Fridge cams and robot projectors

A Happy New Year to you all, and welcome back.  The first week back after the Christmas break always seems longer than 5 days, and the things we talked about before Christmas a dim and distant memory. But, we son get back into the swing of things, and this week I've been having some discussions about setting up a Digital transformation team - I dont think it wil be called that, but that's it's working name.

We've also had a Process Improvement Unit Steering Group where we had a report form a recent event to improve and streamline the production of our prospectus which has been very successful.

I'm doing a bit of work over the next few weeks to help another University review its IT systems and services, and I've spent a day there getting to know the IT staff.

Finally, I've been keeping my eye on what's been going on at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. New technologies often appear in the consumer space first, and it important we keep up to date with them. Things that have caught my eye this year include wearable gadgets, which are getting smaller, and more integrated with clothing, 3D printing, which is quickly becoming mainstream, and virtual reality.

Some of the weirder gadgets include the smart fridge cam
 
which takes a picture of the inside of your fridge everytime the door opens so you can check what's on the shelves whilst you're shopping.





And the Tipron - a cross between a robot and projector. Apparently it learns the layout of your house and can wander into your bedroom and project the weather forecast onto the wall...  Spooky!

An Oscar at last....

 We're right in the middle of our planning round at the moment - writing our submission about priorities for next year, what resources we might need, and also going out and talking to all of the Faculties about their plans and how we can help them. We've seen 3 of the Faculties so far, and will see the other two next week. A lot of discussion about our plans to set up a Research IT Support Service. We already do support research in terms of providing computing facilities, storage, applications and help and support, but we are going to significantly increase this.  Our researchers have told us that what they really need is access to people, and we're about to go out to advert for a Head of Research IT, and then hope to recruit more to the team. In addition, we'll be providing access to our services which will be free at the point of use! Obviously they will have to be paid for, but we do not want to be recharging departments.

Other things discussed at the meetings include developments in learning and teaching - many areas are looking to increase their distance learning offer so we need to produce a framework for the delivery and support of that, as well as carrying our a review over the next year of our VLE.

We also talked to them about the review of the website which we have just kicked off, and we got a lot of support for the way we are approaching it - work out what we want the web site to do and what its purpose is and leave the technology till later. We also picked up that many feel our current web site is a good marketing tool, but doesn't serve other stakeholders as well, particularly current staff and students.


Great news this week as our Process Improvement Unit was nominated for an award.  They were shortlisted by the Institute for Continuous Improvement in the Public Sector, which given the small size of the unit - just 4 staff based here in CiCS - is a fantastic achievement. You can read the press release giving more details about the nomination and what the unit gets up to here. 

Sadly they didn't win, but came second, and now have a trophy to display!

Digitalising processes

Now a session on digitalising processes. I'm not sure that digitalising is a word, but we'll see....

Moving from paper based process to mobile device is a great advance, but it's not enough value. Can get more value by adding other technologies.

First step on journey is atoms to bits, paper to device
Then human to machine. What work can a machine do that a human does now.
Rethink the work itself. What's the right resource to do it. Human, machine or joint?
Then enable more variable handling of work. So, not about standardisation. If you are a global company, need to take account of differences in culture, in law, in products. Need to scale and keep consistency and manageability

Atoms to bits. Digitising processes. Some examples:
Pay cheque in by taking a picture of it on a mobile phone.
ApplePay. Credit card stored in mobile phone.
Huge improvement in convenience for customer.

Good example of difference between digitising a process and digitalising one of a nurse in a hospital. Give them a tablet to do data entry....
Illustrated in five slides below.
















Utilising the Internet of things, adapters, sensors etc. Everything relating to the patients care is instrumented. So everything nurse used to collect, and a lot more, is now collected by machines. Because so much data being collected, can analyse and look for patterns. Eg by instrumenting the bed can monitor how much sunlight the patient is getting and adjust so that patient gets more.

