June 5, 2006

Dear Colleague,

We write today to share the decision that the HopkinsOne project -- originally scheduled to debut in July 2006 -- will go live on Jan. 1, 2007. What this means is the core functionality of the new suite of business software will begin on that day.

The impacts of this will be felt in almost every part of Johns Hopkins, because this new system, using a proven business software package known as SAP, will involve the major areas of our business activity: finance, human resources (including payroll and benefits), purchasing and supply chain, and sponsored grants and research projects.

As of the go-live date, fully one-fourth of our workforce will be using this new system to one degree or another. In later phases, when enhanced functionality is added, all employees will have at least some interaction with the system (for example, for such activities as recording time worked, requesting travel reimbursement and selecting benefits).

As we look ahead to implementing HopkinsOne, we feel it's important to remember why we're doing this and to reaffirm our personal commitment to the project's success. Over the years, one of our institutions' enduring strengths has been the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. With regard to enhancing our business processes and systems, the time for that adaptation is now.

We live in an age of regulations and accountability. Organizations like ours -- increasingly complex and committed to good stewardship of outside funding -- cannot afford to stand pat with current practices and aging business systems.

The HopkinsOne project will allow us to tie together important business data for reporting, compliance, and better service delivery to the faculty, administrators, and staff who rely on these business systems. And it will allow us to do so while preserving the traditional autonomy within which our divisions pursue our missions of world-class teaching, research, and patient care.

It certainly would have been easier to let things stand as they were, to rely on a patchwork quilt of disconnected legacy business systems (all of which eventually would need replacing or upgrading), but that would have been the wrong decision.

To put it simply, we've taken on a hard task, but it is absolutely the right course for the future of Johns Hopkins.

Meeting the Jan. 1 date will not be easy, nor will it be risk-free. The demands on our staff will be heavy, especially in the next year, both pre and post-implementation. There are measured, knowable risks related to this schedule: testing of the software might reveal deficiencies; the system hardware capacity may be insufficient; the scores of interfaces built between this system and others with which it "speaks" may fail testing; and, critically, we may not be able to complete training for the use of the system. A failure of any of these things would require us to revise the schedule. While we are very confident in the project and the plan -- which was recently validated by an outside third party -- we won't forge ahead if we hit a critical stop.

That said, please know that all three of us are committed to overcoming any and all obstacles to a successful launch of this important business system.

The implementation is complex, and it will require all of us to support colleagues in our labs and departments, in our business offices and on the HopkinsOne project team. Extraordinary requests will be made of their time. Plans are being developed to support them, but they will need our help and understanding as they face the challenge of doing their regular duties while learning a new system and, in many cases, new ways of doing business.

For a project timeline and more detail about this, please see:
http://www.jhu.edu/hopkinsone/Public/Toolbox/timeline.htm

Sincerely,

William R. Brody, President, The Johns Hopkins University
Edward D. Miller, Dean of the Medical Faculty, CEO, John Hopkins Medicine
Ronald R. Peterson, President, Johns Hopkins Health System