Blog

We enjoy sharing our experiences through blogs posts, as we continuously seek new ways to serve our clients.

FI$Cal: Beyond Fiscal Functionality

FI$Cal, or the Financial Information System for California, is far more than the state’s accounting, budgeting, and procurement system.  As a robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, FI$Cal has unique capabilities that departments are beginning to realize. We’ve previously highlighted our work implementing FI$Cal functionality…

Connecting Digitally – Together Mode in MS Teams

These days it’s easy to feel disconnected, especially if you are working from home full-time. Gone are the casual hallway conversations, replaced by days filled with virtual meetings. As wonderful as it is to see other people (even digitally), virtual meeting fatigue is common. To…

Inspired to Speak Up and Give

As we stand in solidarity with the Black community, all of us at Highlands Consulting continue to listen, reflect, learn, and act for change. Each of us seeks open dialogue with colleagues, friends, and family. And along the way, we have been inspired to donate…

What Changes Will Stick?

I recently had the opportunity to lead a Change Management discussion with a local graduate school class.  During the Question and Answer portion, the discussion naturally turned to the changes that we are experiencing during the COVID-19 timeframe. The one question that stood out to…

Improving Traffic Safety in California

Highlands Consulting has a long history of providing services to California’s transportation departments. Since joining the team I have worked on transportation projects and discovered a new passion for traffic safety. Most recently, we helped the Office of Traffic Safety develop their 2020-2023 Strategic Management…

Leveraging Technology in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Highlands Consulting helps government clients manage digital transformation. There’s an image floating around LinkedIn and Twitter asking people “Who led the digital transformation of your company? 1. CEO; 2. CTO; or 3. COVID-19?” Many of us might circle answer #3. Change was hard before the…

Transitioning to FI$Cal Department-Wide

Implementation of the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) represents massive change across the entire state. Highlands Consulting is wrapping up the second phase of a FI$Cal transition effort for a large state department. Phase one transitioned administrative staff in the Accounting, Budgets, and Procurement…

Unexpected Change

In just two short weeks, all of our lives have changed in ways we never predicted. This post from Jason Kottke offers a list of how we are all experiencing COVID-19 in different ways. It’s a 2-minute read that helped me think beyond my individual…

What’s Measured Gets Done

 “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”–  Lewis Carroll In business, clear goals matter. When done well, a written strategic plan is both a path forward and a roadmap to help achieve an organization’s mission. That’s why our team…