[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”on” _builder_version=”3.17.6″][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ specialty_columns=”4″][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=”3.17.6″ featured_placement=”above” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.6″]<\/p>\n
Matt Atkin, Director of Planning, shares his experience of developing the University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan with our people at its core.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s over two years since Nancy asked me to help with the development of our new vision and strategic plan<\/a> and I clearly remember the key message from our first meeting. This was not a document to be developed in a darkened room by a few people, rather it must be created by engaging as many of our people \u2013 staff, students, alumni and external stakeholders – as possible. Our new strategic plan must be rooted in our collective contributions and ambitions, indeed the process was every bit as important as the outcome. It was a brief that was exciting and daunting in equal measure.<\/p>\n Our future<\/strong> A synthesis of the enormous breadth and depth of feedback revealed the foundations of our new vision, and the themes that underpin our strategic plan. What were the headlines of this analysis? It was striking how strongly our existing three core coals of research, teaching and social responsibility were reinforced. Rather than why or what, it was \u201chow we do things\u201d that really captured the imagination of colleagues. Time and again a central theme recurred \u2013 we should build the strategic plan around our people.<\/p>\n Roll the clock forward and this month we launched the vision and strategic plan <\/a>. Our vision encapsulates our long-term ambition, for a world ten years or more into the future. Our strategic plan then describes our ambitions, priorities and key measures of success for the first five years of our journey towards the vision.<\/p>\n Grounded ambition<\/strong> Having developed and published the strategic plan, we now need to bring it to life, a major part of which is to make it relevant for every colleague so they can see how their role directly contributes to the delivery of the plan \u2013 establishing what some organisations call the \u201cgolden thread\u201d between the University and every one of us. We have created a series of resources<\/a> to help the cascade and embedding of the strategic plan \u2013 please do let me know if you think of other things that would be helpful. We will also be updating some of our processes to align with the new plan, ranging from colleague induction, and learning and development events right through to how we monitor the performance of the University and prioritise the projects we are investing in.<\/p>\n So, bringing the new strategic plan to life starts here! To those of you who have taken part so far, thank you for your inspiring, challenging contributions and guidance. To the talented handful (and it was a handful) of colleagues who made it all happen behind the scenes, you did a truly fantastic job. To those of you who have not yet had the chance to contribute, you will definitely be able to help us secure the \u201cgolden thread\u201d across the University.<\/p>\n To the school children who described (and indeed drew) university as a limitless place that could help unlock their dream career, to the students who visited campus from across Europe and educated me in what \u2018personalisation\u2019 could mean in higher education, to the researchers who repeatedly reminded us of the importance of creating the right conditions for success, and to the colleague who sent us feedback from Antarctica to stress the importance of equality and diversity and environmental sustainability \u2013 indeed to all who contributed \u2013 I hope when you read the document, you will see how your contributions have shaped the future plan for the University.<\/p>\n This strategic plan takes us into our third century as a university. Our strategic plan, created together.<\/p>\n Matt Atkin, Director of Planning<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.17.6″ prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” in_same_term=”off” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ locked=”on” \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” locked=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s over two years since Nancy asked me to help with the development of our new vision and strategic plan and I clearly remember the key message from our first meeting. This was not a document to be developed in a darkened room by a few people, rather it must be created by engaging as many of our people \u2013 staff, students, alumni and stakeholders – as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":3147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" [et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]<\/p> When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]<\/p> [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p> [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pslt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3169,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions\/3169"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nInitially I had concerns that perhaps no one would contribute. I needn\u2019t have worried. I have never worked anywhere that such a broad cross section of people care so deeply about. Over eighteen months more than 4,000 people engaged in a series of big conversations which we called Our future. The strength of feeling and range of ideas generated during this engagement process, driven by pride and ambition, was truly humbling.<\/p>\n
\nThe strategic plan acknowledges many areas of current strength, blending existing agendas with selected new ambitions. It is not a long list of new things for us all to deliver. It is a statement for five years, not an activity set to complete within twelve months, and in some cases we openly acknowledge that we are dependent on funding in order for some of these ideas to progress. The plan contains ambition but, to borrow a phrase I picked up along the way, I think it is grounded ambition. There are fewer pages, fewer themes and fewer measures than the document it replaces. The document is deliberately designed in these ways in response to repeated feedback about the value of keeping things simple and accessible, the need to recognise the internal and external context we are operating in, and the importance of clarity and focus.<\/p>\nRelated<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
Patrick Hackett and Beth Dodd - Emerging from a crisis<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Cary Cooper and Julian Skyrme: Why high-performing institutions need to understand wellbeing<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Patrick Hackett: Working smarter and living better - a hybrid future update<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>