WST Summer School 2021: Sessions and resources
This year’s Work Smarter Together Summer School took place on 13th, 14th and 15th July 2021. We were delighted to welcome so many of our colleagues to the 15 sessions.
You’ll find links to resources for many of the sessions below and in the descriptions section following the table.
| Day 1: Tuesday 13th July 2021 | ||
| Session 1.A: | 10:00 – 12:20 | Yellow Belt training part 1 of 2 |
| Session 2.B: | 9.00-13.00 | DO: Change Management part 2 of 2 (Part 1 takes place on Wed 7th July) |
| Session 3: | 10.00-11.00 | DO Lean: Think Lean |
| Session 4: | 11.00-12.30 | Orientation 2021: How do we welcome students we’ve already welcomed?
Resources: Presentation; Orientation Timetable Creation Guide; Orientation Key Dates; Workshop outputs |
| Session 5: | 12.00-13.00 | DO: Online events
Resources: DO Online Events Checklist for planning your events. |
| Session 6: | 14.00-15.00 | Anyone can excel
Resources : Anyone Can Excel Tutorials |
| Day 2: Wednesday 14th July 2021 | ||
| Session 7: | 10.00-11.00 | DO Lean: Defining Success
Resources: Agile guide to – Using a CTQ-Tree |
| Session 8: | 11.00-12.00 | DO: Planning and tracking: Planning
Resources: This DO: Planning and Tracking: Planning document contains an outline of the workshop process for use with your own team. |
| Session 9: | 12.00-13.00 | Transform your digital office experience with Google Workspace
Resources: A copy of the presentation – Transform your Digital Office with Google Workspace. |
| Session 10: | 13.00-13.30 | Bring your own biscuits |
| Session 11: | 14.00-15.00 | DO Lean: Process mapping
Resources: Agile Guide to – Using a SIPOC ; Agile Guide to Process Mapping; Agile guide to – Running a Process Mapping Workshop |
| Day 3: Thursday 15th July 2021 | ||
| Session 1.B: | 9.30-12.30 | Yellow Belt training part 2 of 2 |
| Session 12: | 10.00-11.00 | DO Lean: Getting to the root of a problem
Resources: Agile guide to – Fishbone diagram The Jefferson Memorial and the 5 Whys – by Jerilyn Edginton – YouTube |
| Session 13: | 11.00-12.30 | DO: Project management for operations management
Resources: DO Project Management for Operations Management Presentation |
| Session 14: | 12.00-13.00 | Wufoo community showcase
Resources: The presentation from the session is available here. To join the Wufoo User Group – complete this application form. |
| Session 15: | 14.00-15.00 | DO: Planning and tracking: tracking
Resources: The attached DO: Planning and Tracking: Tracking document shows how a Tracking conversation can take place with your own team. |
Day 1: Tuesday 13th July 2021
Session 1.A: Yellow Belt training Time:
This training was delivered by our partner SQT and provided participants with a good understanding of the key concepts and tools of Lean Six Sigma with a hands-on lean process simulation exercise. Ideal for those who intend to put the tools to use.
Session 2.B: DO: Change Management (part 2 of 2)
This session was part of Agile’s Distributed Office training – DO Change Management – as well as being part of developing the wider skill set Agile supports across the University.
We know that the last year has brought about a lot of change and change keeps coming – that’s the nature of all teams that run processes, deliver services, and provide supports. All teams face this challenge.
How do you position yourself and your team to work best in an ever-changing environment?
What do we mean by ‘Change’? It has many forms, from the introduction of a new policy or process, to attempts to get colleagues or students to do something you need them to, to planning for a change that has come your way, to dealing with larger scale changes like the new Academic Regulations in 2019/2020… and dealing with COVID!
This programme on ‘taking charge of change’ uses Prosci’s ADKAR methodology to help you answer some of these questions. You can find out more about both Prosci (the organisation) and ADKAR through this link on our training partner’s website: https://www.stepstoneconsulting.com/page-prosci/.
Delivered by: UCD Agile training partners Stepstone Consulting over two half days.
Session 3: DO Lean: Think Lean. Time: 10.00am-11.00am. Delivered by Olga Murdoch.
UCD Agile introduced the first session from our brand new DO Lean series.
