From Martin Carvey, Project Manager

As we all get back up to speed with the start of the new term, work continues at pace to address the ongoing challenges with KentVision. As I previously updated, we have been working within a more robust project management structure which has helped us more effectively identify the areas where we can make progress quickly. 

Project timelines & resource 

We are focusing our work concurrently on several workstreams, with timelines linked to both business specific priorities and the academic calendar. These are currently being finalised through individual discussions with different stakeholders, filling in any gaps in knowledge and adding their on-the-ground experience so we can show a realistic delivery roadmap for each area during February. We are also continuously assessing resource levels for the project to ensure we have the right people in the right areas, having recently brought on board four additional KentVision team members to support this. 

Stakeholder engagement 

Bringing the right people into the project has been a key priority since we reformed the project structure, with stakeholder group meetings being set up with each functional area alongside the more detailed consultations taking place. This feeds directly into the design of the delivery roadmap, and the expertise we are drawing from across the organisation is proving hugely helpful – thank you for your continued engagement with this at a time when I know many of the challenges involved with using the system remain. 

We have also now introduced our new KentVision service desk workflow to help us better triage and prioritise ongoing issues. Tickets are being assessed and prioritised before being passed onto business analysts and developers so we can maintain a tighter focus on the key deliverables now, while also better managing expectations around work still to deliver. 

KentVision continued delivery 

One area where we have been able to move things forward in some areas is around Extenuating Circumstances. While in some areas there is still work to do to fully support deployment, a list of change requests for features and functionality relating to Extenuating Circumstances are being delivered with agreed Divisions this month.  

Attendance reports are undergoing user acceptance testing ready for delivery. 

A specific KentVision training environment is also being developed as a priority to ensure future deliveries are fortified by an additional focus on training prior to launch. 

This continues to be a complex project with multiple deliverables – however, we are now making clear progress and finalising tangible plans for the remaining deliverables across the University. Thanks to you all of you for your ongoing support with the project and I will provide a further update next month. 

Martin Carvey | Project Manager

A two-day intensive research Sandpit, held by the Future Human Signature Research Theme (SRT) in November, has resulted in two PhD Studentships and two seedcorn funding projects.

The Sandpit event brought together academics from five Divisions, who participated in facilitated discussions aimed at developing new inter-disciplinary research ideas and projects relating to human augmentation.

On the first day, participants discussed their hopes and aspirations for the Sandpits, introduced their experience and expertise, and exchanged initial ideas about exciting themes to develop. On the second day, the group prioritised research themes and spent much of the day refining these and working towards well-shaped projects that were shared with the wider cohort and benefited from their feedback.

From the two-day Sandpit, ten project proposals were developed and pitched to a selection panel comprising of the Future Human Theme Leads and Dr Tim Hopthrow from the Graduate and Researcher College. The standard was amazingly high, with all ten of the pitched projects demonstrating huge potential and exciting opportunities for follow-up.

The Panel identified two of the project teams to receive the two Future Human PhD Scholarships for the 2022-23 academic year, and a further two teams to receive seedcorn funding to run more contained projects. The projects are:

Future Human PhD Studentships

Decision design ecology and deciding whether or not to treat Simon Bailey, Larry Duffy, Raza Mikelyte, Connal Parsley, Daniel Soria

Taking a combined technology driven and patient-centred approach to the development of next-generation bladder cancer treatments Michelle Garrett, Jennifer Hiscock, Katrina Taylor

Future Human Seedcorn Funding projects

Exploring the use of static transport: its role in the life of the future human Samuel Smith and Katrina Taylor

Establishing user-led priorities for use of immersive technologies in palliative care Project team: Jim Ang, Rasa Mikelyte, and Samuel Smith

Quotes from Sandpit participants

‘As a new member of staff at the University of Kent, I was excited to be selected to take part in the Sandpit days. It was a great opportunity to network, and I enjoyed hearing first-hand about diverse areas of research colleagues at Kent are engaging in. Through the sandpits, I have become part of an interdisciplinary team, researching within a field I hadn’t imagined a few weeks ago. The Sandpits encouraged me to think outside the box and explore ways to apply my interests and expertise beyond my own academic discipline.’

‘As an interdisciplinary researcher, I often wonder if there are colleagues across the University who I could be collaborating with on ‘big questions’ beyond our individual fields. The Sandpit offered a concrete process for finding those colleagues and identifying questions in common. Over the course of two days, I ‘went with the process’ and became part of a collaborative group with diverse expertise, but a clear set of shared research interests—enabling us to frame a PhD project in the multi-dimensional way that is so important today. I also met many people I would like to talk to more in the future.’

Find out more

The Future Human Theme Leads will be running another research Sandpit, specifically for Early Career and Mid Career Researchers on 4 and 5 May 2022. More seedcorn funding will be available for the teams and projects formed at this Sandpit.

Please watch out for further communication and watch for updates on our website. The Future Human Blog provides more details about the projects that were pitched at the November Sandpit.

Dr Lex Mauger, Dr Sarah Hotham and Professor Aylish Wood |Future Human Leadership Team

Update by KentVision Project Manager, Martin Carvey 

As the new Project Manager for KentVision, I wanted to give everyone an update on where we are with the project and what our next steps will be. As many will be aware, there are a number of issues with KentVision currently which are having a major impact across the University. While there won’t be any quick fixes to this, we know that solutions are needed urgently and are working as fast as we can to identify and deliver them. 

