My contribution
- Orchestrated environment promotions from development through test, stage, and production with defined exit criteria and governance.
- Coordinated regression testing and validation of integrations with Workday, COI, Data Warehouse, RADAR, and Interfolio.
- Managed communication plans, training sessions, job aids, and stakeholder readiness activities.
- Collaborated with vendor and internal teams to triage defects and prevent showstopper issues before promotion.
Outcome
Delivered a clean cutover, improved platform stability and user experience, and supported future enhancements while maintaining data integrity and reporting confidence.
Overview
RMS had accumulated incremental patches that effectively created a custom variant, complicating support and introducing risk. The upgrade brings the suite to the latest supported version, confirms configuration and performance, and validates all integrations and data feeds—keeping the university no more than one version behind and preserving vendor support.
Guiding principle: sustain current functionality first on the new codebase, then selectively introduce new features post-upgrade through controlled rollouts.
In Scope
- Upgrade all RMS modules to latest version
- Validate module admin & system configuration
- Verify integrations & feeds (Workday, High Marks, L@W, COI, SUBS, RADAR, Interfolio)
- Confirm Data Warehouse feeds
- Update education & communications for UI changes
- Performance benchmarking & improvements
Out of Scope
- Adoption of all non-essential new features at go-live
- RMS site vulnerability scanning (managed separately)
Timeline & Milestones
- • Pre-Planning Meetings — May 20, 2024
- • Stakeholder Kickoff & Manifest Review — Jul 15, 2024
- • Upgrade TEST environment — Aug 15, 2024
- • TEST complete — Sep 27, 2024
- • Sponsor approval to Stage & code freeze — Oct 31, 2024
- • Stage testing complete — Oct 31, 2024
- • Production implementation — Nov 15–16, 2024 (backup: Dec 13–14)
- • Project Close — Dec 31, 2024
Dates per approved charter.
Key Dependencies
- COI External Entities + MFT work stable before TEST upgrade
- Version selection aligned with vendor release timing
- PD 7-steps eForm patching coordinated with the upgrade
- PT→COI project integration targeted with upgrade windows
- MSOW refactoring timing may intersect with testing
See charter dependency table for details.
Impact Assessment
- Data Warehouse & Cognos feeds
- RMS→Workday, High Marks (CME), Learn@Work
- RMS batch processing (ESA, COI integrations, Notice Date updates)
- SUBS, RADAR, MSOW/Cred. Stream, Interfolio
All feeds validated during TEST and STAGE cycles.
Project Sponsors & Stakeholders
The RMS Upgrade 2024 project was supported by senior leadership in Research Administration, IT Governance, and Sponsored Projects. Stakeholders represented offices across research administration, compliance, contracting, analytics, and education.
- Executive Sponsors from Research Administration & IT Governance
- Stakeholders from Compliance, Contracts, and Sponsored Projects
- Analytics and Data teams supporting reporting & warehouse validation
- Training and Change Management support for communications & rollout
Project Team Roles Managed
- Project Manager (my role)
- Business Alignment Lead
- Product Owner
- Business Analyst
- Application Analyst
- Technical Lead / Developer
- Additional Developers
- Business Functional Lead
- Training & Documentation Specialist
I coordinated cross-functional collaboration across these roles to ensure the upgrade was delivered successfully, on time, and with validated integrations.
Key Risks & Mitigations
- Competing EA/business priorities → secure dedicated time & contingency planning
- Limited UAT testers → schedule early, train backups, extend window if needed
- Issue turnaround delays in WUIT or UAT → rapid response triage & vendor escalation
- Potential need to enact rollback → documented runbook & dry run rehearsals
- Version shift late in project → set cutoff; align to vendor release calendar
- Cross-functional impacts & data integrity → thorough impact analysis & backups
- Change adoption (UI updates) → communications, education, and support plan
- Integration failures at cutover → extensive staging tests & contingency plans
Risk register summarized from charter.
Readiness at the planning stage
- Unified target version identified; manifest reviewed with stakeholders
- TEST and STAGE upgrade plans established with validation criteria
- Comms and training updates prepared to minimize user friction
- Cutover weekend planned with backup window and rollback strategy