Higher Education
How a centralized services department repositioned itself as a strategic partner by transforming its operating environment.
An institutional marketing and communications department needed to design a new approach to managing and delivering work.
Challenge
A centralized department managing multiple service lines lacked the operational infrastructure to coordinate work effectively.
Approach
Designed and implemented an integrated operating model that unified service intake, prioritization, governance, and workflow coordination.
Outcome
The operating model established a more coordinated and transparent environment for managing service delivery while repositioning the department from service provider to strategic partner.
The Context
A centralized services department within a higher education institution was responsible for delivering communications and digital services across institutional departments and stakeholders.
The Challenge
Service requests arrived through fragmented channels, including emails, phone calls, and informal conversations, and were tracked using disconnected tools. Without a centralized system to manage and coordinate work the department lacked visibility into incoming demand, workloads, and how work was distributed across teams.
Our Approach
Stakeholder and internal team interviews, alongside workflow mapping, established an understanding of how services were requested, coordinated, and delivered in practice. This research revealed structural gaps and coordination challenges, informing the design of a more integrated operating model.
The Work
Designed and implemented a centralized operating model, from zero, encompassing unified service intake, prioritization and governance, workflow and resource coordination, and operational reporting. Selected and configured a shared work management platform to support these functions, and led training and adoption across internal teams and institutional departments.
The Outcome
Increased request intake volume by 720%, managed 2,400+ requests over 36 months across 65+ departments, and improved operational visibility and coordination.
Key takeaways
Centralized intake made incoming demand and workloads visible across service lines.
Greater visibility supported informed prioritization, resource allocation, and operational planning.
An intentionally designed operating model transformed how the department managed and delivered work in support of strategic objectives.
This project was undertaken by BBD's founder in a previous professional capacity. The experience and insights gained through this work inform BBD's approach to operational architecture and systems design.
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