Final RM Meeting 26th March 2010

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Introduction
This was the final face-to-face event for all the projects in the JISC Relationship Management Programme to share their findings and to learn from each other. The meeting was held on Friday 26th March 2010 at York St John University.

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Introduction and Overview
Presenters: Paul Hollins and Sharon Perry, JISC CETIS. Presentaton: Overview of the JISC Relationship Management Programme, Powerpoint Format, 1.86Mb.

 Welcome  Welcome to the final JISC Relationship Management Programme meeting at York St John University. This event will give the Relationship Management Projects the chance to share their findings. 

Agenda  The Future - Presentation on the importance of the JISC Relationship Management Programme by Myles Danson and Simon Whittemore (JISC) and how the projects will feed into future work. Collaborative presentations – 5 groups covering CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and SLRM (Student Lifecycle Relationship Management). Both strands sit in on each other’s presentations as there is some cross-over. Discussions around CRM and SLRM, facilitated by critical friends (“tame experts”). </ul>

Overview of the Relationship Management Programme</li>  Fascinating – talking to projects and following progress.</li> Challenging for projects – in terms of timescale, sheer volume of work involved, issues that have been thrown up as a result of these projects and also in terms of external influences, such as funding & restructuring.</li> So many institutions have found these projects quite timely – particularly in regard to the emphasis being placed on business intelligence in education and the focus on responding to student expectations (e.g. Higher Ambitions Report).</li> Many commonalities have been identified across the programme and we will hear more about these in the collaborative presentations. </li></ul>

RMSAS (Relationship Managment Support, Synthesis and Analysis) Project</li>  Support – Recap of the support provided by JISC CETIS.</li> Buddying up (network weaving) – hope you can take these relationships into the future if you carry on with this work. Always useful to have a chat and keep the momentum going.</li> Events: Introduction to Modelling and Introduction to Service Design – programme very short so hard to get timing just right, some projects more advanced than others.</li> Feedback on Deliverables – a big thank you to everyone for submitting their draft deliverables pretty much on time. The critical friends are reviewing your draft deliverables and will be providing feedback.</li> All deliverables due in around 16th April (as long as in by 30th at latest). </li></ul>

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Strand</li>   Range of projects – including different stages of CRM maturity model and approach to CRM – from retrofitting to improving processes.</li> <li>Project approaches have been interesting too – those that held workshops explaining what the project was about, seem to get off the ground quicker than those that didn’t.</li> <li>Most projects found that they had more interest in the project than they could handle, which meant the number of stakeholder interviews often doubled or even trebled. And often it was the case that several stakeholders had to be interviewed to provide information on one role because it had been split out. It wasn’t until interviews were started that this was realised. Some institutions didn’t even have organisational charts.</li> <li>Key issues for project and CRM success seem to be Senior Management buy-in and the culture of the organisation. For those who have the support and interest of senior management, the project has gone more smoothly. Data sharing is an issue. There have been different approaches to encouraging data sharing from edicts from above to talking to stakeholders on an individual level. Some institutions have explored the idea of CRM champions within departments.</li> <li>Guinea-pigs for the SAF (Self Analysis Framework). We will be taking your recommendations into consideration. It now lives on the JISC CETIS website. </li></ul>

<li>SLRM (Student Lifecycle Relationship Management) Strand</li> <ul> <li> Range of projects at different stages of the student lifecycle from pre-registration to teaching and learning stages.</li> <li>Again, many of the projects felt they were drowning under the huge amount of feedback from students and stakeholders. Whilst it’s good to get this feedback, it’s hard to know how to deal with so much!</li> <li>Key issues for project show how important it is to get student feedback. What the staff might think is important is not what students think is important, so keeping students at the heart of the process is key. Small is beautiful – small-scale pilots have helped to test improvements made to student processes. And some of these have been very small, but can be scaled up. SLRM needs to be tackled one small step at a time.</li> <li>There are hardly any references to using service design in to improve the student experience. So you are all pioneers. Whilst service design can help to improve processes, it is important not to hail it as the saviour of HE. Using commercial techniques in the education sector throws up issues of commodification of learning. But we’re not going to discuss that here! </li></ul>

