Agile Agenda Update

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By Michael Sinnott, Director of Agile.

The ‘Agile Agenda’ – our plans from the summer of 2018 to the summer of 2019 – has just been through our governance layer and we would like to give you a flavour of what we will be doing over the next year.

UCD Agile is guided and directed by a steering committee chaired by the Registrar, Prof Mark Rogers, with the steering committee reporting to the UMT through the Registrar.

We were back with the UMT in late May with our proposals for the Agile Agenda through to summer 2019, which they adjusted and approved. The final step in setting our agenda through to summer 2019 was to have the implementation plan approved by Agile Steering, which they did on August 8.

Remember the driver behind Agile: to make the best use of our resources to the best effect, supporting and developing staff in doing this. The call to ‘best use/best effect’ is there all the time – Agile is but a support.

There are nine strands to the Agenda and what follows gives some detail on the individual strands, identifying new approaches or additions where relevant.

  • Student experience mapping – setting an integrating agenda
    • Use the student perspective to create an integrating lens which helps better focus the supports we deliver student
    • Identify the metrics which can inform the identification and prioritisation of opportunities for improvement
    • Support the on-going capacity for identifying improvement opportunities (better use of resources to better effect)
    • Community focus
  • Support the Work Smarter Together (WST) Community of Practice and the individual Communities of Practice.
    • Support WST 2019 in March 2019
    • Develop the Agile CoP
  • Business development focus
    • Continue to work with those exploring, developing and delivering change in their areas.
    • Help teams take ‘two steps back’
    • Using ‘remit mapping’ workshops to help teams review their operations.
    • Using SOAR to help a team take a more strategic look at itself.
  • Skills focus
    • Continue with, and refine, the various levels of training we offer already: introductory, ‘yellow belt’, ‘green belt’
    • Add skills and techniques development for team leads
    • Add training in the ‘remit mapping’ exercise Agile uses quite a bit
  • Staff focus
    • Work with HR in making the Agile skills and competencies development opportunities visible in the HR offerings.
  • Project focus
    • Continue to support projects as we have been
    • Work with potential green belt projects for a late autumn start (2 started last December, nine in February 2018)
    • Develop a better mechanism for ensuring local management support for those on projects
    • Remember: these projects are the ‘day job’ and not something in addition – making the best use of resources to the best effect.
  • Support unit focus
    • Work with one of the major support units on exploring how it might use Lean management to support its strategy-to-operations goals.
  • Integrating with Integrated Planning
    • Bring the Agile perspective to bear on how the development of integrated planning in the University Business Planning Group.
  • Agile communications
    • Better targeting of clearer messages to more explicitly identified target audiences.

If you have any questions or thoughts on this Agile Agenda then contact Michael or Olga at UCD Agile – www.ucd.ie/agile/contact