Back to a New Year

Happy New Year everyone - hope you all had a good break, and are raring to go with this brand new year!  Sorry for slight delay in blogging - have been struck dumb (literally for most of yesterday), with a cold and sore throat. Oh well, first I've had this winter so can't complain.

So, what's been happening since we came back? We've had a good  meeting on how we're going to develop our new portal - so much has changed since we came up with the specification over a year ago (we put the project on hold to concentrate on our Enquirer and Applicant portal), that it needs revisiting. Portal technologies have changed, and we now have Google apps, which change the way we deliver some services. More discussions over the next week or two, and some investigaing to do about how things like iGoogle might integrate with our single sign on, before we come up with anything concrete.

Exciting meeting today with our University Executive Board discussing our response to the Diamond Report on Modernisation and Efficiency. There's a number of projects already taking forward some of the recommendations including a review of procurement and the introduction of a managed staff printing service, but I have been keen that we introduce a structured approach to business process review and service improvement, embedding it into the University culture.  We've been investigating Lean, and today we presented our proposals to set up a small team to take this forward, and I'm pleased to say they were approved. Our focus will not be on just cost savings, but realignment of resources to better support the University's objectives, improving services to staff and students, and simplifying processes, especially those large complex ones which often  interface between professional service and academic departments. Watch this space!

Also this week we've considered the Woolf Report into LSE's relationship with Libya. It's a very comprehensive report, and contains a number of recommendations around the ethics of universities accepting donations. It raises a number of issues about due diligence which I suspect many Universities are now considering.

And finally, I got the report from the IiP assessor who recently reviewed the department - we reached the standard in all areas, and had many areas of good practice highlighted. One or two areas for development identified, but on the whole it was excellent - obviously a lot of good work going on in the department - well done everyone.

IiP, BBQ and late nights

We got the result of our Investors in People assessment last week, and found out that we had met the required standard in all areas - excellent news. Our management development programme was particularly commended. This is a tailor made set of sessions which we are cascading down the department so that everyone has the skills required of a manager, is aware of the role of a manager, and what to expect from the staff who are being managed. So far all of our section heads and most of our next level of managers have received several days training, and we will continue the programme until it has touched everyone in the department.

On Friday it was the annual CiCS BBQ - the social event of the year held in the prestigious surroundings of our car park! As usual, food was cooked (not too much of it burnt), beer was consumed and for a change, the sun shone for most of the time. Pictures available here for those who want a look, and thanks are due as always to those who did the shopping, prepared the food, put up the gazebos (even though I heard complaints that it was too difficult because the instructions were not in the technical wiki so no-one could figure out how to do it), and cleared away afterwards.

Some people couldn't drink as much beer as the others, as they were preparing to begin a major upgrade of our filestorage system. I felt a little guilty when I saw them trooping off down the car park to begin work in one of our data centres, and even more so when I discovered that they'd worked really late - some of them until 4am - and then come in early Saturday morning to start again. Thanks to all of you guys, and to the ones monitoring and working on systems from home over the weekend - it's much appreciated. I'm not sure where the University would be if we didn't have dedicated people in all areas of the department willing to go above and beyond the call of duty so often.

Meetings, meetings

Phew - 2 full days of meetings, virtually back to back. Lots of stuff to think about. Yesterday was the formal presentation of our student satisfaction survey, which I've already mentioned. Nothing particularly new came up, and I will write a proper post about it when I've got all of the data, including the students' verbatim comments, which is usually where we learn the most.

An executive meeting discussed our recent IiP assessment, a staff information manual we're putting together about all aspects of departmental life, and an agenda for next week's departmental meeting.

Today a Business Continuity steering group talked again about how we manage incidents which happen out of hours, and in particular how we keep and access contact details of all relevant staff. Never easy.

This morning I co-presented a session to senior colleagues on our University Collaboration Programme where we were emphasising the importance of benefits realisation management.

At lunchtime I managed to spend about 20 minutes at the University Suppliers exhibition where we had 4 stands - IT, Transport Services, Printing Services and AV Services. it's a great way of meeting and interacting with our customers, and we always make sure we have plenty of freebies to give away to attract them to our stands. I must remember to clear my diary next year to spend longer there.

This afternoon was much more pleasant - showing a couple of colleagues from other institutions round the IC, and then discussing some aspects of our operation of different areas with them.

IiP

As well as the student satisfaction survey, we've also just got the feedback on a recent Investors in People review of two of our sections. The whole of Professional Services were assessed a few years ago and were successful, and in order to maintain the standard and make sure that the principles are embedded in our culture and not just dusted off for the assessor, we've trained a number of staff as assessors, and have been carrying out a series of internal reviews. Over the summer 2 of our 3 sections were looked at, and I'm very pleased to say that Business Services met all 10 standards, and Customer Services met 9 out of 10, ( only narrowly missing the one not met). This is an excellent result, and shows how hard everyone has been focusing on good management practice and support for staff development.

A number of areas of good practice were highlighted to us, as well as a number of areas for development, which we'll be sharing over the next few weeks and developing an action plan.

The third section of the department, Technical Services, were looked at last year whilst we were in the middle of our restructuring, and they will be visited again sometime next year, and I'm confident they will meet the high standard and we'll be successful in retaining our IiP status when we're next externally assessed.

Sharpen the Saw

We'll be having an Investors in People assessment in August for part of the department, so spent some time yesterday morning talking to the assessors about work we've been doing on a vision and our objectives for the year, as well as our management development plans.

Then it was my own SRDS interview with my line manager - a chance to sit down and reflect on progress throughout the year, and look forward to the next one. It's also the chance to look at what support I might need and training and development needs. The main thing I need is time - time to network more and to get on with all of the things I do outside of the University including UCISA work, which if you're not careful, tend to get pushed to the end of the priority list. I'm a big of a fan of Steven Covey and his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the habits is "Sharpen the Saw". He describes this by using the analogy of a woodcutter who is cutting wood. Gradually as the saw blunts he becomes less and less productive. The solution is to stop cutting for a while and sharpen the saw, but he doesn't because he's too busy cutting wood. Some people misunderstand this habit, and think it refers to getting away, maybe having a rest, but that's just putting the saw down - it will still be blunt. It has to be an activity - I do it by meeting someone from outside the department and talking through a few issues with them, or trying to think of a good speaker for a UCISA conference, or reading a good book, or writing this blog!