<li>What Next?</li> <ul> <li>RMSAS team will be producing a synthesis across all 20 projects – CRM and SLRM. This will be completed by the end of July.</li> <li>Critical friends (tame experts) will have some input into the synthesis report based on the draft deliverables. They will also help to frame the next part of the JISC Relationship Management Programme.</li> <li>As mentioned the RMSAS team will also be modifying the SAF.</li> <li>The JISC CETIS RM website will be maintained as a resource and we’ll keep the Twitter tag of #rminhe. The Ning site will be closed down at the end of July.</li> <li>Evaluation of RMSAS support. Will send out an informal online questionnaire in April, which will be anonymous. </li></ul></ul>

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Importance of the Projects and How They Will Feed into Future Work
Presenters: Myles Danson and Simon Whittemore, JISC Presentations: Part One: Context, objectives and benefits, PowerPoint Format, 837Kb. Part Two: Lessons, challenges and future indications, PowerPoint Format, 1.08Mb. Notes: There is value in understanding processes. Most projects have under-estimated the work involved. It can be challenging to get senior management buy-in, so the business case needs to be put across. The challenge is how the space for the delivery and management of service design be carved out in traditional academic processes.

It is very important to disseminate and embed the learning from these projects - don't be information hamsters!

The plan is to continue funding in RM. Work is being planned in alumni engagement. Other possible areas may include: <ul> <li>CRM solutions/features/software lifecycle, or...</li> <li>CRM process/development projects, or...</li> <li>RM development projects, or....</li> <li>SLRM retention and progression.</li></ul>

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CRM Projects
Overview: Mindmap of CRM Presentations <ul> <li>Buy-in: Is vital at senior management level to ensure that CRM projects are successful.</li> <li>Cultural change: It is important to help people understand the CRM approach and the benefits it can bring to them. People are often concerned that relationships they have built up will be put at risk, so it's important to show how sharing data can add value. However, the relationship between the institution and an invididual can often be very fragile, and the relationship often moves with the individuals concerned.</li> <li>Expectations: Both students and business contacts expect professionalism, so improving CRM processes can help.</li> <li>Data: Data needs to be clean and validated, as the management reports are only as good as the data entered. Therefore, staff need to be trained on how to record customer interactions.</li> <li>Training: Staff need to be trained in how to use any technical systems and how data should be recorded. This can range from formal trianing to drop-in centres.</li> <li>Procedures and protocols: From how to deal with customer enquiries through to data entry and training on any technical systems are vital to ensure that customers are dealt with efficiently and institutions can manage such relationships.</li> <li>Process mapping:''' Needs to be done to ensure that the current processes are understood, before any improvements can be made. However, a simple process map may not supply all the detail required.</li> <li>Momentum: It is important to maintain the momentum when implementing CRM processes and improvements, in order to keep staff engaged. If people become disengaged or disenchanted then it can be challenging to get them re-engaged. The CRM approach should be considered as an ethos rather than a technical system. A centralised co-ordinated approach to CRM as a result of developing an institution wide strategy can be beneficial.</li> </ul>

Group 1 CRM Projects Collaborative Presentation
Presenters: Birkbeck, University of London, Doncaster College, UCLAN (University of Central Lancashire), and York St John University

UCLAN ran a workshop to identify the needs of the different stakeholders and to help staff understand the potential benefits of a CRM approach, such as improving the REF (Research Excellence Framework) assessment by linking research publications to BCE. Although the institution has various strategies and implementation plans, there is some uncertainty about how these are monitored. Part of the process improvement work was to identify how to match up staff expertise with enquiries and to stop some data just being discarded by not being recorded. The project team have also used the JISC InfoNet "Embedding Business and Community Engagement (BCE)" Toolkit and have asked facilitators to do a walk-through session using this Toolkit with staff. The Toolkit is a little like the SAF (Self-Analysis Framework), in that it helps users identify the stage they are at and suggests ideas for improvements. Where management of BCE relationships is unco-ordinated, CRM can help to organise manage these. However, the cultural change required will be huge.

