Support for Innovation Projects
54 projects have been approved for this years CIO Innovation Fund and Tim Gray from Project Services has been appointed as Programme Manager to support their delivery.
Strategic goals
CIO Gavin McLachlan introduced the Innovation Fund in 2015 to encourage IS staff to contribute ideas to help achieve the following goals:
University Strategic Vision 2025
Divisional objectives, visions or goals
Lessons Learned
One of the lessons learned from last year is to the need for more clarity and communication between project managers and their line managers. Each project will be listed on the Projects website and Tim's role will be to support the successful bidders in planning and reporting on their projects. Last year taught us that line managers need more clarity so that they are able to include Innovation projects coming from within their teams into their own resource planning as well.
Realism
A key aspect of the Innovation Fund is the emphasis on creativity and the recognition that not all the projects will have a successful outcome. This year, Tim wants to identify projects which for whatever reason don't start, so that funds can be reallocated across the Innovation programme.
It's vital that we foster innovation and give staff the freedom to pursue their ideas to improve services and deliver a great experience for our students. This is the key aim of the 2016 Innovation programme. The role of the Innovation Programme Manager is to help the bid leads to successfully progress their ideas by advising and supporting them on all aspects of project delivery whilst ensuring that the administrative burden is kept to a light touch minimum. This will improve outcomes, encourage staff to come up with innovation ideas and strengthen the innovation culture across ISG. I'm confident that the new Innovation Programme Manager will make a really positive difference.