Workday Podcast: WSU’s Journey from “The Oregon Trail” to AI

Workday · WSU's Journey from the "Oregon Trail" to AI

Before launching its modernization project, the team at Washington State University (WSU) likened its outdated HR and finance systems to the popular computer game The Oregon Trail.

It was an apt comparison, as both the game and WSU's mainframe systems were originally developed in the 1970s. And WSU's green-screen mainframe interface-with a black background and green characters-resembled the early, simple versions of the game.

"If you can imagine, it looked like The Oregon Trail," said Gerik Kimble, director for financial systems modernization at WSU. "And it had perforated printouts you could make bracelets out of."

After going live on Workday in 2021, WSU modernized its core finance, HR, and payroll systems. A few years later, university leaders set their sights on developing a new grants forecasting tool using Workday Adaptive Planning, as they had no enterprise solution and used a patchwork of different methods. The collaboration with Deloitte and Workday was a huge success and even earned WSU a Workday Higher Education Industry Customer Award: Platform Rock Star.

In this episode of the Workday Podcast, we sat down with Kimble and Christine Galbreath, lead analyst for grants at WSU, to talk about their Adaptive Grants Forecasting project and how they continue to optimize and transform their organization.

Recorded on the Forever Forward Bus Tour at Workday Rising, Kimble and Galbreath also discuss trends in higher education such as AI, and share advice on making the leap to modern technology and managing change across an organization.

Here are a few observations shared during the episode, edited for clarity. Be sure to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and remember you can find our entire podcast catalog here.

• "Getting the solution out to users is just the first step. And then we have to train them, get them excited about it, help them feel comfortable using it so they actually adopt it into their regular, ongoing processes. It's one thing to just provide the tool, but it's another thing for people to find it beneficial. They actually have to use it and use it correctly."-Christine Galbreath
  

• "We have users who are forecasting with personal spreadsheets. And we have shadow systems that we're trying to replace. And so when we're thinking about changing or driving adoption to get the outcomes we're looking for, we have to try to understand and move each one of those groups forward."-Gerik Kimble
  

• "We did a listening session with some finance officers on our campus to hear about the biggest things we could try to improve. That's one thing that we do pretty well at WSU, is try to hear about what's next. And they came back to us and said 'grant forecasting.'"-Gerik Kimble

Josh Krist: Thanks for joining us on the Workday podcast. We're at Workday Rising at the Forever Forward Bus. This bus has been touring the country this summer to bring Workday's energy and expertise directly to our customers. I'm Josh Krist, and with me on the show today is Gerik Kimble and Christine Galbreath from Washington State University. We're going to talk about their latest modernization project and talk about why change management is crucial.

Gerik, could you tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at WSU?

Gerik Kimble: Yeah. My name is Gerik Kimble. I'm the director for finance systems. Lead our Workday support services team and all finance systems. We have a great group of innovators. We do grants, payroll, kind of everything under the sun. And really happy to be here today.

Krist: Great. Thank you. Christine?

Christine Galbreath: Hi, I'm Christine Galbreath. I'm the lead business systems analyst for grants on Gerik's team.

Krist: Okay, great. Could you share some details about WSU's modernization project? What challenges did you experience before you launched your project?

Kimble: Yeah. So we came off of a mainframe system. So if you can imagine - it looks like Christine said this earlier in the week - Oregon Trail, printed out green bars that you'd make bracelets out of, and really crazy paper. And so we were able to modernize with Workday. We went big-bang in '21 on HR, pay, finance, grants. It was a real big effort. Christine and I joined the team in '18. And so we went through all the phases, from planning, architecture, testing, all the way through launch. So really happy to be where we are today, where we're trying to start optimizing.

Krist: Great. That's great. And congratulations. WSU was a finalist for the Workday North American Customer Awards for powering innovation, partly because of the grant forecasting project. Congratulations. And could you tell me a little bit about this project?

Kimble: Yeah. So we did a listening session with some finance officers on our campus to hear about the biggest things we could try to improve. That's one thing that we do, I think, pretty well at WSU, is try to hear about what's next. And they came back to us and said grant forecasting. And so we started out on this journey to try to build a tool which, for us, would be the first enterprise-offered solution in grant forecasting. And that's why we're here today.

