Problem
Lack of centralized oversight slowed strategic progress
A leading private university in the Dominican Republic, known for its commitment to academic excellence, community service, and inclusive education, was experiencing growing strain as it expanded strategic and academic initiatives. Its internal systems were unable to keep pace. Key functions—such as strategic project oversight and academic process tracking—were managed through disconnected documents and manual workflows.
The university’s quality assurance and planning teams lacked a centralized platform to align on annual goals, collaborate across departments, or generate real-time reports for leadership. Updates were time-consuming, requiring significant manual coordination, and reporting cycles were frequently delayed. A strategic initiatives lead from the rector’s office needed a scalable, user-friendly system that could support multi-unit collaboration without overwhelming non-technical stakeholders.
Without such a system in place, the university faced growing friction in tracking progress, maintaining accountability, and communicating results across its campuses.
Q1
Solution
Driving visibility and institutional alignment
A project manager at the university implemented SmartSuite as a centralized platform to track strategic planning and quality initiatives across the institution. The deployment included:
- Multi-Layer Strategy Solutions: SmartSuite solutions now reflect institutional plans, macro-level initiatives, and annual project plans (referred to as “POA” in Spanish).
- Leadership Dashboards: Custom dashboards provide the university’s president and department heads with filtered, visual summaries of progress—based on objectives, timelines, and indicators.
- Automations & Forms: Event requests, quality inputs, and survey data are now collected through SmartSuite forms and routed through automations for approval and recordkeeping.
- Cross-Department Collaboration: Each unit—from investigations to quality to statistics—operates their own solution with shared references to strategic priorities.
- Self-Sufficient Building: The project manager, also a certified SmartSuite Consultant, led the creation of 15+ solutions and trained a small group of collaborators to expand the ecosystem across departments.
Q2
Results
A living system for strategic execution
SmartSuite became the university’s operational system for strategy execution, streamlining project intake, tracking, and performance measurement. A project manager supports over 70 stakeholders—including executive leadership—through tailored dashboards that align with strategic priorities.
What was once a fragmented update process is now a cohesive, living system that evolves as departments refine their goals. The platform has empowered real-time visibility across the university and supports the scalability needed for growing institutional initiatives.
As SmartSuite adoption expands across the institution, the project manager continues to serve as the platform champion—customizing portals, building new forms, and collaborating with SmartSuite’s team to improve performance.