Bringing the Student Lifecycle and Student Experience projects together
08 Aug 2019
The Staff Survey 2019 has highlighted that we need to manage change more effectively. Bringing together the Student Lifecycle Project (SLP) and the Student Experience project under a single programme, will ensure that we integrate all aspects of these projects, to enable the changes to be successfully implemented.
The Student Lifecycle Project (SLP) Board agreed on Thursday, 1 August to bring our key student experience projects together as a single Student Experience Programme, which will include:
- The Student Lifecycle Project - delivering business process and IT system change, to improve how we manage all student processes.
- The Student Experience Project – designing and delivering new structures for the Directorate for the Student Experience, Faculties and Schools, to underpin the new technology and processes (from SLP) and realise the benefits for students and staff.
- The MyManchester Project – delivering a new digital platform for our students.
As part of this alignment, there will be some changes to the timeline of further deliverables from the Student Lifecycle Project.
- The delivery of Campus Solutions 9.2 technology for applications and admissions will continue as planned in October 2019. However, in order to make the transition more manageable and to ensure that the right structures are in place to support the new processes and that staff are fully trained, the system will now come into full use for staff in October 2020.
- The subsequent phased Campus Solutions release, which is more complex, is planned to be fully implemented by the summer of 2021.
Although this new approach means that we are not bringing the technology into use as soon as we had originally planned, we recognise that this is a large-scale change programme with many complex and interdependent parts. University senior leaders have listened to feedback from the Staff Survey 2019 about the need to better manage change. This phased approach over an extended time period will enable the programme to engage academic and PS colleagues to design, deliver, and realise the full benefits for our students and staff.
Whilst some colleagues may feel frustrated by this extended period of implementation, University senior leaders feel strongly that this reduces the risks associated with going live too soon, and will enable better engagement with all colleagues directly and indirectly impacted.
Across our University, we have only one chance to deliver this programme of change successfully and need to do so in the best way possible, for all involved. This approach will enable us to do that.