Every once in a while an organisation comes along and reminds us all that it is possible to create a business culture of excellence in a relatively short time. What's more, they end up leaving us with a blueprint for success. The University of Winchester has had a remarkable journey over the past five years culminating recently with them winning a Business Excellence Award from the British Quality Foundation (BQF).
But how did they get there? How did they change their processes and pick up awards along the way?
This article explains:
- The existing problems they identified
- The improvements UoW made
- The results they achieved
Existing Processes that Needed Changing
After being awarded university status in 2005, a vice-chancellor was appointed who recognised the importance of running the university more like a business and creating the same mindset within staff.
The university implemented the EFQM excellence model and identified that their processes (at the time) were letting them down.
The process problems they encountered could be summarised as:
- Bureaucratic
- Time consuming
- Too paper based, with not enough online
- Unclear - for both staff and students
- Having too much variation (both between and within faculties)
- Causing too much time and effort to be spent correcting errors
- All giving rise to the possibility of a poor student experience
The Improvements UoW Made
In 2010 the University of Winchester implemented a Business Process Management system powered by the Triaster platform. This enabled the university to put their documents, processes and procedures online in a single process library. After process mapping their organisation they were able to see where things were breaking down.
After going live with their Process Library in 2011, UoW were immediately able to provide a better learning and working environment for their students and teachers.
However, it wasn't just enough to recognise where processes were going wrong and change them. They needed an organisation-wide philosophy to direct their improvement focus.
The Philosophy Driving Dramatic Improvement
The University of Winchester's philosophy boiled down to two principles:
1. Respect for People - The staff know their roles better than anyone so they should be included in the implementation of improvements.
2. Continuous improvement - Always looking to improve work processes by being able to identify what isn't working, strategise improvements and implement them.
Having a constant philosophy at the heart of your improvement drive will ultimately determine whether you manage to create a permanent improvement culture or whether your Business Process Management system ends up gathering dust.
The Steps University of Winchester Took to Implement Process Improvement
- Always beginning with a clear objective
- The current process (AS-IS) is captured using the Triaster process mapping tool
- The mapped process is published to their Process Library where it is reviewed and approved
- Bottlenecks are highlighted
- Options for alternative processes are identified and analysed and the future (To-Be) process is modelled. This may incorporate for example the use of new technology or perhaps just a few small changes
- An Action plan for implementation is formulated
- The project team presents the proposed process to management and colleagues
- The new process is agreed and implemented
- Short follow-up events are held typically held at 15, 30, 60, 90 days and at one year to embed the new process as business as usual and review the return on investment.
Recognition and Awards
Student satisfaction surveys are often crucial for parents and students determining which university to attend. By improving student satisfaction, UoW made their university stand out from the pack and these improvements didn't go unnoticed:
- 2011 - University of Winchester goes live with their process library
- 2013 - jumps 27 places in national student satisfaction survey
- 2013 - Achieves 5 star rating in their EFQM assessment
- 2014 - Top 20 in national student satisfaction survey
- 2015 - Fourth place in national student satisfaction survey
- 2016 - Winner of two BQF awards including the Sustainable Future Achievement Award and the UK Excellence Award.
Find Your Own Path to Process Improvement
Whether you're a university looking to increase student and employee satisfaction, or a business trying to increase ROI, a Business Management System might be the solution you're looking for.
Sign up to one of our free Webinars to see how we can help you find the business improvement solution that's right for you.
Alternatively, you can read some of our case studies which reveal how we have helped many customers reach their goals:
