Q&A with Ashley Smith
Associate Chief Information Officer, Application Services, USC Information Technology Services
“Sometimes the topic of organizational culture can feel like the elephant in the room. At USC, we’ve taken a clear, intentional stance via the Culture Journey and continue to see its tangible value in how it shapes who we are and how we operate as a team.”
Q: As a leader, what role does attention to culture and values play in your priorities?
A: I do my best work when I see myself in what I do, and I try to motivate my teams to do the same in their day-to-day. I like to remind them that our values define why we do what we do and unite our diverse perspectives and span of influence; I’m absolutely an advocate for great work that we collectively enjoy doing.
Q: Can you describe a current or past initiative in which you focused on the Unifying Values and/or Culture? Why was this focus important and what impact did it have?
A: Recently, USC’s Unifying Values were a foundational component to the Brightspace at USC program. Brightspace is the new learning management system that replaced “Blackboard Learn” across the institution. It is how all faculty, staff and students engage with academic courses at USC, from accessing syllabi to setting up virtual instruction. In making this change to a new platform, I was part of a large program team supporting a highly visible and highly impactful project under an ambitious timeline. Early on, knew we didn’t have time for misalignment or missteps.
At the onset of the program, we hosted a culture and values exercise. The intent was to highlight how we individually show up in alignment with each of USC’s Six Unifying Values, and to workshop how we would collectively embrace our differences into a unified way of working on the Brightspace at USC program. Throughout the project, we revisited these values – in all hands meetings, in team working sessions, and program communications – to ensure our collective work remained mindful, intentional, and effective. The list of successes of the Brightspace at USC program is exceptional. I firmly believe that our early and consistent focus on USC’s Unifying Values could serve as a masterclass for others in project implementations, and a key success story to celebrate as a project team and a community that is committed to knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.