Use technology to transform work, not just digitise it.
Does take some investment, but paybacks will be significant.

Automation for years has meant replacing physical labour with machines. In IT context it's been about standardising work and reducing paper handling. But, is that enough of an improvement?
We should be digitalising processes to transform people's working lives.

Some more examples...

The quantified self. Wearables, constantly monitoring ourselves. Lots of opportunities to use that data. Who would you share it with and why? Personal trainer? Your doctor? Your insurance company....

Jetdry, make mobile heaters for working in arctic conditions. If they break, they use a mobile machine to heat up the local area and the equipment so it can be repaired. Used to fly a technician out to do repair. Now use a pair of glasses on local field worker to give remote technician a video view so local worker can do the fix. Man/machine cooperation.

Get customers to do the work for you. Report things like broken traffic lights, potholes through a mobile app.

John Dere Combine Harvester, cost about $0.5m. If it breaks down, can miss the harvest. They have instrumented the equipment with sensors, and set up remote service to monitor the data coming in, analyse it, and predict problems and provide guidance about preventative maintenance.

Not just about reducing paper and standardising. Go beyond this. It's about augmenting work or replacing it.
Race with the machines, not against them.

Think about automation and digitalisation


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The Mystery of the Bicycle Book..

Yesterday was our Service Strategy Board, where we covered a lot of business in a couple of hours. Looked over the objectives for each Service Area for next year, which will form the basis of all of our operational plans and objective setting in our SRDS process which is about to start.  We also looked at a new Service portfolio which changes our service headings, and consists of a description and value statement  - hopefully to make it easier to communicate our value to our senior management.

This morning I went to a presentation from one of our Sheffield Leader cohorts at the end of their project work. Very interesting analysis of how we can improve communication and collaboration across the University in order to work more productively together. For example, analysis of the work shadowing programme had shown how valuable it was in increasing understanding of what different work areas do. During one of the discussions we were talking about barriers to improving processes through working together, and we touched on the importance of the question "why". Why are we doing this, why are we doing it like this, etc.  An amazing story came out, which hope is true.  It goes like this.  During some process improvement work on a reception desk at a hospital, it was noticed that everyone who cycled to work signed a book - the bicycle book. When asked why, the reception staff admitted they didn't know, it had always been done, and books were sent to HR. HR admitted they didn't know why reception sent the books to them when they were full, but they carefully boxed them up and stored them. After much investigation, the signing of the bicycle book was traced back to the introduction of rationing during the second world war, when people who cycled to work were entitled to extra rations. And so it had carried on, for nearly 60 years!! That little question, "why?" is so important.

This afternoon I've been in a long meeting of the SMG for The Diamond. We're approaching the design freeze in only a couple of weeks, and everything has to be finalised by then. By the end of May, the whole design must be agreed, with only the interior finishes and some fit-out subject to
further discussion. Getting really exciting now - great to see it going up, the concrete slabs are being poured, the cores built, and a section of the facade has been built and tested successfully.

Efficiency Exchange and Staff development

A brief update on a couple of sessions from this morning:

Staff development
Session from JISC Regional Support Centre for Yorkshire and Humberside about a new approach to staff development using a roadshow model. Mainly working with FE colleges. Taking technology round the region, focussing on teaching and learning, not the technology. Used the day to use collaborative scenario based activities. So, scenarios published in advance which attendees can work through, or come up with their own.
The kit is getting smaller, using tablets and mobile technology. Also a lot of free software out there. Look at new and emerging technology such as Augmented Reality, often staff don't know what's out there for them to use. Can create eBooks easily on the day.

There's a YouTube video about what they're doing here.


Efficiency Exchange
Really interested in this as I was part of the Diamond group which recommended it be established. It's a web resource for sharing and promoting efficiency, process improvement and sharing initiatives in HR.
The web site is excellent, and our own Process Improvement Unit has contributed to it.
They have a partnership with the Guardian, and there is a section in the Higher Education Network with content sourced directly from the EE.

