The project followed "Wagile" approach (combining waterfall and agile methodologies) to ensure smooth delivery within 8 months—a significant acceleration compared to the typical 24-month timeline.

Success Factors:

Through collaboration, creativity and connectivity the projects phase 1 was able to:

Fostering a 'Can-Do' Attitude:

• A culture of trust encouraged collaboration and support within the team.
• Significant effort went into integrating a diverse team with varied skills and perspectives.
• The supportive environment led to exceptional teamwork, where issues were addressed quickly. The motto was: "start small, learn, iterate and scale".
• Training initiatives included "Lunch and Learn" sessions and personalized one-to-one training for staff and academics.

Effective, Rapid Change Management:

• Rapid assessments identified areas for change, followed by implementation across four levels within the university.
• A "War Room" Hypercare approach was introduced to support the critical go-live stages, enabling day-to-day operations to run smoothly while creating a template for future launches. On hand support was separated from BAU IT support to avoid overloading an already stretched team at a very busy time of year.
• Stakeholder consultations informed effective solutions, with dedicated time for policy exploration, drafting, consultation, and negotiation.

Complex IT Integration:

• The project successfully integrated various platforms and legacy systems in a complex IT environment.
• Dedicated hypercare support was provided during the busy start-of-year period, ensuring users received effective training, education, and seamless integration of the software into University processes.

Stakeholder Engagement:

The project involved stakeholders at multiple levels to ensure effective decision-making, reduce resistance, and deliver valuable solutions.

1. Executive Stakeholder

• Weekly checkpoint calls and reports ensured key decisions were made promptly.

2. Operational Business Partners

• Regular communication with mid-level management (e.g., DOFOs, HOTLSEs) addressed operational needs and concerns through fortnightly "Implementation Updates" during the build and test phases.

3. Cross-Functional Teams

• Monthly Project Board meetings kept members informed and promoted collaboration across functions.

4. University Outreach

• Staff, students, and academics participated in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) drop-in sessions. A 'Townhall' session provided the wider university community with an opportunity to ask questions and stay informed.

Feedback captured from impacted colleagues is shown below:

"We needed a replacement for MyManchester, this is a replacement for MyManchester. Attendance monitoring is useful for pastoral reasons, not sure about its impacts on attendance without consequences."

"Looks straightforward to use and allows large group session attendance monitoring - this may encourage students to attend more."

"More broadly we have had students flagged to us that need to register with DASS, speak to CMH, etc. and have only known because of their attendance. It’s not perfect, but it is helping! I think getting students out of their individual mindsets is a great idea, a lot come back and complain that they’re okay but it’s worth all the complaints to help one student who is in serious need of support, and if we remind them of that they tend to accept it."