December round up

Myself and the Assistant Directors went away for a couple of days last week. to look at two main items. First was an analysis of how we interact with our major stakeholders, whether we have it right, and what can we do to improve it. Before we went we did a survey of some of our senior stakeholders, and their responses were extremely useful. We got some very good feedback, and some that was more constructive :-) What was obvious were some big differences in different parts of the University. We used the following grid to map our stakeholders which plots how much power and influence people have, and how interested they are in our services. It was quite illuminating :-)

I'm not sure I agree with some of the labels, but it did show us where we were not engaging appropriately in some areas. So, we've come up with a plan which we are putting in place in the new year.

The other big discussion we had was about the future shape of the department, something that we've been looking at for a while. I use the phrase shape, rather than structure deliberately. We're looking at how we can improve our planning and architecture, the design and building of services, transitioning them then into delivery. I am keen to get it right rather than do it quickly, so a lot more discussion still to be had.

I also attended an open forum with the Vice Chancellor, other members of UEB and a selection of staff from across the institution. This was one of a series of workshops as part of the consultation on our strategic plan, and was about Our Strategic Partners. Some good presentation and lively discussion about what partnership meant, who we should partner with, and who we shouldn't.

Almost my final meeting was Senate Budget Committee (SBC) where I represent the Professional Services, and we had our annual meeting with the Vice Chancellor. SBC looks at the budgetary processes in the University, and we were discussing with the VC what its future role should be. SBC makes public all of its discussions, and has a webpage of very useful resources about University finances.

End of the week round up

The end of another week, with some spectacular rain last night - you can tell I'm going camping later today - the weather always changes!

This week I've had a couple of meetings of the Senate Budget Committee on which I represent the Professional Services. We've been talking to the PVCs of each Faculty about how they handle budget allocation to their departments. One of the aims of the SBC is to make budgets and financial matters more transparent and easier to understand to the rest of the University, and their web pages are being added to with more information to help with that.

Also this week I've been marking the student innovation submissions which I posted about earlier, and yesterday I had a Conference Organising Committee for the main UCISA Management Conference next March. So many things to do a long time in advance - the venues and the catering are already booked and at the moment we're working on the speakers. Trying to attract the highest calibre ones is important to attract a high number of delegates, and we've got some stunning speakers lined up already!

This morning was our regular weekly CAB (Change Advisory Board) where we look at all significant changes lined up for the next few weeks and ask the all important questions including my favourite - what if it all goes horribly wrong?

Summer of Student Innovation

Not had time to blog this week - sorry! So, what have I been doing? Well, one of the things was taking part in a webinar about the JISC Futures Forum which I'm a member of, and caught up on the progress of projects. The one I'm most excited about is the Student Innovation teams.

Branded as the  Summer of Student Innovation, we want to  put the power to enhance the university experience directly into the hands of teams of students, academics and experts across the UK.

Students who join the Summer of Innovation will get the chance to the chance to create real technology solutions, have the technology they create adopted by universities and join events where they can meet the other student teams as well as technical experts.
There's  £5000 per  student team on offer  to develop new technology that could improve education, research and university life. The teams will be selected through an open call for ideas, and after the projects have run, the technology developed by the teams will be embedded for a trial period in volunteer universities. Products that are successful in the trials will be provided to other interested parties through sustainable routes.  Lots more information about it here. Very exciting - hope it's a success.

Other things this week include Senate Budget Committee where we had a very productive and interesting discussion with the Vice-Chancellor about how funds are allocated in the institution. Senate Budget committee has put together a web site to try and demystify how finances are handled for those who are interested. Various other meetings and ad hoc catch ups took up the rest of the week. Oh, and a fairly major incident this morning.......