One Thing to know about UCD Agile in 2024

UCD Agile  – Beyond the Belts

1. Who are you guys?

Hi all, I am Emma Mescall, projects coordinator/facilitator and I work in UCD Agile now for nearly 4 years. UCD Agile is a unit that supports continuous improvement and transformation. This includes   training in lean, project management/ PM2, problem solving (often involving writing on our famous walls!) and enhancing critical skills, which is more than the infamous six- sigma belt training in white, yellow and green belts.

We provide an extensive service offering, based on staff and teams needs & requirements for support. This is reviewed each year by the unit team which leads to why we are here today, which is to make you aware of our Remit Mapping (RM service offering for teams in UCD.

We want you to sign up and tell others about this support we offer for team building, creating meaning in our work and fostering team collaboration. This year we have delivered more than ten customised versions of this workshop based on an in-depth scoping and needs analysis with units/teams .

• Now you may be asking what Remit Mapping is? 

• And why do I need this as a tool for myself and my team?

Remit mapping is a tool used to provide clarity of purpose in helping individuals and teams achieve their goals based on the concepts of possessing:

1. Mastery – level of skills & expertise
2. Purpose – why I do what I do, for a deeper meaning for you
3. & Autonomy – power to make decisions, whom I need to involve/ inform in taking action

During the workshop a deep dive into the individual & collaborative responsibilities of the team in terms of its workload is dissected from the past i.e. legacy or assumptions, present ‘As is’ in its current state and the future initiatives, shaping the team.

1. Where do you fit in in the broader UCD picture?
   1. It is imperative that we acknowledge that no team/ individual working in UCD exists in a bubble and external factors e.g. audits/ accreditation bodies/ rankings/ national policy.
   2. In addition internal factors shape our teams e.g. new members join teams & teams merge/ change reporting in units and our roles remit, which changes over time from our initial job descriptions. We recognise such factors can influence and blur the lines of our teams remit & how our teams functions and its role within UCD becomes skewed.
   3. Remit mapping can help teams remain clear in their priorities and goals as a connected team by working through the mapping exercise and challenging assumptions of the team as it currently operates and to explore what it needs to do in terms of future proofing its goals in a changing landscape.

1. What would you like to make your colleagues aware of coming into 2024?
   1. Remit mapping can be applied to large- smaller teams as a starting point for team building, gaining consensus on goals, acknowledging its capacity
   2. Ideally teams will review their remit regularly so they remain aligned with each other and  to the UCD Strategy. The investment in your team now for a single workshop can save valuable time in terms of understanding, integrating members and connecting with your team in the long run.
   3. Teams undergoing periods of change can use the Remit Mapping workshop as a sense checking mechanism, by addressing the purpose of the team and ensuring continued alignment
   4. Remit Mapping improves teams communication skills by challenging assumptions made by others and habitual behaviours as a positive experience, which is often misunderstandings between teams. This improves the team awareness of its image & how it wishes to be positioned/ connect with other teams in the organisation
   5. UCD Agile facilitates the celebration of teams achievements and helps create a strong team ethos as an output of the mapping journey by understanding the teams WHY in its discussions around roles & responsibilities.