Project Name: Transform
Lead Institution: King's College London (KCL)
Project Lead: Lindsay Ould
See the full Transformations programme playlist
The Transform project aimed to address the barriers and exploit opportunities to deliver the relevant changes to move from storage of paper records and duplicated datasets to capturing records in their born-digital or digitised forms. Six key sets of records were studied:
- Student records
- Staff records
- Governance records
- Finance records
- Estates records
- Research Grants & Contracts records
JISC tools such as the Change Management Infokit and Impact Calculator and approaches such as Enterprise Architecture were explored to support this work. By the end of this 18 month project, an increased proportion of records was captured digitally in the majority of the records sets.
Background
Aims and objectives
The aim of the Transform project at King's College London was to make the management of college records and information more flexible, effective and efficient by:
- identifying the significant changes required to move away from hard copies, duplicated datasets and parallel systems
- supporting a strategic shift towards more digital methods of capturing, managing and archiving records
- optimising access to key business information
- saving space
The objective was to devise solutions and measures that would:
- enable a more integrated records management service
- help the College support students and staff by facilitating flexible working with 24/7 access to reliable, secure information
- equip the Information Management team with expertise to build practice around strategic ICT, particularly in support of Enterprise Architecture
- build capacity in partnership with others to help align the Information Management team’s skills with colleagues in technical and business areas
- improve joint understanding of challenges and foster a culture of multi-disciplinary working
Context
Transform built on previous JISC-supported work at King’s College London:
- In 2010 the Transforming Estates Records Management (TERM) project piloted the JISC Impact Calculator by investigating how management of estates records might be improved through the introduction of a shared file space, agreed file plan and the application of a de-duplication and records disposal strategy (http://issuu.com/jiscinfonet/docs/king-s-lessons-learnt-report-term---king-s-college)
- The pioneering use of the JISC Records Disposition Schedule tool in 2006, which identified ways in which digital records management could be enhanced, and more systematic approaches taken to long-term preservation (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/preservation/kings_final_report2.pdf)
The insight gained on both projects continues to inform management decision making and is embedded in the planning and development of new enterprise systems. The Transform project set out to build on this by finding where appetite for change existed, where change was already in progress, and how the Information Management team could add value to the process and work with users to improve the chances of achieving change.
The business case
In recent years King’s College London has invested in aligning its technological and information infrastructure with its strategic aims. Although the Information Management team works closely with business departments, managing records efficiently throughout their lifecycle can be challenging. Challenges to managing hybrid files include:
- providing a service that caters for paper AND digital records is unsustainable
- some records are duplicated by printing to paper as well as retaining the digital copy
- users are unable to trust either the paper or the digital information which leads to local copies being retained
- information held outside business systems, for example in emails, is not linked to the digital record
The Information Management team can play an important role in understanding systems and recommending improved future functionality. Transform enabled the team to gather information about barriers to efficiency, to inform future work planning in support of a move from hybrid to digital systems.
Key drivers
Synergies between Transform and other College efficiency and change projects enabled the Information Management team to become involved in supporting wider organisational improvement initiatives, including:
- a planned pilot implementation of SharePoint, improving the management of committee records
- the Purchase to Pay project, creating a workflow for managing digital financial records
- the HEAR student record project, delivering enhanced digital student transcripts
External drivers included:
- increasing demands for information in searchable digital formats
- demonstrating transparent governance to stakeholders
- accurate external reporting to HEFCE and research funders
JISC resources/technology used
- The Action Learning Sets provided useful space for focused project work. Explaining our project to others crystallised our thoughts. Even though the projects in our cluster were all different, they shared a common change management mission and similar methodologies, such as designing meaningful consultation. The support of our critical friend was significant in providing a valuable external perspective and providing reassurance and validation to help us find the positives.
