With a continued emphasis on putting staff and students at the heart of the digital experience, the Digital Transformation programme is enabling the University to deliver changes in a more Agile way - starting with pilot projects in Education.
Why agile?
Delivering digital innovation using the Agile methodology will help ensure our systems continuously reflect the fast-changing needs, views, and practicalities for staff and students.
Being on the receiving end of agile changes is a bit like having regular updates on smartphones or apps in our personal lives. Rather than waiting months or years for the changes to ‘land’ on us, we can benefit from having continuous refinements to systems we use at work. And we can regularly give feedback to the ‘squads’ (an Agile term used to describe project delivery teams) developing our systems and share what we think of the latest increment of changes so they can fine-tune things if and when needed.
Why pilot?
Piloting the agile approach means we can test, learn, and develop how we deliver digital changes before planning any wider changes across the University. During the pilot, we will support each squad to prioritise the experience of staff and students at each step of the change. Pilot teams will work to a trial version of a ‘target operating model’ that is being tested to understand the type of structure that can work best for an agile squad.
Which systems?
The digital ‘Products’ involved in this pilot phase include: TMS (Teaching Management System), SITS (Student Information System), Canvas (Virtual Learning Environment), and ADSS (undergraduate admissions).
When?
We’re starting the pilot approach on Monday 19 February 2024, when a squad will begin working on improving TMS. Squads for each of the other products will follow on from this based on staggered start dates by July 2024.
How?
Each squad will comprise a mixed balance of colleagues with technological expertise and colleagues with ‘business as usual’ expertise from colleges and/or departments. This is a significant change in the way many of these project teams have traditionally worked.
The team will build iterative improvements based on a list of agreed priorities. They will regularly meet with a selection of staff and students (for example, from administrative and academic teams) to discuss what needs to change when and road-test latest changes with them when they’re able to.
Following feedback from users, the squad will fine-tune their solutions and may continue discussing latest refinements with users as frequently as needed. Once everyone is happy with the latest increment of changes (and testing, scheduling, etc has been completed), the team will then release the new solutions into the ‘live’ day-to-day environment so everyone can benefit from the latest valuable improvements.
The squad will then move on to the next set of priorities and continue their work. With this approach, staff and students will benefit from more continuous updates based on what works best for them and when.
Support
Along the way, each squad will be coached and supported by the Digital Transformation programme team and experts from our external partners. All relevant colleagues are being trained to be aware of Agile methodology.
New terminology
Alongside the use of the new term ‘squad’, we will start to come across new and unfamiliar terminology as we become more Agile. This includes terms such as ‘product’ to describe a system and new roles that colleagues may take on such as scrum master and product owner. These new roles will be explained in further communications and training resources being prepared for all colleagues involved directly and indirectly with agile projects over the next few weeks.
Agile skills and confidence
To ensure the pilot teams feel confident in embracing this new way of working, the Digital Transformation team has created a range of support activities, a robust training schedule, and a schedule of regular Agile Clinic sessions to answer questions and provide insights for everyone involved. An external Agile coach will support the squads with best practice and knowledge from other implementations.
More information
As the pilot squads get underway and start to deliver, we will continue to share news on their progress and hear how we are collectively evolving Oxford’s digital services.
For more information about the Education pilot projects, please contact Heidi Hunt, Digital Transformation programme change manager.
