Overview
Background
In 2017/18, for the first time, a Project Approach was taken to provide transparency and awareness of activities across services and projects ahead of the Start of Session 2017.
The aim was to provide ISG SMT and Senior Managers with the information on the levels of preparedness and confidence in specific projects and service improvements that delivering key services to users at the Start of Session depend.
It was acknowledged that the ISG005 project in 2016/17 was successful in demonstrating the value of a project approach to the start of session preparations. Several stakeholders requested that this approach was adopted for subsequent years with each year’s project learning lessons from the previous session and so improving the overall process year by year. This project was agreed as part of the ISG project planning for 2017/18.
Scope
The scope of this project :
- will deliver a framework to allow the monitoring of collective readiness across Information Services for the start of term.
- will leverage and build upon service based work already done including the excellent Start of Term Major Incident report that User Services Division put together last year.
- will seek to highlight areas of potential uncertainty, or hot spots in terms of resource requirements.
- will seek to build upon and support the excellent work already done around the start of term period, and showcase best practice and lessons learned for future years.
NB a specific improvement recommended from the 2016/17 ISG005 project was to agree a Communications Plan close to the start of this project to reduce misunderstandings and expectations; this is a delivery item which has
Items / Activities deemed out with the scope of this project :
This project does not replace existing activities for the start of session within the ISG Divisions or across the University as a whole.
Any areas of uncertainty will be communicated via the appropriate IS Divisional representative for management within the division (or service, or project as appropriate).
- Include any items from 17/18 Lessons Learned to highlight areas not within project's responsibility
Objectives and Deliverables
The deliverables highlighted below are focused on monitoring the overall readiness and confidence for the start of session 2018/19:
| No. |
Description |
Priority* |
Owner |
| O1 |
To reduce disruption to services as far as possible and to ensure that impact on users is minimised. |
M |
Neil Bruce |
| D1a |
Business context for 2018/19 start of semester 1 in particular any changes in student numbers, business processes, people or systems which may impact on risk. |
M | Project |
| D1b | Communications Plan to set expectations based on the experiences of ISG005. | M | Project |
| D2a | Confirmation and visibility of the staff responsible for start of semester 1 readiness in each ISG Division, and staff people needed to deliver support services over the start of term period; this includes out of hours support, and readiness RAG status. | M | Project |
| D2b | Confirmation and visibility of the staff responsible for start of semester 1 readiness in associated Business Partner areas e.g. Student Admin, Estates and staff people needed to deliver support services over the start of term period; this includes out of hours support, and readiness RAG status. | M | Project |
| D3 |
Visibility of planned changes to existing services from Change Management, and from projects in progress with their delivery RAG status. |
M |
Project |
| D4 |
Visibility of planned new services required by start of semester 1 delivered by projects in progress and their delivery RAG status. |
M |
Project |
| D5a |
Risk and dependency management at portfolio level for all ISG projects needed for the start of semester 1. |
M |
Project |
| D5b | Visibility of Risk and dependency management at portfolio level for any USG, Estates projects needed for the start of semester 1. | M | Project |
| D6 |
Visibility of the IT and Library Business Services needed for the start of semester 1 (based on the Service Catalogue) and their readiness RAG status. |
M | Project |
| D7 |
A single site providing an overview of projects, services, teams, and RAG statuses; this site should be accessible by anyone in IS to assess the position of the start of semester readiness; This will help establish the status of deliverables D2, D3, D4, D6. |
M | Project |
| D8 |
Processes for reviewing readiness of services, projects and people at least fortnightly during the period June to October 2018. |
M | Project |
| D9 |
Ensuring clarity and effectiveness of the change management process focusing on the rules, process and details of the change control period before and during Start of Semester 1. |
M | Project |
| D10 |
Ensuring measurement and reporting of Start of Semester KPIs with a comparison against the equivalent data for last year. These KPIs will include:
|
M | Project |
*MoSCoW prioritisation.
Benefits
- Improved visibility across ISG and the University promoting awareness of service changes and improvements.
- Improved data on impact of previous and planned changes to assist making better decisions during the start of term period.
- Improved student experience.
- Reduction to cost in ISG staff time resolving incidents resulting from service changes.
- Reduction in costs to IS and the University of managing Major Incidents.
- establish start and maintain start of term statistics and information which can be used for future years.
Success Criteria
Supporting the start of semester 1 with improved overall visibility of:
- readiness of services and any expected issues.
- staff resources required to support start of term activities and services, and their availability.
- improvement in overall satisfaction score.
Project Milestones
Target Date |
Title | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| 01-May-2018 | Start of Project | Initiate |
| 08-Jun-2018 | Project brief and planning | Plan |
| 29-Jun-2018 | Agreed IS Staff Involvement | Plan |
| 29-Jun-2018 | Communications Plan | Execute |
| 06-Jul-2018 | Agreed Tools, Processes and KPIs | Execute |
| 06-Jul-2018 | Established List of Projects, Services, and Teams | Execute |
| 24-Aug-2018 | Agreed Staff Contact Lists | Deliver |
| 04-Sep-2018 | Start of Welcome Week (External Milestone) | Deliver |
| 17-Sep-2018 | Start of Teaching Week 1 (External Milestone) | Deliver |
| 24-Sep-2018 | Start of Teaching Week 2 (External Milestone) | Deliver |
| 12-Oct-2018 | Delivery Sign Off Review following Start of Session | Deliver |
| 26-Oct-2018 | Project Closure | Close |