This session launched the broader ‘DO Lean’ offering – a series of short sessions designed to replace and enhance our former White Belt/ Lean Fundamentals introductory training. More sessions will follow in the Autumn.
How do we know if we are focussing our efforts on the right things? How can we deliver a better service without increased effort – or maybe with less effort? How can I develop a culture of continuous improvement in my team? This session provided a practical introduction to Lean thinking designed as a starting point for your journey towards using a continuous improvement mindset – where you naturally seek to improve value and efficiency as part of how you work – while focussing your effort on what matters most.
Session goal: Understand the key Lean principles and able to consider them in the context of daily work
Session 4: Orientation 2021: How do we welcome students we’ve already welcomed?
Delivered by: Jason Masterson – Student Services, Aisling O’Grady – Student Advisers, Emma Caron – Registry
In September 2021 UCD will re-open its campus to students*. It is crucial that we have a campus wide approach to welcoming students, both new and existing. During this session, the Orientation management and coordination team will present the current Orientation 2021 plans and brief the group on the Stage 2+ (re)familiarisation programme which is in development. The session will then focus on the question of returning students and what can be done at a local level to support students who are already enrolled in UCD but may rarely or never been to the campus. It is expected that much of this session will be spent on small group discussion, developing ideas and helping Schools and Colleges define local plans for Orientation and familiarisation 2021.
*The full extent of Covid-19 restrictions in place for September 2021 is not currently known. An update on available parameters will be explained in the opening presentation.
Aimed at: This session is open to all staff interested or working on Orientation/Stage 2 familiarisation in 2021. In particular we would love to hear from Module coordinators, programme office staff and others who will be directly involved in guiding the student experience.
Session 5: DO: Online events. Time: 12.00-13.00.
Delivered by: Eimear Kelly, USM Rollout Team
We’re all constantly adapting to working remotely, figuring out how to do in an online world what we used to do in the office.
One particular challenge over the last year has been to organise and host engaging events purely online. Eimear drew on her experience hosting the Work Smarter Together 21 event earlier this year to provide some practical tips on running a successful online event.
This goal was:
- To give you a chance to explore the experiences of those who run online events, identifying trends and common challenges.
- Look at some tools, approaches and techniques that can help you and your team host an online event.
Aimed at: Any staff member who delivers or is planning to deliver an online event
Resources: We hope you find this DO Online Events Checklist useful when planning your events.
Session 6: Anyone can excel
Gregori Meakin hosted a follow-along session using Microsoft Excel. Gregori’s knowledge of Excel grew from the needs of his day to day and is sharing the skills he has picked up along the way.
The goal of this session was to allow anyone who takes part: -to see how accessible Excel can be -to inspire ideas that you can bring back to your team -and give you the confidence to carry them out!
You’ll find Gregori’s useful resources here: Anyone Can Excel Tutorials
Day 2: Wednesday 14th July 2021
Session 7: DO Lean: Defining Success.
Delivered by: Olga Murdoch, UCD Agile
How can we seek to continuously improve if we are not clear on how we define success? This session shows you how to start with your teams purpose, understand who your customers are and what your customer values – so you can start to understand the difference between value and waste in our work and what constitutes success
Session goals:
- Understand what is meant by customer and value
- Be able to identify value in a process
- Hands on experience in assessing the ‘voice of the customer’
Resources: Agile guide to – Using a CTQ-Tree
Session 8: DO: Planning and tracking: Planning.
Delivered by: Michael Sinnott, UCD Agile
How to we make sure everyone knows what to do, how it fits together, and the contribution it makes overall? How do we make sure we have the resources we need to do it? How do we know it’s working and how do we cope with the unexpected?
“How do we make sure what we are doing, day to day, gets us to the outcomes we want?”
Session goals:
- Outline an approach to planning and tracking for teams and units.
- Introduce the overall planning and tracking journey.
- Work through developing the plan for an example business.
- Develop just what is focused on in tracking.
This session was aimed at team leads and managers.
Resources: DO: Planning and Tracking: Planning document contains an outline of the workshop process which you can use with your own team when planning.
Session 9: Transform your digital office experience with Google Workspace.