This is definitely worth subscribing to.



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LEAN and Lego

About 18 months ago we set up our Process Improvement Unit, which has done some great work looking at a number of processes across the University. There's some case studies of completed projects here,  and a list of projects currently being worked on here.  As well as carrying out process improvement events, the team also have a training and awareness remit, and today I attended a morning session on process improvement awareness together with other staff from across CiCS. It was for people not directly involved in process improvement events, but for those who might be sponsors, or have members of their team involved. With process being an estimated 90% of what the University does, it's vital that we take process improvement seriously.

One of the tools the team uses is LEAN, and we had a quick look at the history of it  - it came from Toyota who saw what Ford were doing in the US in car manufacturing, and decided to improve it!  there are two main pillars in this model of process improvement - respect for people (if the end result is worse for the people involved, or customer service is worse, than people will not participate again), and continuous improvement (constantly thinking about how to do things better)  - they have to go hand in hand.

We looked in more detail about a couple of imporantt concepts - value and waste. In summary, every part of a process has to add value, and waste has to be eliminated. Well explained here.

And then - a practical exercise - building things with lego.  Ziggurats to be precise. I can't give too much away, but a great demonstration using production line techniques of many LEAN principles.


I was Queen, of course, and was pleased that by round three, I had plenty of Ziggurats coming my way!


Very enjoyable and informative day.

Art on the pasternoster and other ideas

Several big meetings over the last couple of days as we get back into the swing of the new academic year. Yesterday was the Process Improvement Steering Group, an important, high level body chaired by the VC which oversees the work of our PIU (Process Improvement Unit).  Lots of projects in various stages of progress - you can see a list of them here.  There's been good progress in the year that the unit has been set up, and the VC is holding a formal launch event later this week. The PIU uses a mixture of techniques, concentrating on LEAN, and it was interesting to hear about some work going on in our Management School using Six Sigma  which puts much more emphasis on data analysis.

Then it was our Service Strategy Board where we had our standard look at reports from all of our projects, and highlight reports from each of our service managers. Interesting discussion about resources, particularly as we introduce more and more new services, seemingly without stopping any. System and infrastructure support is becoming a real issue for us -  I'm sure every IT Director is facing the same issues. It doesn't help when things come out of "left field" at us - things that are apparently very important and have to be implemented, but they haven't come through any of our governance processes, and we have no resource allocated to them.

Today was PSE (Professional Service Executive), and we had a brilliant presentation from our new Student Sabbatical officers. Our aim is to work collaboratively with them to maintain the University's exceptional provision for students, and we have a good track record of an excellent working relationship with them.
They outlined their prioritues for the year to us, which fall under the following themes:

Well Being  - sport, links to health service, encouraging students to be active, helping women feel safe, safety abroad workshops, training for tutors on support for students

Community - volunteering, outreach, student engagement, getting women into STEM subjects through science outreach

Campus Life - promoting Reslife, integrating home and international students, public art on campus, (they suggested an art exhibition on the paternoster lift - inspired!), making rooms accessible for student societies, eliminating booking charges

Postgraduate research students - issues relating to contracts, continuation fees, pastoral care, allocation of teaching hours

Protecting international student rights - campaign against NHS fees, leveraging #weareinternational campaign, accommodation issues, welfare

Student Union - set up gumtree network accessible through MUSE for textbooks, household items, languages; implementing SU policies across University including living wage, funding education not war, bottled water ban

Student Voice - undertaking a one year research project using active critical engagement resulting in a long term strategic plan for the University written by students.

Great set of priorities, (especially the last one) - looking forward to working with them.