- King’s College London was an early adopter of Enterprise Architecture in 2008, when the Centre for e-Research (CeRch) piloted Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education. The project manager provided useful support in the initial phase of Transform. Two members of the Information Management team attended training on Enterprise Architecture and Archimate process mapping in 2012, and a JISC-moderated webinar in January 2013 further explored this holistic approach to business process re-engineering and provoked thought about the professionalization of process review (http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/ea/)
- The JISC Strategic ICT Toolkit (SICT) was used to inform discussions and build close working relationships with ICT colleagues (http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/strategic-ict-toolkit/)
- Lessons learned piloting the Impact Calculator on the TERM project (http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/case-studies/impact-calculator/kings) enabled it to be used more effectively on Transform, to demonstrate the savings achieved by streamlining the processes used to update student assessment records
- The importance of understanding organisational culture was an element of the Change Management Infokit that was extracted and used (http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-management/culture/organisational-cultures/). The Change Management workshop also provided a useful opportunity for networking with peers and exchanging experiences with others
- The Storytelling Techniques for Project Dissemination workshop helped greatly with planning the project video. It reminded us to focus on the actual changes and their impact on people's work as well as providing useful tips such as taking a simple approach and the effectiveness of using still images as a background to the commentary. (http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/products/workshops/event/ncl-mar13-epstory-r1/index.html).
- In addition to JISC resources, our approach adapted the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Data Asset Framework methodology (http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/repository-audit-and-assessment/data-asset-framework, http://www.data-audit.eu/DAF_Methodology.pdf), designed to help organisations identify, locate, describe and assess research data assets.
Outcomes
Four sets of outcomes were envisaged at the outset: The following provides a summary of our journey.
1. Analysis
A facilitated workshop in January 2012 enabled the Information Management team to focus on six key business areas: committees, students, staff, finance, estates and research grants and contracts. Baseline data was captured; the current situation summarised; and data flow mapped throughout the records lifecycle from creation to retention, deletion or archiving, resulting in ‘as is’ process maps. This identified who was accountable for overall records and their constituent parts.
Undertaking subsequent proactive consultation with record owners provided further opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of problems and needs. Gathering specific details yielded metrics for input into the Impact Calculator. Large amounts of information have been gathered that will feed into reviews of records management with the business areas.
2. Organisational workshops
Each member of the Information Management team was allocated responsibility for records in one of the six business areas at the start of the project and identified a champion to work with to identify opportunities for transformation. The subsequent analysis enabled us to explore active issues in these areas which offered greater opportunities to achieve our goals than our initial intention to set up a steering group. Halfway through the project, JISC funding was used to employ a part time dedicated member of staff to maintain the momentum.
3. Action Learning Sets
The Action Learning Set peer group planned an early face to face meeting which proved a successful strategy for establishing trusting relationships, further strengthened when peers met at associated events such as Enterprise Architecture training. Support was also provided through telephone conversations. Four online meetings were held between November 2011 and April 2012, which provided opportunities to learn how to use the Blackboard collaborative platform. Despite the availability of support, these online communications were sometimes slightly hindered by technical glitches such as when participants (especially those new to their projects and online collaboration) did not have functioning microphones.
During the course of the projects around half the project leads changed, which made it harder to build on previous work and offer each other effective feedback, difficulties that were exacerbated by the lack of eye contact and body language in the online Action Learning sets. Other successful online group collaborations included discussions of using the wiki and making the project audio/video description.
The Action Learning Set hosted by King’s College London in July 2012 enabled the original objectives of Transform to be reviewed and better refocused on what could be achieved (and what was beyond the scope of the project). The Action Learning set held at the University of Central Lancashire in January 2013 shaped our approach to user consultation by articulating a key question that helped users identify barriers: “what would it take for you to trust a digital record”? One common theme that emerged in Action Learning was that the initial aims of most projects tended to be over ambitious, and required subsequent simplification and modification.
4. Monitoring
Progress was monitored in the monthly Information Management team meetings, informed by the increased skills, knowledge and insight gained as a result of Transform. It became apparent that several different levels of evaluation criteria would be required for each key record set, depending on the stage of change in each business area.