Birkbeck, University of London found that the biggest issue is getting people to understand the CRM approach. In some respects, it doesn't matter which technical CRM system is implemented, but how it is used. Before Birkbeck implemented their technical CRM system, they asked their stakeholders a series of questions, which helped inform a vision for CRM. They then brought in a consultancy to design the system (Sugar Refinery), which customises and integrates the SugarCRM product. As much of the CRM data is currently held in different places, the project team looked at what information was being held where and asked the consultancy to try and integrate it into one central location. The resulting BELS (Birkbeck Employer Links System) tool is an analytical tool, which aims to build transparency across the various institutional systems and can be used as a reporting tool. It doesn't yet talk to the Finance System, but they hope to include this in the future - it is one thing to implement a system and another to get them to talk to each other!

York St John University has been using Sage Act! as their technical CRM system. In order to test the effectiveness of their CRM processes, they have used a postal and telemarketing campaign as a case study for the project. One of the issues that has come to light is that the expensive external consultancy used for training on the system was poor and this affected staff confidence in using it. The consultancy contract was terminated and training was done in-house instead. People do want to use the system and they seem happy with it, but they also want good training, so moving to an in-house trainer should provide a better service.

Another issue was that external access to the system had not been considered at time of purchase, but this is now being addressed. Also, interoperability with other technical systems, such as Finance, also hadn't been considered. Unfortunately, Sage Act! doesn't yet support Windows 7, so some backward engineering has been necessary. York St John has also been looking at the protocols and procedures around CRM, which until recently haven't been available for staff at time of training, and they hope to have them fully implemented by December 2010, so this JISC project has helped to move them forward with their CRM strategy. There has been buy-in from senior management and this project has also helped them to understand the strategic benefits of CRM.

Doncaster College also had an existing technical CRM system, but there had been very little staff training and no procedures and protocols around CRM implemented. As a result of this JISC project, the project team have now developed procedures around how data should be entered onto the system. There have been some data input errors, so it is important to check data for validity. There has been lots of CRM activity within the institution but it hasn't been brought together into one central location. The approach to standardising the data has been to archive everything and then bring it back on an individual basis, correcting anything as required. There have been many technical issues with the existing CRM system, including lack of web-based access, and as soon as the software supplier has fixed one problem, they create another, which then upsets the staff who have to use the system, and this creates barriers. As the system hadn't been used fully until recently, more and more bugs have also been coming to light. It was hoped that it would link to the enrolment system, but it hasn't yet been possible to access this data. The CRM system is now being used to ensure that companies are vetted for health and safety, before students can be placed with them.

Group 2 CRM Projects Collaborative Presentation
Presenters: Bournemouth University, Coventry University, Knowledge House, University of Huddersfield, and University of Wales Newport Presentation: CRM Group 2, PowerPoint Format, 312Kb. This group had a number of common findings: <ul> <li>Sharing data: There is not much information available on helping to break down cultural barriers regarding sharing of data. People can be very protective of their contacts and can be afraid that their data will be stolen or abused. Academics in particular can be more protective about sharing their BCE data. One approach is to create a safe environment, so that data can be viewed but not edited. Therefore, it's important to have a shared institutional vision for CRM and the committment to sharing information must come from senior management.</li> <li>Validity of data: Systems which store data used for CRM as only as good as the data put on them. People need to understand that good quality data needs to be put on systems in order to get good quality reports out. However, in order to achieve this, clear ownership of the data is required so that people do not assume that it is not their job (unless it isn't!), but this does require a certain amount of staff resource. There needs to be consistent processes for handling data and someone needs to be responsible for ensuring that the processes are followed.</li> <li>Added value: By getting together as a group of projects, the project teams were able to see how their shared findings really re-inforced the work they were doing, so working with other institutions adopting a CRM approach may be beneficial. There are clear benefits to each stakeholder group in a CRM project, but people need to see the long-term value and understnad the benefits of inputting good quality data.</li> <li>Business process modelling: This is very important in the CRM approach as it provides a shared understanding of how a particular process works (which is often just stored in people's heads!) and can help identify links with other departments and systems. Once a process is mapped out, it can show where time can be saved. Mapping of processes should be the foundation for any technical system specification, so that the process isn't "retrofitted" around the system. People should not have to work around a system.</li></ul>