Project management 

Working with Project Sponsor Richard Reece, we have established a new Project Board with more regular reporting to Executive Group. This includes a more robust approach to risk management and revised timelines that reflect our current status. While also making improvements on an ongoing basis, we are working towards having the key aspects of KentVision fully operational by mid-2022. 

Additional support 

While the KentVision project team has worked tirelessly to get us to this stage, greater resources are essential to the future success of the project. We are currently bringing in additional business analysis, development and user support with this in mind. 

Priorities will include setting up a specifically designed Service Desk by the end of November to better manage emerging issues, while also building in additional time into the planning, testing and delivery cycle so more issues are addressed before they impact students and staff, 

Ongoing communications 

KentVision impacts across a number of areas of the University and both Richard Reece and myself want to make sure everyone is kept fully informed of progress in the coming weeks. Along with dedicated workshops for frontline teams, all staff can join a Staff Webchat in November (date tbc) where we will give a full update on the project and answer any questions you may have. 

In the meantime, you can find out more on the KentVision webpages.

Martin Carvey | KentVision Project Manager

From Nikki Hyde, Deputy Director of Human Resources

Celebrating our campuses as more of us come back to Kent

After such a long gap, it’s hard to believe it’s now nearly time for those who’ve been working off-site to return to their desks. When we first started thinking about our roadmap for staff coming back, it still felt a bit like planning with our eyes closed – and let’s face it, none of us thought it would take this long when we first learnt the language of Teams back in March 2020. 

So, while the impact of the pandemic has thankfully lessened, we recognise what a big impact it’s had on us all. That’s why we’ve put together our Life on Campus programme from 23 August – 17 September to help everyone prepare for our 20 September target of everyone being largely campus-based again. 

I’m sure many will have a few mixed feelings about the return, including those of you who’ve been working on campus throughout – it’s about to get a whole lot busier! It’s going to take time for everyone to adjust and we’ll all need support as we come back; plus a reminder of how special our spaces are and what they mean to us all as a community. 

Something for everyone

We hope there’s something for everyone. All staff can bring their family along to a special day for staff at bOing! on Friday 27 August, including a fantastical VR performance of Alice in Wonderland. Teams can get together for a free game of bat and trap or petanque throughout the month or use our tented village on the Registry Lawn for outdoor meetings, while our Sustainability team will be running special tours that showcase our beautiful surroundings. You can even grab a free coffee with a colleague as a good excuse to get chatting in person again. There are also some more practical things to think about – getting up to speed with what we’ll have in place to keep everyone safe or making sure you’ve popped back to reboot your computer in good time. We’re all going to be learning together, which is the main message in the guidance we’ve put together in our new Future of Work Staff Resource Pack. 

All of this will culminate in our first Staff Conference, where we want to start bringing our community back together after so much disruption. Everyone is also invited to either the Medway Summer Fete on 8 September or the Canterbury Summer Fete on the 17th, so we all get a chance to be together in person for a BBQ on our lawns before the next term begins. 

Having been on site recently, our spaces really are looking beautiful and more than ready to welcome you all, bringing life back onto our campuses before our students join us for the next academic year. I look forward to seeing you there. 

Nikki Hyde | Deputy Director of Human Resources

From Jane Higham, Chief Financial Officer

As we head into the summer after an especially challenging year, I wanted to give everyone an update on the work to embed the new structures put in place over the last 12 months. It’s been a challenging year for everyone and we really do hear what many of you are saying about the impact the changes have had on many people’s workload and wellbeing. As Chair of the Project Strategic Group overseeing implementation, I fully appreciate there is a lot still to do to get this right. In particular, our processes and ways of working are making it hard to realise the benefits of the new structures, and both these and the initial challenges with KentVision are vital issues for us to address to help make things easier.  

Actions are much more important than words with this and we are prioritising a number of immediate changes to start alleviating workload pressure as we head into next year. This is on top of accompanying work to clarify academic governance structures and to identify opportunities for short-term support where its impact would be most felt.

How We Work: Process Improvement

Activity led by the Project Management Office to fast-track process improvement university-wide is pushing ahead, with initial scoping work having identified a number of both quicker wins to work on along with some longer-term change initiatives that need to be prioritised. A number of the more immediate opportunities for improvement are already being addressed, with the PMO supporting teams and process owners to get changes in place quickly – thank you to everyone you sent in suggestions for this via the How We Work pages.

Framework Agreements 

The relationship between Divisions and central Professional Services teams is key to the success of our new structure. Those relationships are defined within framework agreements which cover how the different teams work together, where accountability sits and who leads on which areas of activity. The majority of the frameworks are now in place and are forming the basis of ongoing collaboration between Divisions and central teams – the remainder will be agreed by October at the latest. 

Heads of Profession 

Supporting this will be Heads of Profession who will provide leadership, training and support for colleagues working in their professional areas across the University. It has taken time to develop this role and the expectations for interaction between different areas that come with it – again, these will be in place in line with the final framework agreements by October. 

Ongoing Engagement 

Bringing new communities together while working remotely has been a challenge, and we are currently developing plans for ongoing engagement in different areas to help with this. This is to ensure there are regular opportunities for different key groups to come together, supported by a broader programme of staff engagement activity throughout the year opening with the proposed Staff Conference in September.  

Whilst I can’t promise things will get better quickly, I hope this reassures you that the pressures staff are experiencing are recognised and that actions are being taken to address what we can as quickly as possible. In the meantime, while I know it remains a busy time for many – and particularly those involved in the huge Clearing efforts this week – I hope colleagues can take advantage of reduced email traffic and some time off over the summer and I look forward to continuing to improve how we work together in the year ahead. 

Jane Higham | Chief Financial Officer