Achievements
- Adapting the DCC's DAF methodology, designed for research data sets and applying it to records
- Planning the audit - deciding which key records sets to investigate
- Identifying and classifying assets - mapping the data flow and processes
- Assessing the management of assets - undertaking in depth consultation with record users
- Reporting findings and recommending change - the case study and video
- Raising the profile of Information Management and reinforcing the message about the key role it can play in managing cultural change
- Developing a wider range of key contacts through networking
- Increasing the percentage of records held digitally - for example we increased the percentage of committee records held digitally from 36% to 68% (see Appendix 1)
- Delivering an example of potential savings achievable using the Impact Calculator
- The project video, which will be a lasting legacy of project outcomes
Benefits
- The project enabled us to demonstrate our role as facilitators and brokers by creating opportunities to talk to records users about managing digital records. This raised awareness of the professional expertise Information Management can offer as proactive advisors rather than passive recipients. People engaged willingly where there was a common interest and there were real issues to discuss. For example, an increase in requests to retrieve paper finance records to evidence research project expenditure led to our role in analysing the problem and providing access to digitised invoices for research support staff
- Our understanding of business functions and inter-relationships deepened as a result of undertaking investigations in connection with Transform
- Instances of improvement and innovation led by staff in the business areas. One team had used advanced MS Excel functionality to improve assessment data entry, achieving savings in staff time demonstrated by the Impact Calculator to be worth £23,000 per year
- Useful methodologies were developed for undertaking consultation with records users, and measuring progress, which will be embedded in routine operations
- Transform enabled us to celebrate success and acknowledge good practice. An unexpected by-product of interviewing the Purchase to Pay Programme Manager for the project video was making footage unused in the Transform video available to Finance for their own communications and project dissemination purposes
Drawbacks
The limited nature of the funding only enabled part-time focus on the project, which proved challenging. The complex nature of change management requires the allocation of dedicated resources to allow more sustained work.
The ambitious nature of the project scope - looking at records management in six key business areas – led to some inconsistency. Whilst it was important to look at all six in the interests of facilitating comparison, the project was not able to instigate change in business areas that were not ready to engage. We were obliged to work within limitations dictated by the organisational culture and business needs, and seize opportunities where appetite for change existed. The demands of routine operations, and other conflicting priorities, meant that records users did not always share Transform’s sense of urgency.
Key lessons
- it is important not to underestimate the scale of the task involved in effecting cultural change
- Enterprise Architecture raised our awareness that change management is a long game
- it was hard to maintain momentum over eighteen months, but this timescale is necessary to show change
- a multi-disciplinary approach was essential in order to secure buy in from partners such as IT and key people in the business areas
- it was essential to stay focused on bringing about change, not just mapping it
- it was also important to keep things simple as it is easy to over complicate a project that involves intricate detail, complex concepts and multiple players
- information has to be tailored for presentation to different audiences
- the value of Information Management networking and building trusting relationships with people in the business areas
- the importance of Information Management’s role as translators, acting as a bridge between the technical and business perspectives, articulating issues and fostering improved communication
- the need for the Records Management service to be proactive to inform future service provision
Looking ahead
- Information Management will continue to work holistically in business areas, through networking and representation on project boards, to increase our understanding and insight of how records are used throughout the College
- The information gathered will inform future service provision, and Information Management will continue to work with colleagues in each business area to continue the transformation
- Ideally a Community of Practice could be developed to help with the challenge of continuing to apply Enterprise Architecture and Archimate skills
Sustainability
- Transform has built-in sustainability because the project was not done in isolation but closely aligned to our current practice and Records Management service provision. Rather than being a hypothetical exercise, Transform addressed real issues
- Issues raised during the project have fed into our work planning for the next academic year
- The Information Management team now routinely uses Enterprise Architecture approaches in information analysis
- Transform has helped to raise awareness of the need to develop Information Management skills and expertise within business teams, to include records management in job descriptions, and to offer more proactive training
- Information Management is in discussions with IT colleagues being trained in The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), a framework for Enterprise Architecture which provides a comprehensive approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing enterprise information. Information Management will be able to play a part in the strategic deployment of Enterprise Architecture, and embedding it in working practices
- The Transform project helped to raise awareness of what the Information Management team can offer, in helping the College deliver successful projects
- The information Management team will continue to build on the successful working relationships established as a result of Transform, continuing to use JISC resources and support
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