Krist: That's great. I mean, listening is one of those-- there's not enough listening in this world. So that's amazing that you start off by, "Hey, what's the problem?" That's fantastic. And then why did you choose Workday Adaptive Planning?

Kimble: Yeah, so we looked at that for a little while. We had just implemented Adaptive in '23, and we had worked with Deloitte. And so we'd had what we'd kind of called an all-star team there of our budget analysts and their budget experts. And so we were familiar with the tool. We thought that that would aid us. And then also, we have goals to try to do some long-range forecasting, specifically around financial statements. And so we thought having aggregated grant forecast data would help us in that. We're nowhere near that aspirational goal. But those two things is what really drove us to take a serious look at Adaptive.

Krist: Right. And then, Christine, you and I were speaking a little bit earlier, and you'd mentioned collaboration as being a key part of the Workday implementation. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that? Looking back on this implementation, what elements contributed most to its success?

Galbreath: Yeah. As Gerik said, we worked with Deloitte on the project for grant forecasting, and we couldn't have done it without them. They were awesome partners. We had a couple individuals - Alex Carlson and Nigel Chong-You and Ryan Loftus - really met with myself and Gerik and several other people from our team. We feel like they brought an all-star team to the table that could help have functional expertise and also knowledge about Adaptive Planning. And then in terms of the partnership, we collaborated really closely. We provided requirements that we heard from our colleges. Our College of Vet Med, our College of Agriculture, and College of Medicine really gave us great input on what they wanted to see in a grant forecasting solution. We brought that to Deloitte, and they listened to what we needed. They came back with suggestions, ideas, and we refined it over time to get a solution that has now been implemented since January of 2024.

Krist: That's great. And then how did you approach change management with this project? Do either of you have any advice for other organizations about to embark on a transformation?

Galbreath: Well, I think Gerik and I have both kind of reflected on the fact that getting the solution out to users is just the first step, or maybe only half of the process. And then we actually have to train them, get them excited about it, help them feel comfortable using it so they actually adopt it into their regular, ongoing processes. It's one thing to just provide the tool, but it's another thing for people to find it beneficial. They actually have to use it and use it correctly.

Krist: Right. And then, Gerik, is there anything you want to share about the results that you've seen from this project?

Kimble: Yeah, it's kind of an interesting journey to think about. I totally agree with what Christine said. In this particular case, going live was half the battle. And it's also kind of dovetailed with trying to recognize where people are coming from. And we have users who are not forecasting. We have users who are forecasting with personal spreadsheets. And we have shadow systems that we're trying to replace. And so when we're thinking about changing or driving adoption to get the outcomes we're looking for, we have to try to understand and move each one of those groups forward.

And so I'm happy to say today that we've got five of our biggest colleges with grants starting to use the tool. We've got some really cool quotes from people about how successful it's been or where this tool's made a difference here and there. We still want to drive it much harder and see if we can get full university adoption. We're not there yet, but we're on our way. And our partners have been really helpful. And so kudos to WSU and everybody who works so hard out there because Christine and I, yes, we helped design the tool, and we talk about it a lot, but the people who actually use it are out in the colleges, and hopefully, they're making a difference with it.

Krist: Right. Yeah. And then switching gears just a little bit, AI is having a huge impact on the future of work. I mean, how do you see that impacting higher education? Any predictions or things that you're keeping especially close eye on?

Kimble: So higher ed is kind of traditionally known for not taking on the latest and greatest next new thing. And I think AI is that and has been for a few years, and I think we're maybe falling behind. At WSU, we've been slow to take it on. I'm happy to say that, led by my boss, Matt Skinner, our deputy CFO, we did goal-setting for the first time, this year, in years. And one of those goals is to implement an AI tool, which shamelessly came from the modernization team, and so we're going to push hard, and our goal is to adopt some of the Workday innovation services. And so that's the first step of many, trying to get people comfortable with a tool that's already offered, and then see if we can take that next leap. But in my opinion, that's the way we need to go. We're always asked to do more with less, and so it'll be really fun to start that journey this year.

Krist: That's great. All right. Well, that's all the time we have for today. We've been talking with Gerik Kimble and Christine Galbreath from Washington State University. Thanks for tuning in with us today. Remember, you can follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. You can find our entire catalog at workday.com/podcasts. I'm your host, Josh Krist, and I hope you have a great workday.