Processes, PSE and Peregrines

Service Strategy Board yesterday and first up was an update from our Process Improvement Unit (PIU) which was set up almost a year ago. A number of big projects have been undertaken, and some impressive improvements made to processes. Changing the way we deal with paying casual workers for example has led to work taking a day a month to an hour a month in some departments. There's a number of new projects on the way, and these are prioritised on the basis of the ease of the project, its likelihood of success, and its importance to the institution (bearing in mind the institution’s KPI’s).  The unit is also embarking on more training, both in using LEAN techniques, and awareness raising of what it means to be involved in a process improvement event. The latter is especially important for managers who need to be aware of what they and their staff are committing to.

Other key issues coming up from the service managers included MOOCs, technology-enhanced feedback, changes to research infrastructure, the new portal, exiting from our collaboration environment uSpace, and improvements to our network infrastructure. We are about to launch an open day mobile app, we're looking at mobile SAP apps, and piloting printing from mobiles, so lots of mobile developments. We're also looking at improving our service management reporting to include actions arising from incident reviews. A full agenda, and a productive meeting.

This afternoon we had a meeting of the Professional Service Executive - the Directors of all of the professional services. This also started with an update from PIU, and an interesting discussion which touched on the importance of system development in some areas of process improvement and how we prioritise this alongside our other work. We also discussed the planning process, our risk register and the University's new HR strategy currently being developed. We also got an update on the work of our Development, Alumni Relations and Events office. It's about friend raising as much as fund raising, showcasing what we do and building our reputation. Of course, fund raising is vitally important, both in supporting our students and in supporting our research.

Also today  -  important news - two of the peregrine chicks managed to exercise their wings enough to get to the top of the nest platform. They'll be flying in a couple of days I think!

There's a little story about them and a few more pictures over at the other blog.

Medicine, comms, waste and value!

Today was our departmental meeting - didn't start well as the coffee didn't arrive in time, and at 9.30am that's important! However, things soon got a lot better, and we had a great presentation from our PVC for Medicine, Dentistry and Health on the challenges facing a faculty so closely interlinked with the NHS. We also heard a lot about their strengths - in particular ScHARR - our centre for health related research which does much of the research into public health that you'll see reported in the national media. A very good overview of one of our most complex faculties.

We also had a presentation from our comms manager about how to find out what's happening in CiCS. We have our own  Google site - Just for CiCS where we gather together everything that people should need to know. The news is collected in two main sections - About Work and About People - as we include social news as well as work related. 

The news can be updated within minutes of a member of the comms team hearing about something, and we have a comms flow which includes automated tweets and facebook updates:

So, news is spread round the department first via J4C, then if it is relevant to the rest of the University to our news blog, and then if it's relevant to students, to our Facebook page. Finally, every month we send an email newsletter out to all staff and students which is a digest of the most relevant news for them.
I'm sure we don't get it right in all cases, but we'd be interested to have feedback and any suggestions for improvements.

Finally we had an overview from the Process Improvement Unit of two things that are very important to them and to all of us - Waste, which we need to get rid of, and Value, which we need to add!

Research SAG and Process improvements

This morning I went to our Research and Innovation Service Advisory Group. Made up of researchers from across the Faculties and from Professional Services research support areas,  it is one of  number of SAGs supporting our different service areas. The SAGs act as a channel for connecting our services and developments  with the relevant areas of the University, and they help us collect user requirements and agreement about services, service levels and priorities.

This morning we had a really productive discussion around service levels, response times and where different research services should sit in the critical, high, medium or low priority matrix. Very pleasing to see a group categorise services as mainly medium, no critical, and very few high. very realistic and helps us enormously. We discussed storage of research data at length, and what advice we should be giving researchers on where to store data - preferably not on a pile of hard drives on their desks, or a small server underneath it! The staff survey we did recently had some comments in about both research computing (which people are generally happy with), and some of the support systems, which many people aren't.  There's some work to do on either improving the user interface, or changing the way our costing system is used so that only experienced admin staff use it, not PIs who maybe use it infrequently and therefore find it difficult to use.

