despite the time difference. As a result of this dedication, this complex project finished on time and within budget.
Core Team Members: Joseph Gazda (Project Manager), Maureen Knight-Burrell, Samatha Bodanapu, Pang-Chiung Hsiang, Laura Ward, Lucy He, Heriberto Alcaide Morales, Milen Ivanov, Andrew Ludington, Neeraj Jajodia, Jeff Wilson, Kathryn Prince, Lauren Griffin, Evia El-Habash, Jared Shields, Tad Kolke, Serena Christian, Mohammed-Bahiru Olajide Rabiu, and Patrick Sweeney.
ITSM Platform Replacement and Northwestern IT Website Refresh
The ITSM Platform Replacement and Northwestern IT Website Refresh was a major project with two significant focuses: replacing the aging ITSM platform and refreshing the Northwestern IT website. This project allowed for a standalone IT Service Catalog that could be seamlessly “lifted out” of the IT site and into a service management tool.
Most impressive was the sheer magnitude of the project – a complete overhaul and platform replacement of large, vital systems within IT that represent both internal and external core components of IT, and the complete reorganization of the IT website, including an audit of hundreds of assets. The project was delivered on time and within budget – a remarkable achievement that included collaboration with Northwestern IT service owners, knowledge owners, the Office of Global Marketing and Communications (OGMC), the Change Advisory Board (CAB), the Service Operation Center (SOC), IT Service Desk, IT Communications, Facilities IT, University Libraries, Student Affairs, ISO, and the IT departments of all of the individual schools at Northwestern.
Core Team Members: Dee Lee (project manager), Joseph Kurtin, Steve Christensen, Darryl Baker, Ivette Bravo, Christine Ganjani, David Gracey, Russell Haley, Tatyana Malina, Jennifer Mazanek, Bryan Nguyen, Serena Simpson, Nick Tiemersma, Poojitha Yathiraju, Jacob Arnold (OGMC), Anastasia Masurat (OGMC), Amber London (OGMC), Christopher Garcia (OGMC), Albert Bautista (OGMC), and Nimisha Joshi (OGMC)
June 2024 Quest Downtime
Research Computing Infrastructure and Research Computing and Data Services executed numerous necessary updates and maintenance to the Quest High-Performance Computer Cluster, including several remediations, upgrades, and patches, within a week of scheduled downtime.
Upgrading Quest's job scheduler, Slurm, to version 23.11.
Installing new Slurm management nodes, replacing older hardware, and enhancing scheduler stability.
Upgrading the storage system firmware and InfiniBand interconnect drivers to integrate the next generation of computing and storage hardware.
Implementing a new InfiniBand interconnect configuration to improve connectivity between nodes and Quest storage, enhancing compute performance.
Performing power and liquid-cooling maintenance to ensure the computing infrastructure's healthy operation.
The project team’s work was comprehensive, well-planned, and expertly executed, and it received positive feedback from members and customers. Multiple stakeholders commented on the noticeable improvement in Quest's speed and reliability following this change. The team worked deliberately to improve a high-demand service that Northwestern IT offers to the University’s research community.
Project Team Members: Elizabeth Summers (Project Manager), Ruth Ann Ostrowski, Steve Kwak, Haley Sharon Carter, Jackie Milhans, Julia Ann Giannini, Andrew Block, Sophie van Genderen, Matthew Gorby, Sai Kumar Ramadugu, Scott B Coughlin, Thomas L. Simms, Daniel P Daley, James Julius Panegasser, Josef Rembulat Ayupan, Jessica Grace Thompson, Mac Mao, Alper Kinaci, Michael Alexander Korby, Janna Ore Nugent, Chris Diaz, Jose N Loera, Barry Chiu, and Wenceslao Hernandez Velasquez
Thank you to the 2024 PTEA Committee Members for their dedication: Mike Dice, Ke Gong, Milen Dimov Ivanov, Karl Kooistra, Tobin Magle, Marq Mercado, Jose Loera, and Damon Taylor.
To learn more about the Project Team Excellence Award, including how to nominate a project team, visit Inside IT’s Staff Recognition page.