Closure Report
Project Summary
The Development and Alumni and Careers business areas jointly decided that a Student Alumni Platform is needed to connect students, alumni and others within an exclusive online community, providing a secure space for careers advice, mentoring, networking and communication.
This project is the follow-on to USG005, which evaluated and procured a solution for the Student Alumni Community Networking Platform. With the selection/procurement complete, and the purchase and proposed adoption of a networking platform finalised, this project oversaw all the elements of the deployment of the chosen product into Live and covered the variety of management perspectives that were interested in the deployment of the platform and its gradual adoption by the variety of audiences that it is designed for.
The platform was launched in a limited way to specific groups at the beginning of July. Currently more than 1550 people signed up. Overall initial impressions are positive with excellent feedback on the manner, tone and content of internal communications. Roll out is being actively managed to maintain steady, purposeful growth.
Platform One is available from: https://www.edinburgh.aluminate.net/
Objectives & Deliverables
Priority – M = Must Have; S = Should Have; C = Could Have; W = Won't Have
- M = has to be satisfied for the final solution to be acceptable in terms of delivery dates, compliance, viability etc.
- S = high-priority requirement that should be included if possible -workarounds may be available
- C = a nice-to-have requirement
- W = will not be part of this project
O = Objective D = Deliverable
| Ref. | Objectives & Deliverables | Priority | Achieved? |
| O1 | Establish deployment requirements & site customisation requests | ||
| D1 | Documentation covering site requirements and design | M | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| O2 | Implement and make available Beta site for testing | ||
| D2 | Beta site based on UoE design and requirements | M | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| D3 | Testing results and feedback from Beta site | M | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| O3 | Implement and make available (for checking/testing) Live site (final BETA) ahead of Go Live | ||
| D4 | Confirmation that Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality is working as expected | M | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| D5 | Feed of relevant and approved user data from UoE to vendor | M | N/A - data moving at the point single sign on. No interfaces were developed. Some student and alumni data is being shared securely with the supplier. This is accessed by D&A through existing mechanisms via the BI suite on an ad hoc basis. Relevant sign offs are in place. |
| D6 | Live site based on UoE design and requirements | M | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| O4 | Deploy UoE site to Live | ||
| D7 | Live site available to selected UoE audience | M | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| D8 | Communications to invited audience of users | M | Yes (Business Project Team) |
| O5 | Monitor deployment and initial usage of platform | ||
| D9 | Report covering deployment of platform and recommendations for future management | S | Yes - There is ongoing monitoring through the platform itself KPI and User Metrics |
| O6 | Plan the identification of likely benefits and map how these will be managed | ||
| D10 | Documentation covering the benefits to be identified and tracked | S | Yes - (Business Project Team) |
Scope
| No. | Description | Project stayed within scope? (Yes/No); Reason if not |
| 1 | Establishing our site requirements with the vendor | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 2 | Finalising the initial configuration for the UoE site | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 3 | Agreeing our site design specifications with the vendor | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 4 | Reaching an agreement on data feeds (source, content and mechanism) | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 5 | Setting up a beta/test site and reviewing and testing this initial build of the UoE site | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 6 | Refining the configuration of our beta site after testing | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 7 | Testing of the data transfer and import procedures | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 8 | Finalisation of the Live site and any associated documentation | Yes (with Vendor and Business Project Team) |
| 9 | Final pre-launch checking of the Live site | Yes (Business Project Team) |
| 10 | Deployment / launch of the Live site to selected audiences | Yes (Business Project Team) |
| 11 | Preparations for the required launch messages and lists will be carried out alongside the preparatory tasks listed above the project team (particularly in Careers and Development & Alumni) will also continue their groundwork on getting promotional/introductory material ready and identifying the various audiences for the platform and a schedule of communications for the timeline along which the different groups will gradually join the online community that the new platform will cultivate | Yes - It has been a soft launch to select groups of audiences, and this approach will be continued in order to sustain steady growth. |
| 12 | Once the platform has been launched, the project team will be involved in the monitoring of the launch and managing feedback from audiences/users. It is also planned that the benefits expected will be measured as part of the ongoing management of the platform. | Yes - benefits identified and plan for monitoring in place (see Benefits section below) |
Benefits
The principal benefits to be gained through the launch of the new platform are a stronger and more supportive University of Edinburgh community, and the ability for members of this community to connect in meaningful ways with each other. These can only be realised well beyond the initial soft launch phase and are expected to lead to further benefits, including:
| No. | Description | Achieved? |
| 1 |
Enable students to be connected with alumni who have undertaken a similar course, to be able to ask them questions and understand the opportunities available to them, thus increasing the employability of students and increasing student satisfaction |
Expected to be realised in time |
| 2 | Enable alumni to give a valued contribution of supporting students through discussion and advice | Expected to be realised in time |
| 3 |
Support the strategic plan target of increasing income through better engagement with alumni |
Expected to be realised in time |
The Business will be working at this over a period of years. The Business's efforts for the foreseeable future will be focused on building a sense of active community among existing participants and building the size and diversity of the community through adding interesting and engaging cohorts of people eager to make use of this new facility for connecting and supporting.
They will be monitored as follows:
|
Benefit |
Measure |
|
Total number of users and rate of growth Diversity of users and uses
|
|
Individual feedback from users Number of One to One interactions
|
The following feedback was provided by the Business Project Manager:
"At this stage it is meaningless to set specific targets in relation to these measures, but the overall approach will aim for slow and steady growth and place emphasis on the individual experience and personal feedback of users. For a summary of Benefits and the way they have evolved through this project please see the document Benfits.docx (attached to the bottom of this report)".
