The Tucson Airport Authority (TAA), a nonprofit organization that manages the Tucson International Airport, faced obstacles in its efforts to upgrade its aging IT infrastructure with a new Integrated Airport Management System (IAMS). The approximately US$3.5 million project needed to be managed with a strict budget that didn't include money for change management. The TAA needed to find a way to work with employees who didn't want to change and who struggled with limited computer literacy. The TAA hired Solbourne in 2004 to implement IAMS. The system uses Oracle Enterprise Asset Management, Oracle Financials, Oracle Purchasing, and Oracle HR/Payroll to decrease costs and enhance operations. In addition, IAMS includes Oracle iProcurement to support enterprise procurement and self-service applications for service requests and time entry. Solbourne worked with the TAA to create a unique "train-the-trainer" procedure that identified respected employees who could be trained on the new system and then return to their departments to help their coworkers. This approach successfully leveraged the TAA workplace culture where employees often have long tenure and strong bonds with each other. The TAA is already seeing positive results. Since going live in January 2006, IAMS has improved information management availability, saved labor and time accessing data, and enhanced teamwork within the TAA.

As Published In November 2006

Getting off the Ground
By Monica Mehta

Tucson International Airport makes a radical change in tech operations.

It takes more than a village to run an airport—in the case of Tucson International Airport, it takes a mini-city. The residents of that metropolis comprise the Tucson Airport Authority (TAA), a private, nonprofit organization that oversees everything from the police and fire departments to the custodial staff. After 53 years, the TAA decided it was time to bring its aging IT infrastructure into the twenty-first century with a new Integrated Airport Management System (IAMS). More than a system change, the upgrade would revolutionize the way the organization tracks business operations—and would affect every employee.

But the TAA faced issues beyond those of IT implementation. Management had to work within the confines of a highly scrutinized budget and with a change-averse, technologically inexperienced workforce. The TAA's experience provides universal lessons for companies looking to implement radical change without spending radical amounts of money.

The Problem: Find the Paper

"Patience is important," says Jim Liebeskind, director of procurement and contracts management for the TAA. Liebeskind and his colleagues had been doing much of their business on paper, with employees submitting handwritten time sheets, purchase orders, and maintenance requests. "If you needed something, you'd have to find the piece of paper it was written on," says Liebeskind. "You also didn't know whether that paper was the original or a copy. After 53 years, you can imagine the amount of paper we've garnered."

The TAA had also been struggling for 20 years with a DOS-based system that was limited in its capacity. TAA Contract Services Coordinator Deborah Walker, who scheduled meetings and trained coworkers during the project, remembers how backlogged the old system was. "There were only a couple of people in the finance department who knew the system well enough to help you get most of the information you needed—like access to the general ledger or detailed background information on financial purchases," she says. "We had to wait for them to find the time to get back to us."

The TAA wanted a system that improved the flow of information throughout the organization. Specifically, they wanted a single-point-of-entry system so every department could gain immediate access to a piece of information once it was entered—if a tractor part is ordered, the Purchasing department must see where it was purchased, Accounts Payable must know when it will arrive, and Maintenance can track it as it ages. "We needed something that could meet the growing needs of an up-and-coming airport," says Liebeskind.

With these goals in mind, the TAA management brought in Solbourne consulting to help with the implementation of the IAMS in October 2004. The system was designed to decrease costs and improve operations, using Oracle Enterprise Asset Management, Oracle Financials, Oracle Purchasing, and Oracle HR/Payroll software to support the organization's financial and administrative operations. Additionally, the TAA implemented self-service applications for time entry and service requests, and Oracle iProcurement to support enterprise procurement.

The Challenge: Overcoming Resistance

But first, there were obstacles to overcome. "There was a large workforce that had no computer literacy," says Paul Yeager, training lead for Solbourne, a Colorado-based consultancy that provides change management and training to organizations implementing Oracle applications. "People had to become more computer-savvy and enter data into a system in real time instead of writing down their hours. [Previously,] many people in the field never had to touch a computer. All they had to do was write things on a piece of paper and hand it in."