Bournemouth University found that they needed to contain how much information they could realistically gather and analyse in the time of the project. They also tried to do a gap analysis and to see if it was possible to link up with alumni systems. The current finance system is used for tracking bids, project awards, research grants, KTPs (Knowledge Transfer Partnerships), management of funds etc, with some BCE data thrown in. However, this system is not really fit for purpose and so staff have been quite frustrated by it, particularly as it has been quite slow. There can be some tension between centralised v. localised activities to the extent that some departments have developed their own policies. This may be due to shortcomings in centralised systems.

The project team found that BCE CRM needs to be part of their marketing strategy and that this can help provide better marketing intelligence. BCE relationships can be categorised by different industries or requirements. They also found that the issue of trust is very important regarding the use of or access to data. Because there were different people who were involved in different aspects of the processes examined, the number of stakeholders interviewed was larger than expected.

The University of Wales Newport looked at developing best practice for systems integration, i.e. what works for the stakeholder, rather than one system being imposed. However, getting systems to talk to each other and to be fully integrated can be costly. Therefore, it is important that a cost v. benefits analysis is done first. It can take time to develop shared systems, which is why there needs to be an overall shared vision for CRM.

Knowledge House is a partnership of five universities, OneNorthEast and Business Link. The project has been looking at the necessary pillars to achieve common goals and identification of critical success factors. It is unlikely that one system will fulfil all the needs of an institution regarding relationship management, so it is important that different systems can talk to each other. CRM should be about: <ul> <li>People and processes first;</li> <li>Strategic leadership;</li> <li>Buy-in;</li> <li>Clear communication;</li> <li>Cultural change;</li> <li>Definition of procedures;</li> <li>Management of expectations.</li></ul>

Group 3 CRM Projects Collaborative Presentation
Presenters: Loughborough University, Roehampton University, University of Hull, and University of Salford The University of Salford project team has been finding that as a result of the project, requests for access to the system have been exceeding the system's capabilities. The culture of the university is slowly changing and the message about the benefits of sharing data has slowly been getting through. However, it is important to understand the culture and to work with it. The current economic climate is actually helping to focus effort on developing alternative revenue streams that can support other areas of the university.

The project team at Roehampton University, in partnership with Thames Valley University, has been doing a comparative study of the two universities and has found that the "soft stuff is the really hard stuff". There can be alternative strategies for BCE, such as: <ul> <li>"Low Road" - eg. knowledge transfer, focussing on gathering expertise in specific areas.</li> <li>"Mid Road" - e.g. non-accredited short courses.</li> <li>"High Road" - e.g. employer-led education.</li>

The University of Hull project team ran a couple of networking events to find out what people were doing in the area of CRM and had a good response to an online survey (40%) from academics - most of which was quite positive, and they hope to be able to build on this.

Loughborough University's project has had a lot of interest from senior management. Whilst not all information required is immediately available, a composite database system may help. One-of-a-kind systems have been developed in-house for academics and it is possible that these systems could be incorporated.

