Leadership Foundation

Supporting a student systems options review

Institution: Pre-92 university in Scotland

Project title: Supporting a student systems options review

The customer

The executive of this Scottish research-intensive university commissioned the Leadership Foundation having decided that it would benefit from independent advice around retention or replacement of a student management information system.

Background

The university had engaged in a programme of major investment to renew its core corporate (e.g. finance, human resources) and mission (student) systems through the deployment of an enterprise resource planning solution.

However, the vendor announced they would no longer support their existing student system product and proposed that the university become an early adopter of a new solution. This was presented as a modern, fourth generation student system with a number of functional advantages over the legacy product. It was also being offered on what seemed to be attractive commercial terms. However, it was as yet untested in the UK marketplace and had not been localised for UK higher education (such as UCAS and HESA interfaces). The risks were substantial and reflected the three dimensions of all projects and programmes: time, cost and quality.

The choices open to the university were to retain the present legacy system, go back to the market, or proceed with the vendors replacement system in some form. All options represented a trade-off on one or another of the time/cost/quality issues.

The project

The university executive commissioned advice from the Leadership Foundation, which encompassed;

1. A focused review of the planned process of decision-making and evaluation to the intended point of recommendation to the university’s governing body – to include criteria, evidence base, involvement of relevant decision makers and experts, use of benchmarks, market intelligence and the underlying decision tree from which the recommendation would flow.
2. A supplier-agnostic view on the commercial terms proposed by the vendor in the context of the University’s prior investment and the proposal that it be an early adopter – to inform the university’s commercial options analysis.
3. Independent review of key reports and papers being submitted to the relevant executive and governance bodies.
4. Adjunct membership of the relevant executive body overseeing the review process for the duration of the support.
5. Ad hoc support as required or on specific issues where an independent view or opinion would be valued by the university. 

Impact

All input was provided in the spirit of constructive support designed to add value and confidence to the review process that would be led by the university at all times. As a result the university arrived at a decision confident that it had taken into account all material factors and risks.

Contact Andy Shenstone, Director of Consultancy to find out more.