University of Staffordshire, Change & Innovation, #pelc10

Undertaking – innovative stuff in a traditional institution

• Most staff trying to be innovative, doing in isolation- not aware of top-level… how do we start to engage staff, understand how strategy is changing… Handout – resource basis,everything was coming from top-down and external influences, not taking on board internal.
• Enable: portfolio management (strategy development, change management, organisational growth) – curriculum is growing, why is it just growing, how manage.why not culling?
• Initiative (project) management – analysis, planning, implementation, review! Needed to be holistic in what was doing – P3M3 – mentioned by JISC, picked up by industry… Executive level strategy – focusing on traditional learners – campus learners, etc. not what their partners are doing… need to recognise that business is growing outside the traditional learner.
• Impact, Business Case, Focus, Grants.. we need to stop doing this as it costs money, and impacting out curriculum, etc. Information was ring0fenced in course databases -info only online/the net… Projects running without direction – didn’t understand why they were doing something, lost sponsorship and going off in diff directions – project was trying to do too much… too much narrow focus – not getting the right people involved, ignoring funding…
• Think where are you going? Enterprise architecture approach… (a tool that is difficult to communicate, so don’t discuss with others). Gives roadmap, overview and idea on how things will change… lots of info online – tends to be v. dry… Scoped to curriculum design & development. Models/maps, ideas of technologies needed to move forward…
• Keep the staff engaged… have a history in institutions of people feeling imposed upon by central services or QAA, ensure they’re informed, and that they are consulted about thoughts/feelings/ideas… often difficult as each Faculty wants to do things their own way! Support rather than a control mechanism… communicate benefits from bottom up to senior management…  Global view – how do you ensure it goes across to other systems, thinking what is the best way forward fro everything else…
• http://jiscenable.blogspot.com
• Job to find out what people want and make it possible, get rid of barriers, get rid of the mundane, and can then focus on curriculum design, etc. rather than endless committees… Traditional teaching materials on the VLE, but think what you want to do with them…
• Said “they must have this” – need to think about WHY they have it up there, and contextualising their PPTs, etc…
• Creating systems until it becomes embedded in practice – too many people doing things in pockets, not scaleable – e.g. they’re so keen, drag out old hard drives, etc. – not sustainable, but how do you keep that innovation going… No initiative/closure/evaluation documentation… Encourage those pockets to talk to the right people… Manager of Elearning projects – doing projects without her knowing about them… that’s good, means is not ALL having to come from top down?!
• Why does everybody feel that they have to run a pilot when one department already has? James hates the word project – what about initiative? Why do you think it’s not going to work in your Faculty? Lot of resistence, just need to deal with it sensitively, tend to talk perceptions re reality. Blogs heavily, including internal (anonymised) … whether it’s real or not, it’s a perception that exists! “This is what they’re telling me”…