Risks, portals and awards

A couple of interesting meetings today, and an awards ceremony.

First meeting was about Risk Management, and whether we should develop some software for keeping track of risk, or whether we should buy something. We did develop a database a couple of years go but it has never really been used and things have changed. What we need now is something a bit more sophisticated. Something for example which would allow groups of people to score risks in terms of likelihood and impact. I went to a workshop a few weeks ago where a group of us scored about 35 of the University's Corporate risks. Then we discussed them and then scored them again. What was interesting was seeing what scores had changed following the discussion. Given the events of the past weekend, I was particularly interested in the scoring for the likelihood and impact of a major systems failure or power outage! They ranged from low to very high.

The second meeting was the Portal Applications Group where we discuss and prioritise developments of the University portal MUSE (My University of Sheffield Environment).
At the moment our biggest priority is to develop a self service portal for students to allow them to do for themselves many things which at the moment they have to come into central offices to do - print off council tax exemption forms for example. We also need to educate and help users in how to get the most of out of MUSE and customise it for their own personal use. Many criticisms we get relate to things people think they can't do, but can.

Tonight Kath, Patrice and myself went to the Exposed 2007 Awards Ceremony, where the Information Commons had been nominated in the Best New Development Category, along with Millenium Square, Leopold Square, and Sheffield Station. Never having been to an awards ceremony before, we were a little nervous - what was the dress code, would we be expected to make a speech? The invitations said dress to impress, so at least one of us was tempted to hunt out the hotpants, but we resisted the urge, and in the end blended in rather well I think. Unfortunately we lost out to Leopold Square, but we did get a big cheer when the nomination was read out which was very gratifying. The three free vodka and tonics also went down rather well.