5 Tips on Involving Employees in Change Management Based on his experience with the Tucson Airport Authority (TAA) Integrated Airport Management System (IAMS) project, Solbourne Training Lead Paul Yeager has five tips on how to leverage an organization's culture to decrease budget expenses for training and implementation. The key in this case was to use a "train-the-trainer" approach and involve key members of the workforce in applying the new system. 1 Ask senior managers to present the project mission and vision to the organization in a forum that allows for questions and answers. "Keeping consultants in the background and project leaders in the foreground for presentations reinforced this message and imparted a sense of confidence among end users that the project was going to be successful, because their leaders had a firm grasp of what the system could do and where the project was going." 2 Identify the key messages that are most important to the project's success, and then deliver those messages often and in many different ways. "Communication activities combined formal presentations and written messages with informal conversations." 3 Identify the most trusted and respected workers in an area and keep them informed of project progress and developments. "Influential work area leaders were coached on initiating conversations with others they worked with. These people were identified as the Core Project Team Members in their work areas." 4 Ask these leaders to carry project messages back to their coworkers. "They were given access to a development system so they could demonstrate the system to their coworkers, show them what would change, and explain why changes were being made." 5 Involve the trusted workers in delivering training. This can be as an instructor or as a "classroom coach." "This process allowed Core Project Team Members to be a vital source of information who could communicate end-user concerns back to the project team."

In addition, many employees had been working at the airport for years and were averse to change. In fact, the airport had previously attempted to implement a new software system and found that employees were resistant to the idea of a new, complicated system. "This was not a culture that was accustomed to change," says Yeager. "We had to understand people's fears and let them know there's nothing to be afraid of. Overcoming resistance and facilitating acceptance among end users were some of the highest project priorities."

"Employees were suspicious of the new system," Walker says. "We didn't trust that it would do what we wanted in the beginning; we didn't see how it would all fit together. Many employees hadn't learned a new system in years and were very set in their ways."

This resistance was further complicated by the fact that nearly 13 percent of the user base does not speak English. "There was a language barrier for a number of people who performed important functions," including the custodial and landscaping staff, says Yeager.

Finally, various governmental departments regulate the TAA, and since operating revenues have increased over the past few years, the airport's expenditures are closely watched. A need for new technology was evident, but it had to be done within a strict budget. Liebeskind says the project cost about US$3.5 million, which was spent on software, hardware, consulting and implementation, training, and post-go-live support. "That's about average for this kind of project at an airport this size," says Liebeskind. But the TAA had no budget for change management—the process of preparing an organization for a major change in management, such as a systemwide software implementation.

This process is much like setting the table "so trainers can come in and serve dinner," says Yeager. "Typically, companies that implement an enterprise resource planning system will allocate around 15 percent of total project budget just to change management, not including training." There was also a limited budget for training employees, who would be the end users of the new system, so finding creative means of implementation was key.

Kris Brittain, vice president of operations in the IT research group at Gartner and an expert in change management, says these challenges are in line with what public sector organizations face when implementing systematic changes. "Typically in the public sector you're going to run into more-finite resources in terms of things like capital budget, personnel, and project management skills," Brittain explains. As a result, these companies must be more creative with how they use their training budgets and implement training.

The Solution: Building on Trust

Enter Solbourne. Along with the team at the TAA, Yeager created a training plan that would not only help the organization bypass some of its obstacles but also leverage the culture of the workplace to use them to its benefit.

In similar software implementation projects, a company will often hire consultants to train employees. But in this case, project leaders recognized that due to employees' long tenure, they had developed strong bonds with their coworkers. "It was common to find people who worked alongside each other for 20 to 30 years," notes Yeager. "They tended to be very trusting of each other."

So the team developed a "train-the-trainer" procedure, in which they identified about 30 respected, influential leaders in each work area as Core Project Team Members. These employees would learn how the system worked and then return to their departments and help their coworkers. "We took the approach that the helper needed to know how to help," says Yeager. "We said, 'You're going to go back to your work area, and we want you to have the best answer possible.'"

Brittain says there has been a trend in the last decade of organizations cutting their budgets for employee training. The train-the-trainer approach, she says, can work well for organizations that are looking to stretch their training dollars if they want to train specific employees in particular tasks. "Organizations have gotten savvier about being more specific in doing training associated with the individual's functional role," she says. "It's a case of, 'I know what you do day in and day out, and I want to give you the exact knowledge you'll need for doing that exact role, with the opportunity to learn finesse functions later.'"

Accordingly, at the TAA, employees were trained on the new system in hands-on classes that were geared to the needs of their specific departments, rather than en masse. For instance, the Flight Line division, which runs a concessions area in the airport, learned how to bill items sold to travelers and pilots, such as T-shirts and mugs.