Yesterday I went to a presentation on a recent Rapid Improvement Event facilitated by our Process Improvement Unit, looking at the student "Change of Status" form.Now, that might not sound too exciting, but it's an important event for a student - withdrawing, changing course, taking leave of absence - a possibly life changing event. And to achieve this, it was taking up to 200 hours per form over 8 days - and the 8 days could be spread over several weeks. So, the process was not fit for purpose, the event identified where the waste was, and got rid of it. The process was pulled apart, and a new one built. That sounds easy, but it isn't. I was really pleased to see that the team was taking a pragmatic approach, looking at fixing the paper based process very quickly, with a fully digital, workflow based process to come later. If you wait for all of the system based things to be improved before you change anything, then nothing will happen. So, with no system enhancements at all just process improvements, they've reduced processing time by at least half, and seriously improved the experience for students.  Well done to all involved.

Photos and processes

As part of our drive to simplify and standardise processes to improve our services, we set up a Process Improvement Unit last year. Yesterday we had a Steering Group meeting, chaired by the VC, where we looked progress so far. Lots of things being worked on, including a number of student related things - change of status forms, fee waivers, UKBA issues and helpdesk referrals in the IC.  There's some quick wins we think we can get by improving the speed and efficiency of processes, which in turn will improve services and free up resources. There's also some big projects we need to work on, and one of the things to come out of many different discussions is the critical nature of course data in our student system. It is used by so many different processes, and has to be right. It's curated and input by a number of different areas, and it isn't always as accurate as it might be. So, historically we have found ways round it, but we can't continue to do so - this is something major that we have to put right. Lots of other exciting things to be worked on, including helping departments across the University to think about and improve their processes. We're hoping for a step change in culture!

Also yesterday we visited our colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health for a Strategic Liaison meeting, where one of the main topics of discussion was eLearning. On-line assessment, distance learning, ePortfolios, learning technology - all important topics for them, and we talked about how we could help. We also touched on MOOCs, but more of that in a couple of weeks.

And if you're wondering about the pictures in this post....

When we moved into our new building we were faced with a lot of blank corridor space, so we asked our staff  to submit photos which could be blown up. printed and displayed, and the first set has just gone up. The quality was excellent - please don't take the quality of these photos as indicative - I've just walked down the corridor with my iPhone :-)  Unfortunately some didn't have a high enough resolution to be blown up to the required size, but we'll be doing it again soon. And to avoid accusations of favouritism, these are just the ones nearest to my office! It's really brightened the place up, well done folks.

Transformation Through Technology

This afternoon I've been to a briefing from the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) on their Transformation Through Technology (T3) initiative.

Started with an introduction from the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve. He emphasised that there is no option but to save money by becoming more efficient. In order to make savings, we need to share resources and share common goals. They hope we can learn from their experiences.
Criminal Justice system has always relied heavily on paper, but that is changing rapidly. Lot of money spent on IT systems in last decade, but didn't always get proper return on investment, not enough joined up thinking between departments, and didn't get most out of the systems which were implemented. Now wanting to get good ROI, and achieve modern, paperless processes. Not easy. Hard to change working practices. Savings will ultimately be achieved by stopping moving paper and people. So as well as better digital processes, will make more use of video links, for example between prisons and courts. Most police forces now transferring information to CPS electronically. This is then transferred to magistrates court electronically. Lots of tablets have been bought so that cases can be heard totally electronically. CPS solicitors use them in court and can annotate and navigate through large case files. Most are finding it quicker and easier than using large paper case bundles. They also have a secure email in place. The efficiency programme has not involved major capital investment, but has used systems already in place.

Then we heard from Chief Exec of CPS, Peter Lewis. Up till a couple of years ago, CPS alone were using 1m pages of photocopying a day! To move that amount of paper is never going to be fast and responsive. Very traditional system. Hadn't embraced technology and change in the way some of the other parts of the public sector had. Had to make 30% savings. Have lost 2000 staff in last two years. Hadn't got enough people to work with that amount of paper, nor the buildings to organise and store it. Had to work differently. No choice.
Also were looking to make the system better and more responsive.

