Drivers

 

We used the Toolkit at an institutional level to reflect on our Information Strategy, with particular focus on the Governance, Services and Communications dimensions.

 

However, as part of the process we also looked at the whole of the toolkit, as we recognised there may well be areas of weakness that we weren't currently aware of.

 

Approach

 

It proved valuable to complete the questionnaires face-to-face, as the dialogue around certain questions has often been as valuable as the answers themselves.

 

Four guided interviews with managers with senior IT responsibility were undertaken.

 

Findings

 

The range of overall scores from our respondents was between 27 and 34, meaning that all respondents saw us in the "Operational" area of the maturity model.

 

However, the scores for 3 of the 4 respondents in the area of Enterprise Architecture was very low (in 2 cases this area scored zero as the respondents had no knowledge of it). If this area were not included, then two of the scores would have been in the "Strategic" area.

 

Communications and Engagement and Leadership were rated most highly out of the 6 areas, with Governance third. Enterprise Architecture and Shared Services were rated lowest on average.

 

From the comments made, generally people at the institution feel that Communications and Governance are actually two of our weaker areas. Hence there appeared to be a disparity between the toolkit results and actual perceptions. Possible reasons for this could be:

 

• The toolkit is identifying that we're actually better at some areas (and worse at others) than we think we are
• The perceptions of the people completing the questionnaire may contribute to the disparity in results. E.g. Operational communications could be very good and thus an institution may score highly in this area. However, communications with senior levels might be poor, meaning that the perception at senior levels is that communications may be poorer than they actually are overall
• The toolkit isn't measuring the right things in some areas
• A combination of the above

 

Generally respondents noted that devolved services existed and it was difficult to tell whether these were strategically aligned - it was agreed that further analysis of this area would be helpful.

 

Overall the field testing produced some interesting results which we are keen to examine to find areas of weakness and identify potential improvements that we can make. The nature of our field testing has elicited a wealth of comments which should be very helpful in our analysis.

 

The governance structure and framework for managing information strategy at the University should be changed to improve clarity in responsibilities, prioritisation, funding and project management. Specifically:

 

• The University Strategic Information Projects Implementation Group (SIPIG) should take fewer reports when it meets, to allow for more concise, focussed meetings
• The reports SIPIG accepts should be in a different format which focuses on the strategic positioning of a project, the project outcomes and a highlight report of project progress
• The positioning and responsibilities of other strategy bodies (Information Strategy Group, Information Strategy Executive) will be updated and publicised online to clarify this for staff
• Devolved ICT investment should be reviewed against strategic priorities

 

It has also been identified through this work that further communications about information strategy are needed. Specific ideas are:

 

• A further Information Strategy Update flyer for all staff and students, noting overall progress against the strategy 2010/11
• Extension of the Information Strategy website with links and information on all strategic projects
• A more concise summary document of the Information Strategy
• Consideration of the use of Information Workplans for marketing or to give visibility to planned work

 

It is proposed that a member of University staff should attend some Enterprise Architecture events and report back to the Information SMT to see if this should be explored further and that the University should continue to review the balance of departmental and central IT spending, to make sure IT is being delivered in the most appropriate way.

 

These outcomes are not particularly controversial, but are helpful to us in planning our focus on improving our approach to strategy in the next 6-12 months.

 

Lessons learned

 

The interviews have been in-depth (each interview has lasted between one and two hours), so although this method produces fewer overall questionnaires in comparison to an email campaign (for example), it has produced a wide range of comments from each respondent, which have been recorded and will contribute to our analysis.

 

In our case the majority of the results of the analysis has been conducted by the project manager. He has then worked through the toolkit and developed the recommendations working with our CIO, which are then to be reviewed by our Strategy Group. This is potentially a weakness in the process - as regardless of how many questionnaires were completed there will be an element of bias in the analysis if the responses are analysed and interpreted by one person.

 

However, this is always going to be a limitation of the process, because:

 

• Analysing/interpreting results by committee is not straightforward, and the documentation of the toolkit is (by necessity) quite comprehensive, so it lends itself more easily to be interpreted by one person
• The results have to be interpreted by somebody that has both some knowledge of the area and the context at a particular institution

 

The fact that the toolkit is an externally provided/tested framework was helpful because:

 

• It helped us to get engagement from managers with the project
• It made the process more impartial. In some cases, those interviewed were quite passionate or critical of certain areas. Using an external framework to approach these topics made this much simpler for the staff involved

 

Overall, we feel that having a toolkit for ICT Strategy, even with some limitations, has been helpful to us and we are actively reviewing similar toolkits provided in other areas.