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Outsourcing Technology Development
If the product you are looking for does not exist on the market, you may wish to outsource development. You should consider these important issues in addition to the issues involved in selecting the right software vendor.

The practicality of the project timeline. Timelines are always optimistic. They usually budget time for coding a product, but not for proper architecture or testing. You have to test repeatedly. Test the component separately and then within the entire system. Simulate full-load testing, and conduct usability tests not only with those who built the technology but also with those who know nothing about it. Novices may reveal weaknesses not evident to people too close to the project.

The firmness of the project goals. Make sure to lock in business goals before design and implementation. Once a product is half built and you as a customer can begin to fully appreciate its capabilities, you will think of additional features that can be added. Save these for version 2.0. There is nothing developers dislike more than “mission creep”—except perhaps unreproducible bugs in the software!

Part of a Much Bigger Picture
Decisions about what technology to use affect the entire system of links among your office, your applicants, the various interfaces in between, and the university as a whole. It is important to understand how the myriad components of the system connect with one another and to make technology decisions within the context of the entire system.

Your system of communications used to be fairly straightforward and somewhat closed: It was your office, your applicant pool, your catalog, your paper application, the telephone and the mail service, and other offices within the university.

Now your system has more and more far-reaching tentacles. It can include your Web site, your online application, scheduling systems, e-mail campaigns and autoresponders, your database, your voicemail, the people answering your phones, people keying information into your database, your candidates, and other offices within the university. Given these many variables and the fact that any disconnect could keep you from realizing the full potential of your technology investment, you should test your entire communications system thoroughly. Your system should be flexible enough to be modified, but keep in mind that because of the interconnectedness of the system, any change you make in the future may have far-reaching implications you did not anticipate.

It’s also important to look at your system of communications from the perspective of an applicant who is interacting with admissions offices at multiple schools. Communication with prospects, applicants, and admits used to be fairly standardized across schools. We never gave out decisions over the phone or through e-mail—only paper correspondence was considered official. Interview appointments were made over the phone. Everyone did things the same way.

Now, with some schools breaking out of this mold and offering more progressive forms of communication, schools doing things the traditional way may feel pressure to change. Customers want easier, quicker access to information, and since they get it from some schools, they expect it from all schools. Technology changes and decision making can be daunting, to be sure, but if you rise to the challenge and make informed decisions, you will find many opportunities for growth, innovation, and success. //

Alex Brown is senior associate director of admissions and financial aid at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Jennifer Chizuk is director of the MBA program at the Broad Graduate School of Management, Michigan State University; Alex Duke is director of admissions for executive and fully employed MBA programs at the Anderson School, University of California, Los Angeles; Janice Lee is a technology specialist at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and Todd Reale is director of MBA admissions and marketing at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University.

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