In October, BECOP held its last event of the year, the BOO-COP Icebreaker Social, to kick-off the festivities, and in November we elected our 2022 officers!

In this newsletter, see our Thank You to the BECOP Board, a specially compiled Process Improvement: Giving Back Holiday Edition article, which highlights ways to give back locally and within UC San Diego through organizations that embrace continuous improvement. Check out the Project Managment Practical Training Program to enroll or volunteer. We also include some opportunities to support Process Palooza and EIM in our Jobs & Opportunities section.

Here's to the continued growth of our Community of Practice in 2022!

Thank you to our community for coming together to listen, learn, and take action to continuously improve. Together, we overcame the challenges of the last year by drawing on the experience we’ve each gained and sharing tools and techniques along the way.

Our sincere gratitude to our beloved exiting board members for their dedication and service to BECOP. Each of you have contributed in unique and specific ways, often above and beyond, during this past year that will be sorely missed! Believe us when we say that throughout next year as we touch upon the positive changes you’re leaving with us, you will bring a smile to our faces! Thank you!! 

Joyce Hwang, Engagement Officer
Taura Gentry Kelso, Events Officer
Jennifer Holland, Health Officer
Monique Pascucci, Ex-Officio

As the year comes to a close, we want to welcome Kevin Waldrop, as your incoming BECOP Chair and look forward to an exciting new year!

Non-profits understand better than anyone the importance of doing more with less. In pursuit of their missions they’re constantly re-inventing how they stretch dollars and resources while also inspiring and empowering staff and volunteers. This holiday we’d like to highlight local organizations that have adopted and embraced the spirit of continuous improvement:

Kitchens for Good is dedicated to helping struggling community members with skills that will launch them into meaningful careers and escape a life of poverty. During 2020 alone, Kitchens for Good increased hunger relief meal production from 300 meals per day to up to 2,500 meals per day to support food insecure San Diegans. To learn more please click here.  

LifeSharing is a Southern California organ and tissue recovery organization. By applying process improvement efforts, they have increased the number of lives saved within San Diego County. In 2020, despite the challenges of COVID-19, Lifesharing helped transplant a record 424 organs. And recently, organ donors saved 19 lives in a period of just two days!  Would you like to register to donate? Click here for details.

Learn how UCSD is giving back and applying continuous improvement to these great programs:

Triton Food Pantry
The Triton Food Pantry is a service of the Associated Students (AS) which has built an efficient network of food resources at UCSD so that every student is nutritiously fueled to achieve academic success.

Affordable Grocery Store Map
Did you know that UCSD has an affordable grocery store map that is color coded to represent their cost? (What a great use of kanban – Japanese for “visual signal”!)

UCSD partners with the Food Recovery Network and the Food Notification App
Food Recovery Network (FRN) is a national non-profit with 230 chapters around the nation, including at UCSD. Our chapter started in 2016 and recovers food waste from dining halls, Farmer’s Markets and grocery stores to feed students facing food insecurity. The food notification app allows departments on campus to send notifications when they have leftover food from events so that it doesn’t go to waste! Both of these are perfect examples of mitigating a few common wastes of lean – Inventory & Overproduction.

UCSD Blood Drive Donations: San Diego Blood Bank
SDBB regularly schedules bloodmobile donation drives on campus to make it easy to regularly donate! One of our favorite process improvement books is “Switch: How to change things when change is hard” by Chip Heath. By setting up these regular drives on campus, SDBB has tapped into both Chapter 6: Shrink the Change and Chapter 8: Tweak the Environment!

Are you interested in learning about project management? Perhaps you are looking for a starting point to gain the knowledge and skills needed to successfully initiate, plan, execute, monitor & close projects at UC San Diego

A blended learning project management program that incorporates online learning, live discussion sessions, social learning, mentorship, and project work to prepare the next wave of project managers at UC San Diego is being offered by the UC San Diego Business Excellence Community of Practice (BECOP), UC San Diego Extension, and UC San Diego Campus and Health Human Resources.

See the Information Sheet for more details about this no-cost program. It is recommended that you discuss with your manager to attend sessions during the work day.

Information Sesssion: Join us via Zoom for a live discussion and information on Thursday, January 13th 11:00a-12:00pm. Save this Zoom link until then!

Registration: The UCLearning information page is avilable now, but the ability to actually register for either the Winter or Summer program will open around 12:00pm on January 13th. Register here.

Winter 2022, 2:00pm - 4:00pm on Feb 15, Mar 15, Apr 19, May 17
Summer 2022, 2:00pm - 4:00pm on Aug 17, Sep 21, Oct 19, Nov 16

Are you employed by UC San Diego and work as a project manager (by career or in practice) who is willing to volunteer and share your knowledge? Whether you are a certified PMP or have a Lean Six Sigma Black or Green Belt, we are looking for Mentors and Facilitators for the Project Management Practical Training Program (PMPTP).
 
Mentor
The PMPTP provides a pool of mentors to participants. When participants submit requests, Mentors from the pool volunteer to reach out and discuss the participant’s question and provide insights based on their own project management experience. The time commitment is minimal and flexible based on your availability during the 4-month Winter or Summer course. 
 
Facilitator
The PMPTP includes four zoom sessions where each session will have a unique two-person facilitator team to guide the core discussion based on provided materials. Facilitators share topic-related personal experiences to engage the cohort and present insight to actual UC San Diego scenarios. The time commitment is about 3-4 hours that includes preparation, tech check and a 2-hour session. Facilitators are selected based on topic experience and availability.

If you are interested in being a Mentor or Facilitator, please contact Kevin Waldrop, or Loralyn Cross. We'll remind you in January - Happy New Year!

The Process Palooza Planning Committee is seeking enthusiastic partners to join the fun! We’re searching for team members interested to engage, collaborate, and help to host UC San Diego's 5th Annual continuous

improvement and business excellence celebration, in November 2022. Specifically, we’re looking for a Conference/Content Lead who, along with a team of volunteers, will inform venue selection, create schedule tracks, arrange and manage speakers and workshop leaders, work with the Volunteer Lead and manage Thank You gifts/messages

For those unfamiliar, Process Palooza is hosted in support of campus leadership and provides conference attendees with an opportunity to experience, learn about, and grow continuous improvement. We invite those interested to reach out to processpalooza@ucsd.edu.

EIM Change Lead and Change Practitioner

The Enterprise Identity Management (EIM) project is looking for both a Change Lead and a Change Practitioner to join the organizational change management (OCM) team. Learn more about the EIM project and the EIM Change Lead & Change Practitioner roles.

Want to learn more or apply? Contact the EIM OCM team, attention Jason Andrews, at esr-eim@ucsd.edu

BECOP Recognition. Would you like to recognize someone in our Community of Practice? Email becop@ucsd.edu to nominate a colleague for their outstanding work!

Volunteers. It takes volunteers to make our Community of Practice continue to evolve and grow. If you're interested in volunteering and helping out to keep BECOP a robust and thriving place to network and learn, please email becop@ucsd.edu.

Follow Us on LinkedIn! Our newsletter goes out once a month, but so much happens in the time in between. Follow our LinkedIn to be the first to know about opportunities in the community.