The projects in this group also came up with some feedback on the SAF (Self-Analysis Framework): <ul> <li>It can be difficult to complete some of the sections of the SAF, if systems are not already in place;</li> <li>The focus in not always clear - some sections are too simple and some too complex, but it may depend on the level of CRM maturity (i.e. peripheral, strategic, etc);</li> <li>It's difficult to sell business jargon to academics;</li> <li>It's important not to take the SAF as the only approach;</li> <li>Some templates were rather complex to show to stakeholders and needed simplifying (the detailed templates can be used by internal analysts).</li> <li>A common vocabulary is important.</li></ul>

CRM Discussion
Questions to consider: <ul> <li>How did projects find the SAF and what should happen to it next?</li> <li>What should JISC do next with CRM?</li> <li>Should there be a best practice group?</li> <li>What "quick wins" are available?</li></ul> Self-Analysis Framework: <ul> <li>Has multiple joining points.</li> <li>Some private sector companies are using different CRM frameworks, perhaps the SAF should be benchmarked against them?</li> <li>The SAF has examples from the private sector, but it would be useful to see how the CRM approach is handled in other sectors.</li> <li>There should be a different route through the SAF for people at different levels of CRM maturity.</li> <li>The language used has come from the private sector and this can put off people from the academic sector. However, it might be worth acknowledging that the language has come from the private sector but that the approach is about turing intangible assets into tangible ones.</li> <li>The SAF may be too hierarchal an approach to CRM.</li></ul> Cultural Change: <ul> <li>A lot has been talked about cultural change. Perhaps this should be "behavioural change" as there are many psychological models around that can help change people's behaviour. Cultural change is organisational.</li> <li>What does cultural change look like?</li> <li>Incentivisation can be used to encourage BCE, e.g. by awarding promotions or professorships to reward BCE activities, which can then be taken away if staff don't deliver.</li> <li>"Leverage Points - Places to Intervene in a System" by Donella Matthews might be an interesting read.</li> <li>Stakeholders should be approached in a professional way.</li> <li>CRM can be an enabler.</li> <li>Date put into a CRM system needs to be used, otherwise why put it in?</li></ul> Buy-In: <ul> <li>It's helpful to have a CRM strategy, although people may not necessarily know what needs to go into it.</li> <li>There is often a lack of value placed on CRM in many institutions. For example, 10-50 people may maintain student systems, yet often there is only one person who is responsible for a CRM system.</li> <li>Institutions don't work as a business and aren't geared up to be private consultancies, but they need to know what it is they are trying to sell and to capture BCE activities.</li> <li>It's often not possible to resource BCE activities. It's important to know where the gaps are and how they should be filled.</li> <li>Many businesses face the same challenges as universities.</li> <li>Efficiency is not necessarily the main driver for businesses, who may be more interested in innovation and customer improvements. Academic institutions, however, need to be efficient, because they are publicly funded, particularly in light of hte current economic climate.</li> <li>Information is power, so whilst universities may not want to collaborate with everyone for reasons of competition, there will be some "safe" collaborations.</li></ul> Quick Wins and Benefits: <ul> <li>Bringing in a guest speaker who has good contacts.</li> <li>CRM may help to reduce the carbon footprint - e.g. often several people go to the same conference because they weren't aware that other people were going.</li> <li>CRM as a tool can help with transparency and efficiency.</li></ul>

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SLRM Projects
Overview: Mindmap of SLRM Presentations <ul> <li>Student Lifecycle: Students are exposed to different levels of experience during different parts of the student lifecycle. Students need to feel engaged with the institution to improve retention and success rates.</li> <li>Service Design: A new technique for the sector. Services are defined as being time-dependent, often inconsistent and variable in quality. Service design blueprints can be used to help senior managers understand processes, show what data is being gathered, and identify gaps, duplication, and failpoints.</li> <li>Culture: Staff opinions of student expectations may be quite different to what students actually want, so a shift in culture is necessary to ensure that the student experience is paramount.</li> <li>Buy-in: Is vital at senior management level to ensure that service design projects are successful.</li> </ul>

Group 4 SLRM Projects Collaborative Presentation
Presenters: Goldsmiths, University of London, Kingston College, Swansea University, and University of Derby Presentation: SLRM Group 4, PowerPoint Format, 1.26Mb. Notes: The University of Derby took a blueprinting approach and looked at the touchpoints (students, departments, systems, etc). Using this approach helps to identify the failpoints and helps the student become co-producers of their experience. They also explored the service enhancements and interventions that could be made, and examined the service-scape (i.e. where the same service is offered in different locations). Interestingly, as a result of their research, it was ascertained that students expected to queue and that queueing often provides a good opportunity for socialising and networking.