Looked at the IT system and basic infrastructure they had in place. Courts and police services were not fit for purpose. CPS had clunky, 10 yr old system. Also a cultural issue. People used to working on paper, had to fundamentally change how they worked. Biggest problem was the history of IT in CJS had been a series of disasters. Many millions of £s had been spent in a decade. People did not believe that you could be serious about changing the system through IT. Not enough that the CPS changed because it was such an integrated system with the courts and the police.

Decided to take new approach. Had to prove what could be done, change mindsets about what was achievable. Create confidence in IT. Also needed a basic level of connectivity in the system to start making immediate savings. And, needed to learn about what a digital future would be like, what was digital working going to be like.

Looked at what they could do by connecting the creaky systems together. Do as much as they could, and persuade colleagues in other areas to go with them. Had some brave people in courts and police who committed to work with them. Made bold steps to allow them to go forward. Create a sense of momentum, change is happening. Don't wait for perfection, do something now. Also create sense of inevitability. Next stage is mandation. Needs clear leadership.

Have made real progress in magistrates courts, a lot is now paperless. Now moving to crown court. But major achievement is having a shared vision. So, for example, CPS and court systems will be bought together, a common IT system for the CJS. There's a sense of ambition. Technology is part of the answer, not a cross they have to bear.

Then Jeff Thomas, Business Change and Delivery Manager for CPS. A personal story of what digital working means in the CPS. Started experimenting in 2009, before T3. Everything from police that can be electronic had to be. Master file is the digital one, not the paper one. That was a major change and was key. Connectivity in court is vital, for receiving emails and evidence. Something we take for granted, but no wireless in courts, so had to rely on 3G dongles.

When T3 came along, he reported to it. One of the key things he said was
as long as the paper file remains the master file, you are constrained by the framework of processes which support it. To move from enormous bundles of paper to a digital case file requires both a cultural change, and a different way of working. Mindsets have to be changed.

Going paperless hasn't saved the money from savings on paper and toner, it's the savings on people needed to handle and move it and space to store it.
Nationally 22.2m sheets of paper are produced by the CPS on guilty pleas, would stack as high as a mountain.

They use the HP tablet, the standard laptop which flips to become a touchscreen tablet. Demonstrated the electronic system and how easy it was to flick though the bundle, search and annotate it. Can highlight, scribble and put virtual post it notes on the bundle. Can also have lots of other stuff on your tablet for reference.

A few key points:
Digital working allows more flexible working.
Eliminate redundancy. Make systems and kit sweat for you
Standardise processes. But build in room for innovation.
Can't run two systems, paper and digital, side by side.
Don't digitise inefficient processes


Where to next, wish list:
Connectivity in the courtroom
Defence buy in
A truly electronic file
A shared platform across the CJS

Then the Ministry of Justice CIO spoke about things they were doing, many of them things we take for granted. Good, single network. Upgraded PCs. Managed print service. Joined up systems. Standardisation.

In the Q and A at the end, security was mentioned. Interesting. Going down to fewer security levels. The main challenge is classification of data and having a risk based approach to security which is standardised so no multiple copies are held. Started being nervous about it, but they were losing paper! Think they are more secure now than before. Be adult about it. Digital media is more recoverable if a lunatic burns the court down! Most of what they do is public. They share a lot of their information with criminals. :-) Need a balance. Treat really sensitive information securely, but don't apply same rules to everything.

Are looking at authenticity as an issue, but you can alter paper. Will need discovery tools because of amount of data being collected. The analogue age suggests you read everything. Can't be done now.

Looking at more modern tablets eg iPad and working out how to make them secure. But the HP ones were good enough at the time to get something working.

In summary, this was a very good case study which I found very interesting, hence the amount of notes I took! The room was packed with people from many different sectors, so the transformational story is obviously one that is in many people's minds.

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