Patriot Connect Update-July 2024

Welcome to the Patriot Connect Team!

The Patriot Connect program management team (PMT) is delighted to welcome Tahisha Mayfield, project manager, Project and Process Management in University Life, as its newest member. In her role within the PMT, she will collaborate with University Life stakeholders and Accenture, our implementation partner, to help ensure project alignment and success. Additionally, the Patriot Connect program is pleased to welcome three new Enrollment Management unit liaisons: Jenny Chism, assistant dean of admissions; Crystal Hall Buckley, director of the Office of Graduate Admissions; and Cassandra Thomas, associate director of Financial Aid – IT and Scholarships. Jenny, Crystal, and Cassandra are experts in their respective units and will represent the requirements, concerns, and interests of their user communities affected by the rollout of Patriot Connect. Welcome to the Patriot Connect team!

Capturing Student Input

The Patriot Connect program’s highest priority is to enhance the student experience at George Mason. To develop a tool that effectively meets students’ needs, it is crucial for the Patriot Connect team to receive direct input from the students themselves. On June 21, the Patriot Connect organizational change management (OCM) team held a virtual focus group with 10 students, including undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students, to gather valuable insights and feedback on a preliminary mockup of Patriot Connect. This mockup illustrated how students can use Patriot Connect to schedule appointments with their success team, review appointment notes, and manage their daily student journey. The OCM team collected feedback from the students, which will be translated into design requirements for the further development of Patriot Connect. Key takeaways from the focus group include:

• Students want a streamlined process for making appointments, as they find the layout and design of the current scheduling tool, Navigate, difficult to maneuver. 
• Patriot Connect should cater to all students’ needs, regardless of whether they are undergraduates, master’s, doctoral, or certificate students. 
• While Patriot Connect will replace Navigate and TargetX, other tools like Patriot Web and Mason360 will remain. It must be clear to students which tool to use for specific actions, such as scheduling appointments, paying financial aid, or requesting a major change. 
• Students seek more clarity on what information is confidential and what is shared, and with whom, regarding appointment notes and cases.

On the Horizon: Transitioning to a New Phase for Patriot Connect

The Patriot Connect team would like to express sincere gratitude and appreciation to everyone who contributed to the Release 1 (R1) Student Success Discovery Sessions. Your participation played a critical role in gathering requirements, reviewing deliverables, and successfully achieving three out of eight major milestones, with the fourth milestone scheduled for completion by July 24. As we close the discovery phase of the program, many of you may have noticed the R1 Student Success Discovery Sessions drop from your calendars. This change marks our shift to the Design and iterative build phase for R1 Student Success. To facilitate iterative build, the Patriot Connect team will adopt agile sprint methodology, which enables rapid build, quality assurance testing (QA), and deployment within two-week segments of time otherwise known as “sprints.” This approach will require a smaller, focused team to efficiently manage the iterative process leading up to the launch of R1 Student Success. For more information about the team selected for the design and iterative build phase, please reach out to your unit liaison. The Patriot Connect team will continue to keep you engaged and updated on additional ways to stay involved in the program moving forward. Thank you again for your dedication and continued support.  

In Case You Missed It: Farewell and Thank you!

The Patriot Connect PMT would like to thank Adrienne White, director of student success coaching, and Tierra Easter, writer/editor, Office of the Provost, for their valuable contributions to the Patriot Connect program. Adrienne and Tierra are departing from George Mason, and we wish them the best of luck on their next adventure!