Poka-yokes can be used for mistake-proofing by acting as reminders, e.g. sending an SMS (Short Message Service) to outpatients to remind them not to eat before surgery. Derby have tried to improved their communication by sending an SMS to students regarding system password information.

Kingston College looked at the student lifecycle from enquiry to induction and found that there was a gap of up to 8 months between when the student had accepted an offer and actually starting at College. The KRADLE project has set up a "Getting Ready to Study" portal to help ease this transition and improve communication.

Swansea University asked students for their emotional response prior to their arrival at the University by gathering information from social networking sites. As a result of this research, where students felt that they were not getting the right information at the right time, the project team has focussed on the information provided to students during the transition from school to university. The language used in documentation has also been examined. For example, the term "enrolment" may mean different things to different parts of the institution.

Goldsmiths, University of London found that there was a big disparity between the service received by undergraduates and postgraduates. They gathered lots of student feedback, including the fact that students feel that they are over-surveyed. As a result of this project, new procedures around induction have been put into place and a student in now only considered to have been fully inducted, when s/he returned for the second term. The project team also discovered that some functionality of student systems is not used to the full. However, it is important for people to say what they want a technical system to do, rather than it dictate to people how they should work. Blueprinting at a high level can be useful for communicating, but can be more complex when the detail is examined.

The group collectively found that: <ul> <li>They have moved forward in their understanding of improving the student experience;</li> <li>Service design is a helpful tool for change management;</li> <li>Blueprinting is a diagrammatic representation of complexity and can be a good way to communicate this to senior management;</li> <li>Many benefits will not be realised until after the projects complete.</li></ul>

Group 5 SLRM Projects Collaborative Presentation
Presenters: University College Birmingham, University of East London, and University of Hertfordshire Presentations: CABLE – Creating a Better Learning Experience, PowerPoint Format, 637Kb. Notes: The University of East London SLRM project, working in partnership with ICS Ltd, has been trying to create a broad parity of experience between distance learners and on-campus students. Distance learners are often home-based, adult learners. Whilst a lot of effort is traditionally put into the on-campus student experience, distance learners do not always have a similar experience. Service design has been used to improve the distance learner experience by setting up welcome telephone calls to introduce tutors and by incorporating student support service provision. They have also improved the student communications strategy and established pro-active engagement with the students. By using service design to improve the student experience, some administrative burdens have been relieved and efficiency may also have been improved. The work done in this project will also help collaboration to improve other stages of the student lifecycle and other areas for improvement outside of the project have been highlighted, such as automated timetabling and the provision of sample distance learning materials. As a result of establishing welcome calls, initial student feedback has shown that students feel more comfortable contacting their personal tutor.

The University of Hertfordshire wants to encourage students to become entrepreneurs by encouraging entrepreneurship, supporting enterpreneurial students and supporting student entrepreneurs. The project team reviewed key communication channels and looked at using plasma screens to communicate entrepreneurial information to students. The University already has a business technical CRM system and some of the project work will help to inform the future of this system. The project has encouraged strategic debate with other departments and has identified the need to integrate services better and to encourage closer collaboration with other units.

One of the gaps that has been identified is that students are not supported after entering the University's business plan competition to turn their ideas into action. The project team has come up with the idea of developing an Envisioning Centre to quickly create prototypes. Workshops around strategy and envisioning will be held to support students. A room has been made available along with a grant for the Envisioning Centre, which will be set up by the end of April, so this idea for improvement has not yet been piloted.

University College Birmingham asked students whether they would like electronic feedback on their assessment. At the moment the Year Manager does not see feedback on student work, so is unable to use this in the pastoral care role. By implementing electronic feedback which could be viewed online, Year Managers could see trends and therefore enhance pastoral care. Research by the project team showed that both staff and students could see the benefit of electronic feedback, particularly as it will help students who lose the paper copy of their feedback. However, staff also felt that it would increase their workload and that they would be unable to do their marking on a train, for example, unless laptops were provided. (The team from the Bournemouth CRM Project said that in their experience typing the student feedback into the system does take more time.) Interestingy, students thought that the staff thought that the students did not value feedback, and that they were only interested in the grade. Also, students seem to value the human contact of handwritten notes. As a result of this work, the project team have decided not to change the current system and to do a wider survey, possibly with a pilot. They will also conduct more indepth research with other institutions who provide online feedback.

