Journey of BRM: Purdue Part 1

With BRMConnect 2018 just around the corner, we’re diving even deeper into this year’s theme: The Journey of BRM. Already, we’ve highlighted and shared the stories of top BRMs in our #IAmBRM campaign. We launched Becoming A Value-Focused Organization to support BRMs on their journey to identify and drive value in their organizations.

Now, we’ll share the step-by-step process of The College of Agriculture at Purdue University, in a series of pieces which document their own, very special Journey of BRM. The series will culminate with the release of their annual report at BRMConnect in San Diego this Oct 1-3.  

***Team from left to right: Kayla Gurganus, BRM Program Coordinator; Crystal Dombkowski, BRMgr; Leanne McGiveron, Assoc. Director, BRM; Pat Smoker, Director, AgIT & PVM IT; Mark Sullivan, BRMgr

Photo by Tom Campbell, College of Agriculture, Purdue University***

The Journey Begins

The BRM journey began with a single objective: bring the full potential value of the university IT investment to the College of Agriculture faculty. In the past year, as our program and team matured, our objective continued to evolve and align with the BRM role, discipline and capability. More importantly, we are on a clear path towards strategy and value.

The Agriculture and Life Sciences landscape is changing rapidly. Technology is converging with these industry activities at an unprecedented rate. In turn, it is beginning to change the conversation around academic activities. Topics, such as IOT (Internet of Things), big data, digital education, high performance computing are becoming commonplace.

We are in exciting times. Academic activities of Discovery, Learning and Engagement are becoming infused with technology. For Purdue University’s College of Agriculture, we understand that it is critical that IT or technology-based partners are ‘at the table’. AgTech adoption is as important for faculty as it is for their stakeholders to stay competitive. Our BRM team witnesses this every day and it motivates our work.

Metrics: Start Today with the Data Available

Introducing BRM in an operational-focused organization can be viewed as overhead or duplication of effort. As I began to develop this program, it was apparent that I needed to create a new level of transparency around the work. If the BRM program was going to show value, even at an early, tactical stage, we were going to have to provide metrics.

Metrics Mature Too

The amazing thing around metrics, is that they also mature as the BRM program matures. We are constantly challenging the metrics with a simple question: so, what? For example, one of our early metrics was the number of consultations between a faculty and partners (a.k.a. navigating and connecting). One day, the relevance in that metric seemed to have lost its value. So, what? We began to talk about the solutions the consultations were leading to and how to capture that data? Again, so what? We are now looking at how these consultations turn into strategic partnerships which optimize the IT investment.

Each day we find our team working more and more in the strategic arena; building relationships with faculty and technology partners; making introductions and fostering that partnership. Once again, our conversations around metrics are maturing. We find ourselves discussing the seven BRM metrics, understanding them and building the framework to put them in place.

The critical decision we made around metrics was not to wait until we were fully mature to begin using them. The key has been to challenge and mature the metrics on our journey. This decision has also helped us document and tell our story.