Delivered by: Peter McKiernan, Rachel Hickey, Aidan Curran – Enterprise Applications Group (EAG) IT Services
This presentation focused on how you can streamline your day to day Office tasks allowing you to spend less time managing your work and more time doing it. The team showed you how adopting a common set of digital tools across your team will make your everyday administrative and office collaboration challenges so much easier. With the Digital Office, your team can still collaborate “live” on documents, have that “water cooler conversation” and still feel positively connected to colleagues in your team.
Session goal: Show you how to use common tools for common tasks for effective working
Resources: A copy of the presentation – Transform your Digital Office with Google Workspace.
Don’t forget the Google Workspace Community in Google Currents where there are lots of good tips and tricks available.
Session 10: Bring your own biscuits.
Delivered by: Olga Murdoch, UCD Agile
One of our favourite things about Work Smarter Together events is the opportunity it gives people to come together, to meet other UCD staff they may not have met otherwise, and to do so in an informal setting. The WST Summer School 2021 is no different.
Join this half an hour networking opportunity hosted by UCD Agile for an opportunity to meet colleagues from across UCD – without the risk of coming away with action items! We will bring some fun icebreakers to get things moving. All you need to do is bring your own biscuits (BYOB).
Session 11: DO Lean: Process mapping.
Delivered by: Olga Murdoch, UCD Agile
All of us are experts in the details of what we do but how do we step back and reflect on what is happening? How can we help others clearly understand what is happening? This session introduced process mapping as a way to visualise how things work, making it easier to discuss issues/ opportunities and to see clearly what we might have otherwise missed
Session goals:
- Get some hands on experience of process mapping
- Become familiar with the various components of a process map and how to put them together
| Resources: | Agile Guide to – Using a SIPOC; Agile Guide to Process Mapping; Agile guide to – Running a Process Mapping Workshop |
Day 3: Thursday 15th July 2021
Session 12: DO Lean: Getting to the root of a problem.
Delivered by: Olga Murdoch, UCD Agile
How many times have you made a fix only for the problem to resurface, or another issue to crop up in its place? How often have you struggled to convince someone of what the right thing to fix is? This workshop looks at how we can challenge our assumptions using root cause analysis to address the question of “what is the right thing to fix so the problem goes away for good?”
Session goals:
- give participants hands on experience using some root cause analysis tools: 5 why’s and Fishbone diagram
- understand the context in which each tool is useful
| Resources: | Agile guide to – Fishbone diagram
The Jefferson Memorial and the 5 Whys – by Jerilyn Edginton – YouTube |
Session 13: DO: Project management for operations management
Delivered by: Michael Sinnott, UCD Agile
How to you start to build project management techniques – planning, scheduling, executing and controlling – into your management of operations? What project management thinking do you need to use when getting ready to address issues or challenges arising in operations or, indeed, in getting ready for a project.
Session goals:
- To lay out some key project management techniques that can be used in running your operations.
- To look at some tools (i.e. certain kinds of documents and how you go about creating them).
- To put the ‘agile’ into this thinking. (Not UCD Agile, but the principles of agile).
Aimed at: Those running teams or units
Session 14: Wufoo community showcase.
Delivered by: Catherine McDonnell, Elena Keany, Caroline McTeigue
In this session, members of the Wufoo community gave a rundown of some of the helpful features of Wufoo and built a form live based on your ideas to show just how simple it is. This session also featured the launch of the new Wufoo User Group, a community which will support Wufoo users in creating and maintaining Connectors.
Anyone interested in joining can fill out the online form and the team will be in touch with more details.
Resources: The presentation from the session is available here.
Session 15: DO: Planning and tracking: tracking.
Delivered by Michael Sinnott
How to we make sure everyone knows what to do, how it fits together, and the contribution it makes overall? How do we make sure we have the resources we need to do it? How do we know it’s working and how do we cope with the unexpected? “How do we make sure what we are doing, day to day, gets us to the outcomes we want?”
Session goals:
- Take the handover from planning and setup the tracking needed.
- Look at the different kinds of action and how they be tracked.
- Explore the team aspect – planning and tracking is not just for the team lead or manager.
- How and who do you keep informed of progress.
Resources: The attached DO: Planning and Tracking: Tracking document outlines how a tracking conversation can take place with your own team, including screenshots from the Mural used at the workshop and information on tracking tools.