As all Quest students know, continuous improvement is one of the core tenants of the Quest program, and something the faculty and students constantly strive for when evaluating and enhancing the program. As a result of this, the introductory BMGT/ENES 190 course has changed greatly over the past few years. 

190 now has students work on 3 separate projects over the course of the semester on their semester long teams; an atoms based innovation where students create a physical product, a bits based innovation where students develop a website or mobile application, and a process improvement project.

While this is already a significant change from past 190 classes, the Quality Guild and curriculum review board only continue to improve the class. Cohort 21 picked a process from an organization at random to improve, with little to no background knowledge of, information, or data on the process they had chosen. This led to many projects that were much more hypothetical and theoretical in nature than either the atoms or bits innovations were.

However, in the spirit of continuous improvement, the process improvement project was changed for cohort 22 students this semester. Students in the Project Scoping class were asked to reach out to on campus organizations to scope out processes on campus that could be improved, and these scopes were presented to 190 students for their teams to vote on. Students then had a month to work with their project champion on actual consulting projects around campus, gathering data and making recommendations to their respective organizations on how they can improve their processes.

Teams worked with various organizations including the Department of Information Technology, where a team developed a scoring system to determine what DOIT systems are most critical to the university in the event of a natural disaster; Ellicott Community Resident Life, in which a team of students developed a revamped process for educating and evaluating student safety; the Office of Sustainability, which sponsored a team to examine the process of recycling education and performance; the Robert H. Smith school of Business Career Office and Events Office, who looked at developing a website for streamlined event planning and reservations; and McKeldin Library, in where a team tackled the problem of an archaic library job application process and developed a website to streamline and improve the hiring and application process in the library system.

Scoping students, Quest faculty, and project champions all came away extremely impressed with the student’s recommendations and process improvements. It gave the students a chance to gain experience working with clients and doing actual consulting work, helped improve the university, and spread awareness of the Quest program throughout campus. The curriculum change was a resounding success, and looks to be a staple in the 190 class for the foreseeable future.

By Bobby Fitzgerald