SLRM Discussion

 * Looked at process mapping and service design and the distinctions between the two. Process mapping has an emphasis on understanding, whilst blueprinting is more about finding the fail points, so the emphasis is on change.  There is a suspicion that something is wrong, and blueprinting have help identify where that is. For example, blueprinting helped one project identify that there was an eight month gap between registration and actual communication with a new student - that wouldn’t have been identified using process mapping.
 * Service design is about the representation of the experience of the processes rather than the function. Blueprinting can help to understand which partners (actors) and systems are involved in a process, but it can take a long time.  One project has felt that it's almost been an eight month consultation period and that the blueprint was not an artefact that could have been produced at the start.  Their blueprint has come at the end of their project.
 * Blueprinting is very student focussed rather than process focussed. It challenges the extent to which you are looking at people – it can’t be rushed.  Need to help people through the approach.
 * How long does it take to do service design for SLRM? Some preparatory time plus a full year cycle.  You also need to understand the institutional context in which you’re trying to do it.  It’s taken up to three months in some cases to get access to certain areas in the institution (blockages).  It does take a lot longer than expected to engage the relevant people in an institution.
 * Problems with the managing the volume of rich data provided. It's not a good idea to stuff information into one's cheeks like a hamster and keep it to yourself.  Some projects have been overwhelmed by data so it's important to be quite focussed in the area to be examined.
 * There have been some differences between the students' and institution’s perception of failpoints. For example, Kingston College had spent a lot of time and money reducing queueing time which students didn’t consider was a major issue.
 * The building blocks that make enrolment work have to be put in place at a distance from the student (i.e. back office), so the cause of a failpoint may be outside of a student – however, blueprinting can show this.
 * Do third parties have an impact – eg. employers for work-based learners? Were there distinctions between the needs of different cohorts?  People who have been in work have an expectation of professionalism and expect a higher level of service.  But can their expectations be managed? Because of the timescales, many of the  projects have only been able to focus on one type of student.  However, by pooling this research it should be possible to get a better idea of all the different touchpoints for different groups.  There will be major differences for the touchpoints for each group – e.g. international students.  Is the touchpoint for American students different to that for Chinese students?  Perhaps the only way to find out is to to do a blueprint of the touchpoints for each type, which could be excessive.  Also, the experience of local students can often be very different to students who come from outside the area.
 * Not everyone wants the same experience. Should the student experience be the same across all the different types of students or is it quite acceptable for students to have different experiences as long as it’s all high quality.  Students don’t want a generic service, they want to be able to choose, so it's important to establish minimum standards.
 * How can the applicability and success of the service design approach be evaluated? Is it a valid approach?  A couple of the projects talked about the value of using service design to build capacity in their institution.  One institution has been pushing the importance of the student based approach.  Blueprinting is a very objective tool that can be promoted to senior management.  It can show what can be done to help re-engineering a process using the student experience.  It is hoped that it will be adopted as a tool for change management. Other part of the institutions are getting interested in blueprinting but how do we know if it works?  There is a real appetite for service design, but until one goes through the cycle and blueprints again, it won't be possible to see the impact of blueprinting for some time.
 * Blueprinting is not viewed as being as threatening or as technical as process mapping, but one project found it to be more technical than they thought.
 * All forms of modelling present a particular perspective of the world and way of describing it, but it's important to remember that it is not the world. Modelling can make things look too simple.  Process mapping doesn’t look at the student but blueprinting does.  However, process mapping can be used to extend blueprints.
 * All of the projects intend to use blueprinting again in the future and they now have models which can be used as actual working documents – this is a good sign.

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