{"id":741,"date":"2019-12-20T09:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T09:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/?p=741"},"modified":"2020-01-07T21:42:57","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T21:42:57","slug":"oneweb-wrapping-up-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/blog\/digitalteam\/2019\/12\/20\/oneweb-wrapping-up-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"OneWeb: wrapping up 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re saying goodbye to 2019. And what a year it has been! We got our financial approvals, started delivering, assembled teams and, perhaps most importantly, brought greater clarity to what our programme is here to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So much has happened in just 8 months (we officially formed on April 1st, and this was not a joke 😂) so I wanted to talk candidly about the work we\u2019ve delivered, what was challenging and not so shiny, as well as all the good bits we\u2019ve celebrated that are worth sharing publicly. Here\u2019s five of them:<\/span><\/p>\n

Change programmes are short-lived, intensive things<\/h3>\n

For any of you who might be thinking, \u201cgreat, we got our funding, and we can start\u201d, all I\u2019ll say is that everything is <\/span>always <\/span><\/i>a lot harder, tougher and messier, because change is inherently hard to implement. This is especially true if your organisation is large, complex, has internal processes that are not fit for the Internet-era, and your programme has a fixed amount of time to make a true difference (before stakeholders lose interest). One important thing we have learned this year is that we <\/span>can <\/span><\/i>create a safe environment in which those conditions will flourish in the face of such challenges.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Diligent prioritisation is essential in delivering value for users and stakeholders alike, and we constantly need to evaluate (and reevaluate) the scope to ensure that our implementation is achieving this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not an easy thing to do. Especially if your teams are dispersed across locations and many of them are new, getting used to the University as well as each other.\u00a0 So although things are not perfect (when are they ever?) we managed, for example, to embed Product roles as part of our work. This has enabled us to represent the University\u2019s interests, the needs of the user, and prioritise these needs to project teams. This means that our work can give better return on investment to the University, leading to better quality products to the user. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bringing digital services around user needs is a thing\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You know you\u2019ve made a real impact when, out of nowhere, you hear your own words spoken back to you in a meeting, or when you notice a valued colleague (that might have not always been on your side) using your own terminology about user needs, data or culture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have a lot of stuff to do for the next three years, and time is of the essence. We need to establish core services and assets for the University. And realistically, not everyone will buy into what we are trying to do, so we understand the need to challenge ourselves every now and again about what we are meant to do when things don\u2019t quite fit together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One conclusion is that not everything in life is meant to fit together nicely. Sometimes there could be something right in front of your eyes that is already working, and all you need to do is find a way to scale and repurpose it in a slightly different way than originally intended. We\u2019re finding examples as such in education-related work, designing end-to-end experiences, but also some great examples from enterprise and research discoveries. We have found that, often enough, the best way to progress is by identifying practices that already work in our organisation, finding out what is good about them and then working to amplify it. To give you a real-world example, we have seen exactly this with our approach to staff profiles (currently in Alpha) where we have focused on solving the user needs problems while also finding efficiencies around existing sources of the truth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n