Years of competing priorities had left VCCS with a backlog of deferred optimization initiatives. Sierra-Cedar assigned small, specialized teams to work across all three PeopleSoft pillars, tackling 15+ distinct projects over 18 months. Each project was scoped and staffed as a mini engagement, with priorities shaped by VCCS’s evolving needs rather than a rigid upfront plan. Sierra-Cedar used a pilot-then-scale approach, validating solutions with a subset of colleges before rolling them out system-wide. As projects were completed efficiently, budget savings were reinvested in additional strategic initiatives approved by VCCS — resulting in a scope that grew organically while staying within the project’s budget.
Key Project Highlights:
- Automated a previously manual journal-posting process across all 23 colleges, saving hundreds of staff hours annually. The new GL interface initially identified 80,000 data inconsistencies, which the project team reduced by 97% to approximately 2,300
- Modernized the user experience through four phases of Fluid UI enhancements delivered in biweekly agile sprints, reviving a stalled five-year initiative
- Completed 15+ optimization projects with zero budget overruns — so successful that VCCS immediately funded an additional phase to continue the work
- Maintained system health with successful PUM/PeopleTools upgrades across Campus Solutions, HCM, and Finance platforms