Learning Development and Innovation's blog

“People build something that works, the circumstances change and they are so busy tinkering that they cannot see that a much better idea would be to build a whole new system to deal with the new circumstances.” Terry Pratchett

I quite like this quote, not just because it is pointing out what we often think of as the obvious but often forget in our own day to day management, but also because as an author Terry Pratchett is a great reflector of the ridiculous nature of society. In the quote they are talking about business practices, which then moves on to thinking about how that can also fit countries. As a higher education institution we are often faced with changing situations, from external factors such as government policy or internally, from the changing nature of student expectations. The problem is, how can we manage change, how can change be made better and how can we keep an eye on the changes needed? One of the main approaches used by Enable has been P3M3 using Enterprise Architecture (EA) as its main tool, modelling above and beyond process mapping (check out this useful post by JISC http://emergingpractices.jiscinvolve.org/wp/doing-ea-workshop/).

Enable has been running for over three years, it started off with a focus on two areas – supporting staff engaged in innovation, helping join together different initiatives that impacted on each other and helping engage stakeholders in changes happening. The other area was investigating and advising on how the University can support innovation within Curriculum Design and Development. Rather interestingly the project focus became split by my maternity leave, before I focused heavily on promoting supporting initiatives, using P3M3 to encouraging communication, spreading the word about different initiatives taking place in the University and encouraging senior management in focusing on Programme Management and Change Management not just Project Management, with examples of benefits from EA. Since returning from maternity the focus has been more ground level in supporting innovation within Curriculum Design and Development, but still using the EA models. This noticeable change is a reflection on the changes in the University senior and executive management and the drop off in new innovations, it is clear that this has only just started to settle with more engagement with new projects that are starting and the advertising of a Head of Change Management/Project Management for the institution.

As the LDI, and as Enable, I am always happy to share my experiences of dealing with JISC, Change Management, and general project management with others in the University. Unfortunately I’m not sure people always know we are (I am) here to help. This was particularly highlighted with two recent conversations around change and project management – one meeting I organised, the other was organised by a member of staff who had been passed my name by a member of IS. In both conversations there was a recognition that a) we needed to meet often to share ideas and thoughts and to keep up to date with different areas of the business and b) that the person wished they knew we were here months ago. I just hope that we can continue to spread the word and support the institution in managing innovation and change.

Yesterday 4 members, Helen, Ray, Ben and Sue KB, of LDI attended the University’s Green Impact Awards. It was great to have double the number of LDI attendees from last year and shows how interest has grown in the initiative – thank you Ben and Ray for your involvement and contributions to Green Impact. The event was a fairly relaxed but ‘formal’ affair beginning with afternoon tea (which you can see from the photos was pretty impressive) before moving onto the Bronze, Silver then Gold and individual project awards.

This year saw a couple of new departments coming on board and gaining their Bronze award but, having gained Bronze last year, LDI were excitedly anticipating a Silver and, I’m very pleased to report, our efforts were rewarded (see Ben sporting our new trophy – not sure if he’s most pleased about the trophy or the cake!). The new trophy and this year’s certificates will be displayed at the Stoke office. The trophy is made from reclaimed Welsh slate and is really rather nice – have a feel of i t when you’re up that way – but don’t drop it!

There were a couple of interesting individual project awards for innovation and energy saving – the innovation project involved paying £2 to put a decoration on a Christmas tree (rather than buying cards for all colleagues) with the money going to charity and the energy project concerned a proposal to fit a vendor miser (see http://www.europaymentsystems.co.uk/vendingmiser/index.html) to University vending machines.

Green Impact 2012/2013 will start up again in October, however, we need to keep up the good things we’re doing in the meantime. To learn more about the University’s green efforts book onto one of the Environmental Awareness sessions in May/June or during the Staff Fest:

31st May 10:15 to 12:00 LT011, Ashley, Stoke

7th June 10:15 to 12:00 K152, Octagon, Stafford

26 June 10 to 11 C346, Beacon, Stafford

3rd July 2 to 3 D104, Cadman, Stoke

New publication for employability from the HEA:

Pedagogy for employability update 2012 pdf

“The USEM model featured in the previous edition, was “an attempt to put thinking about employability on a more scientific basis, partly because of the need to appeal to academic staff on their own terms by referring to research evidence and theory” (Yorke and Knight 2004, p37). It recommended that academics might take the four key components of it and ask to what extent each was being developed, in order to form a generic analysis of the curriculum and/or a curricular component:

• Understanding (of disciplinary material and, more generally, of ‘how the world works’);
• Skilful practices in context (whether the practices are discipline-related or more generic);
• Efficacy beliefs (under which are subsumed a range of personal qualities and attributes);
• Metacognition (including the capacity for reflection, and that of self-regulation)”. (page 23)