Core Project Team Members also attended special workshops in which they developed coaching and communication skills to use as they helped their coworkers. "That way, the message going out to employees about the system was a positive one, and it came from someone they trusted," says Yeager.

To deal with the language barrier, during training sessions, as many as three Spanish-language interpreters would be present, as well as a sign-language interpreter. In order to cut down on costs and advance its goal to be a paperless company, the TAA also decided not to print a manual for every end user. Every work area has a quick-reference guide, and the full manuals are available electronically. Yeager says this facilitates communication between coworkers. "People learn from people," he says.

Brittain says a common problem in the post-go-live phase is that companies flood the help desk with calls for support. "If you don't do the training well, you can more than double the call volume to the service desk and take it to its knees," she says. "If someone's asking for assistance, they're not being productive. You have to do due diligence on the front end, homing in on having people up and running and being productive."

At the TAA, the train-the-trainer approach facilitated this process. "The greatest benefit was end users felt they had a trusted source of information and help with whom they felt comfortable," says Yeager. "They developed the attitude that they would be able to learn how to use the new system because there was a trusted coworker nearby who could help them and answer any and all questions."

Walker says that many employees even enjoyed learning new processes. "They knew they had to learn, they had lots of questions, and the trainers were ready with the answers. Technologically we hadn't advanced to this level. For mechanics and custodial supervisors, learning to teach others about technology is not in the normal realm of their work. You're tapping skills they didn't know they had," she says.

"The training was outstanding," says Liebeskind. "It was well-thought-out and geared to every level of user. It would definitely be a methodology we would use in the future."

The Results: Finding the Power in Knowledge

Snapshot Tucson Airport Authority www.tucsonairport.org The Tucson Airport Authority (TAA) is a private, nonprofit organization that manages the Tucson International Airport under a charter for the city of Tucson, Arizona. Budget: US$3.5 million for software, hardware, consulting and implementation, training, and post-go-live support Products and services: Oracle E-Business Suite, including Enterprise Asset Management, Financials, Human Capital Management, iProcurement, Purchasing, and Payroll; self-service applications for time entry and service requests

It isn't all clear skies just yet. The organization is still becoming familiar with everything the powerful software can do. "The implementation took a tremendous amount of time and effort," says Liebeskind. "It became difficult for a while. We are starting that upward swing again as we're seeing the system work." Also, not everyone is trained on the system. Among the custodial and landscaping staff specifically, which is where the non-English-speaking employees are based, workers still report their hours to supervisors who then enter the information in the system. "They weren't forced to learn the new system," says Walker. "The supervisors are doing ongoing training for people who want to put in their own hours."

In addition, some employees have yet to be sold on using the new system to its full advantage. Walker recalls the case of one employee in the Purchasing department who spent the majority of her time on the phone with vendors, tracking down the status of orders. "She was pretty resistant to the idea of the new system," Walker says. "Now she can look up everything on the system, and every change in status is updated within an hour or two. But even though she doesn't need to contact the vendors that much, she still likes to call them to verify the order and to keep in touch."

Brittain says this is a common problem with change implementation. "Some people may continue older methods or processes," she says. "If there is a question with the reliability of the new data or accessibility, if it is perceived as more difficult, or in general it just isn't a positive experience, people will craft quasi-scenarios or use half of the tool."

But regardless of the obstacles, the TAA is already seeing positive results since the system went live in January 2006. "There is more information available to help us in the day-to-day management of our business," says Liebeskind. "We have much better access to view and assess things we've purchased so we can do better purchasing. We also save time and labor accessing that information."

Information is also flowing better throughout the organization. "The work order system has really helped the field and building maintenance people. You can track when they're going to fix something. The communication has improved because the information is more available," Walker says.

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Walker already sees the company saving time and money with the new time-sheet entry system. Whereas three people once entered her hours—Walker herself, someone from Human Relations, and someone from Financing—now she submits her own hours. "If you're entering time three times for 300 people and now you're only entering it once, you must be able to save money in that part alone," she says.

The company has also seen an improvement in teamwork. "We stress it now," Walker says. "People are open to communicating with a supervisor or another employee. Some employees used to be afraid to talk to somebody for fear they might look stupid or get into a confrontation, because people inherently want to agree with other people. This process has taught us it's OK to disagree and talk through issues. We've been given tools to communicate better."

"In the long run, we're convinced the system will benefit us and we'll be able to do our jobs better," says Liebeskind.