Case Study-Moody - Beyond Academics

When Moody CIO John Sauceda reached out to us, we immediately knew he was the kind of future-minded leader we love to work with.

He wasn’t looking to repave an old road. He wasn’t looking for status quo best practices. He wasn’t looking for rinse-and-repeat guidance that comes in the annual analyst reports. He wanted real transformation.

What John wanted to do was design his department for the future. Even though things were going fairly well operationally, he sensed that the dramatic shifts in the consumer and technology markets would soon impact Moody’s constituents. Moody is a unique institution in that it houses a university with undergraduate and graduate programs, a global radio platform, and a publishing business. John’s IT department is responsible for all that technology.

Moody’s incoming President Dr. Mark Jobe cast a bold vision to double the institution’s impact by 2030. That means double of everything—including students, digital, and print content consumers. In anticipation of what that could mean for the IT department, John wisely sought counsel on how to lay a strong foundation before the demands from his customer – the divisional leaders started to roll in.

In the first part of our work (a 4-month engagement), Beyond Academics and John teamed up to co-create Moody’s IT Shop Of the Future. Below is the work that we collaborated on to ensure success of the project.

Visioning

Where did John want to go? What did he want his IT shop to look, act, and feel like in a future state? What would his customer be saying about him and his team in this future state? These and many more questions and answers kicked off the journey.

Executive Alignment

We hosted ThinkSpace sessions with executives and leaders across the Moody brand. We uncovered where they were headed, and how IT could best support their plans. John used this as an opportunity to better understand his customer and their evolving needs and expectations.

Team Buy In

It wasn’t enough to just have John vision where the department was going. John has very talented leaders who each have a vision for the department – and their own professional growth. From entrepreneurial DNA assessments and group working sessions, to 1-on-1 confidential and candid conversations, we ensured John and his leadership team shared a common vision. This was just as much about their individual growth and advancement as it was John’s vision becoming a reality. His team sensed his desire for their success, and were highly supportive.

Manifesto

The output of John, the executive team, and his leadership getting aligned was the Moody ITS Manifesto – a document that captured the essence of the Moody ITS brand – and what it stood for. Today, the Manifesto serves as a unifying force and rallying cry to current and future staff on what it means to be part of the department and what its values, vision and mission are.

Strategy

The overall process we went through to this point uncovered areas where Moody ITS was meeting expectations of today’s customer, and areas where it was not. We worked with John to design strategy to enhance and scale areas of strength, and identify step-by-step plans on how weak areas would be filled. We looked at the current organizational structure in the division and co-created a new structure that would allow leaders to thrive and take on new challenges. We conducted salary surveys to identify risk areas. We even looked at every role in the department and identified skill and competency gaps that would need to be filled to meet the future vision. As the strategy took shape, it was important to then create the action plan John and his team could pursue.

Roadmap

John now has an 18 month roadmap to move ITS through the 4 levels of delivery – from basic IT services, and problem solving, to becoming a strategic advisor to institutional leaders, and even an at-risk joint venture partner on major projects. There’s an aspect of Moody ITS at each of the 4 levels, and the roadmap guides John through building areas of excellence at each level. The whole goal of this process was to move ITS from a break/fix/provisioning shop to a strategic leader in the institution, a trusted advisor to executives, and innovation hub for the institution. It’s one thing to want that. It’s a radically different thing to have a clearly defined roadmap on how to get there.

Executive Buy In

A transformation like this can’t happen in a vacuum. John had to roadshow his new roadmap and budget to executives. We worked with him on those materials and documents to ensure they communicated what John needed, and he moved through that process successfully.

Summary

John is entering the new fiscal year with crystal clarity on what he has to do to be ready to handle double the students, double the digital listeners, and double the publishing demands in the months and years to come.

He isn’t distracted by vendors promising “transformation” with their software. John knows that transformation is all about his people, and the execution of strategy. Software is simply there to enable activities in the roadmap.

We continue our work with John and serve as a sounding board, catalyst, and guide as him and his team do the important work of transformation. Along the journey we anticipate there will be ups, downs, and pivots. But based on our working relationship with John, his team, and the staff at Moody BIble Institute, we have no doubt the mission will be achieved.

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