Success Criteria
| No. | Description | Achieved? |
| 1 | Achievement of the main objectives will determine the success, or otherwise, of the technical element of this project | Yes |
| 2 | Success, in the longer term, will be ascertained by the realisation of the benefits that are identified, and the achievement of any targets that are established by our business partners | Yes |
Analysis of Resource Usage:
Staff Usage Estimate: 34 days
Staff Usage Actual: 26 days
Staff Usage Variance: -23%
Explanation for variance
N/A
Key Learning Points
| Ref | Feedback From the Partner |
| 1 | It was questioned why this was this a full blown project by IS when they were originally only a stakeholder? The role of IS was originally to support the Business Project Team to implement the system, specifically around set up of single sign on authentication and ongoing EASE support. The eventual works carried out are believed by IS to have justified the project approach. |
| 2 | The Business felt that during initiation / when they were first spoken to by IS, in making this a Project, that there was an inflexibility to the approach and feel that a 'light touch' method would have been more beneficial, especially in light of the fact that they had their own Project Team already in place. |
| 3 | It was also felt within the Business Team that some of the IS input on this project was overbearing in system and structure and at times appeared more convoluted than necessary given their actual situation. Please note that this feedback is not made against any individual, in fact the Business was complementary to all of the Project Managers / IS Project Team Members they had worked with and appreciated their individual understanding and approach. However as an overall result, the Business felt that the relative proportion of time and effort spent on internal processes rather than adding value to the Business itself was quite high and it was difficult to monitor IS staff activity effectively. For example, maintaining project information on IS administration systems had little relevance beyond IS. It is noted that there was effort and involvement on single sign-on work; student systems and the protocol for this; initial work on system support with the IS Helpline and IS Production team, and setting up test accounts for the vendors |
| 4 | Two changes of IS project staff resulted in loss of continuity, momentum and time at crucial points. For example, IS Helpline are supporting this web based application with any EASE login issues and ended up diverting themselves and making suggestions about issues outwith their remit at a late stage. If there had been greater IS Project Management continuity this could have been avoided |
| 5 | One lesson relates to managing expectations in relation to the frequency of board meetings, as some board members felt removed from it. The Board approach was intended to be on a needs basis rather than a uniform, calendared occurrence. While a few Board members regularly attended, on the whole attendance was poor and it was understood that the Board Members would make themselves available when / if required. The Board signed off all key decisions and were particularly useful during the project initiation |
| 6 | It was commented that there had been no wider Closure meeting when the previous Project USG005 had been closed |
| 7 | The Business recognised that early engagement of all Project Team members / area would have been beneficial |
| 8 | It was felt that both the Vendor and IS Teams had been rather "methodical / functional" in their approach to the project and that a little more end User / Customer experience focus would have been beneficial |
| 9 | The Project was so deadline focused that not enough contingency had been allowed / factored in. This resulted in slippage against original timeframes |
| 10 | The Business would have benefited from Vendor impact assessment for planning potentially in future |
One other item was brought to light for information, though it was accepted that this was outside of the remit of the project, but worth noting / recording because of the potential poor User experience that certain users receive for future reference / consideration:
The current authentication system, where staff have a completely separate EASE login from applicants, students and alumni, is difficult to work with and not user friendly in an increasingly integrated digital environment. The poor user experience is a general frustration in relation to many university systems, but is acutely experienced in the case of Platform One, which aspires to bring together the different dimensions of our engagement with the university. It has been raised at each stage, from before project inception through to live, where we are seeing the impact on our users. During the ‘soft launch’ phase issues have been encountered with the single sign process for alumni, students and staff. Alumni who are also staff are inadvertently creating additional profiles by virtue of having two EASE accounts. Alumni who graduated prior to the implementation of EASE and have never used it, need to first register for EASE before they can join the Platform. This may in fact be a less user-friendly process than registering as a Friend and may hinder efforts to recruit significant numbers of alumni from that demographic group. Staff who join the Platform and later leave our employment should have the option of remaining on the Platform, as engaged members of our community. They will not however be able to use EASE and instead will have to re-join as a Friend with a brand new profile. As part of the assessment of the soft launch, we may want to review the user experience of the sign-on process across the range of user-types to determine whether there is a case for change.
Update 28/08/2018: This feedback has been passed to the relevant authorities in IS for consideration and can / will feed into potential changes to the IDM and then consequentially to the authentication and authorisation services.
| Partner Ref | IS Key Learning Point |
| 2 | This was a first undertaking from IS of working with an external Project Manager and going forwards there needs to be a learning about conducting / working with a Business area in that manner, particularly in communication and engagement. |
| 4 / 5 | There is a learning on the management of Boards and any transition / handover of Project Managers. It is unfortunate that circumstance dictated that transition was required and the Board departed from best practice. This would have been better managed through discussion / clear communication, rather than being allowed to drift. |
| 8 | An appropriate balance needed to be clearly decided and agreed between Business and IS to manage scope / who is responsible for which parts and in particular to any addition, or in this case decrease / removal of the scope itself. |
| N/A | IS have picked up usability of application of SSO / EASE based solution for external communities. |
Outstanding Issues
The Business Project Team should be given a specific contact within the Helpline team to liaise with regarding updates affecting the platform.
Update 31/08/2018: A contact name within the Helpline has now been provided to the Business.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Benefits.docx | 22.19 KB |