Closure Report
Project Summary
The framework delivered by this project will enable us to monitor our collective readiness for start of term and *does not* replace the very good work already being done within the ISG Divisions and across the University on start of term activities. The project will leverage and build on on the service based work already done including the excellent start of Term Major incident report that User Services Division put together last year.
This outputs from this project will include:
- Business context for 2017/18 start of term in particular any changes in student numbers, business processes, people or systems which may impact on risk
- Confirmation and visibility of the staff responsible for start of term readiness in each ISG Division
- Visibility of the projects delivering services needed for the start of term, their delivery RAG status
- Risk and dependency management at portfolio level for all ISG projects needed for the start of term
- Visibility of the IT and Library Business Services needed for the start of term (based on the Service Catalogue) and their readiness RAG status
- Visibility of the people needed to deliver support services over the start of term period, including out of hours support, and their readiness RAG status
- Processes for reviewing readiness of services, projects and people at least fortnightly during the period June to October 2017
- Ensuring clarity and effectiveness of the change management process focusing on the rules, process and details of the change control period before and during Start of Term
- Ensuring measurement and reporting of Start of Term KPIs with a comparison against the equivalent data for last year. these KPIs will include:
- number of outages
- overall student facing systems availability over the Start of Term period
- usage stats
- change requests requested and approved during the change control period. All these should be compared against last year's data.
This project is starting in June 2017 and will cover all the period from the start of teaching in July (some areas only), the formal start of the academic year on 1st August, International Arrivals Weekend 9-10 September, Welcome Week starting 11th September, Teaching Week 1 starting 19th September and Teaching Week 2 starting 26th September.
This project will provide an invaluable framework for ensuring a successful start of term as well as values information and lessons learned for future years.
Objectives & Deliverables
Deliverables below are focused on monitoring the overall readiness and confidence for the start of session 2017/18.
| No. |
Description |
Status |
| O1 |
To reduce disruption to services as far as possible and to ensure that impact on users is minimised. |
Achieved |
| D1 |
Business context for 2017/18 start of semester 1 in particular any changes in student numbers, business processes, people or systems which may impact on risk. |
Achieved |
| D2 |
Confirmation and visibility of the staff responsible for start of semester 1 readiness in each ISG Division, and staff people needed to deliver support services over the start of term period; this includes out of hours support, and readiness RAG status. |
Achieved |
| D3 |
Visibility of planned changes to existing services from Change Management, and from projects in progress with their delivery RAG status. |
Achieved via link with CAB |
| D4 |
Visibility of planned new services required by start of semester 1 delivered by projects in progress and their delivery RAG status. |
Achieved |
| D5 |
Risk and dependency management at portfolio level for all ISG projects needed for the start of semester 1. |
Achieved |
| D6 |
Visibility of the IT and Library Business Services needed for the start of semester 1 (based on the Service Catalogue) and their readiness RAG status. |
Achieved |
| D7 |
A single site providing an overview of projects, services, teams, and RAG statuses; this site should be accessible by anyone in IS to assess the position of the start of semester readiness; This will help establish the status of deliverables D2, D3, D4, D6. |
Achieved |
| D8 |
Processes for reviewing readiness of services, projects and people at least fortnightly during the period June to October 2017. |
Achieved |
| D9 |
Ensuring clarity and effectiveness of the change management process focusing on the rules, process and details of the change control period before and during Start of Semester 1. |
Achieved via link with CAB |
| D10 |
Ensuring measurement and reporting of Start of Semester KPIs with a comparison against the equivalent data for last year. these KPIs will include:
|
Achieved |
Benefits
Improved visibility across ISG and the University promoting awareness of service changes and improvements.
Improved data on impact of previous and planned changes to assist making better decisions during the start of term period.
Improved student experience.
Reduction to cost in ISG staff time resolving incidents resulting from service changes.
Reduction in costs to IS and the University of managing Major Incidents.
Success Criteria
Supporting the start of semester 1 with improved overall visibility of:
- readiness of services and any expected issues.
- staff resources required to support start of term activities and services, and their availability.
Analysis of Resource Usage
Staff Usage Estimate: 40 days
Staff Usage Actual: 23 days
Staff Usage Variance: 42 % underspent
Other Resource Estimate: 30 days
Other Resource Actual: 35 days
Other Resource Variance: 16 % overspend
Outcome
Explanation for variance
IS Applications actual effort was lower than had been estimated for the following reasons:
- The project was able to make use of a significant amount of effort from a Project Services student intern to assist with project management activity; this effort was recorded but was not chargeable to the project - if it had been charged then the variance would have been much less.
- The Project Sponsor was highly engaged with the project and took a high level of responsibility for communications especially with SMT; again this took some load off the PM effort.
Key Learning Points
Outstanding Issues
None.