RCM at Algonquin

Posted on Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

Responsibility Center Management (RCM) as a project has finished it’s life cycle. To commemorate completion of the project, Anne Bell, wrote a Case Study “RCM at Algonquin“.

RCM started as an idea in 2012, and was studied externally by the Learning Alliance and internally by the ALEI group in 2013. Both of these studies said that a full RCM model was feasible, as so many of the building blocks were already in place. Communication and consultation were key to the success of agreeing upon a model and it’s implementation. Well – we did both of those over the past two years, and have now implemented a model which has been discussed, poked, amended and commented on by all 31 departments at the College.

Going live in financial reporting on April 1, 2015, everyone got to see RCM in operations. Not a radical change from existing financial reporting, the change has gone smoothly, with lots of support and explanation from the corporate and department finance staff and our project manager, Sandy Finnigan. For the budget model for the upcoming year, Area targets based on contribution margin were agreed to by the College Budget Committee (CBC) and are currently being budgeted in the departments, which roll up to these targets. It’s not a perfect model but a change from existing using RCM principles of fair, transparent and data informed decision making.

We are not finished – the beauty of an RCM model is that it is what Algonquin wants it to be. There can be changes and refinements to the model going forward. Recommendations have been given to the CBC to establish formal feedback processes to be able to gather feedback which can lead to possible changes in the future.

Questions on RCM can be directed to you department Finance support or CLC member, or to Emily Woods, Corporate Budget Manager, or Cathy Dempsey, Director, Finance & Administrative services.


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