Tale of Two Cities: 6 Lessons Learned about Digital Transformation

Presentation given at the EdTech Conversations event (BETT Fringe) on Thursday 23rd January 2020. This presentation looks at 6 Lessons Learned about Digital Transformation from my time at JESS, Dubai and at Kellett School, Hong Kong.


 

How to get the most out of your School IT

Presentation given at the Education Experts Conference at the Dusit Thani in Dubai on 1st May 2019

 

A Strategic Approach to IT Budget Planning

A workshop presentation given at the ISBA Digital Strategy and Cybersecurity Conference at the BMA London on Wednesday 27th March 2019.
This presentation covers four areas:

1. What is Digital Governance? 
2. How do schools implement Digital Governance? 
3. Long-term IT Budget Planning Tool 
4. The Right Fit for your school. Three Debates

A strategic approach to long term IT budget planning from Mark S. Steed

How to build a #FutureSchool: The key to Digital Transformation in Schools

This presentation outlines why schools should undertake digital transformation and how to do it, The presentation was given at the ISC Digital Strategy Conference at Radley College Oxon UK on Thursday 29th November.

 

What is Digital Governance and why do I need it?

A presentation on Digital Governance given at the JESS Digital Summit on Sunday 4th November 2018 with my good friend Jim Stearns from VISS.

 

Some thoughts on how to implement an effective school digital strategy - CenturyTech Video

A training video made by CenturyTech for their teacher and school leader CPD site in which I talk about how to Implement an effective school digital strategy.

 

Thanks to CenturyTech for making this video.
You can join the CenturyTech CPD Hub here: https://cpd.century.tech/login

What is Digital Governance and why you need it in your school - Digital Governance Part Two

An Introduction to Governance

Corporate governance structures exist to ensure that executive management act in the best interest of the organisation/shareholders and not merely to maximise their own self interests. For example, school leaders will be familiar with the concept of Financial Governance which ensures that employees know the limits of their authority to commit the organisation’s financial resources. This usually takes the form of policy document which outlines the rules on expenditure, contracts, salary levels etc. Digital Governance works in a similar way. 

Digital Governance

An organisation’s Digital Governance document is in effect the rule-book outlining

• why the strategy is the way it is (the principles on which the strategy is founded) 
• who can make IS/IT decisions; 
• how IS/IT decisions are made; 
• what is permitted in the organisation. 

Digital Governance ensures that a year group/department/colleague can’t declare UDI and strike off in their own direction. These policies outline the rules for anyone who wants to purchase a new device/software program/app, and put in place procedures to check that the proposed development is aligned to the school’s wider strategy and compatible with the rest of the IS/IT network. 

“[It] is concerned with promoting consistent and coherent decision-making behaviour across an organisation regarding Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) in order to maximise the value the organisation derives from IS/IT” (Peppard and Ward, 2016, 368). 

The ‘Why’ of Digital Governance 

Digital Governance allows an organisation to align IS/IT developments to the wider vision and direction for the organisation. For example, Digital Governance enables organisations to standardize systems and processes, which ultimately bring greater efficiency and reduced costs. Digital Governance is a way to break down the ‘silo culture’ of some organisation as it puts structures in place which encourage alignment and collaboration. 

The ‘Who’ of Digital Governance 

There is significant debate about who should be making IS/IT decisions. There are real dangers in leaving these decisions to IT Network Managers as, too often, decisions are made from self-interest. Equally, there are dangers in allowing enthusiastic administrators/ educationalists who do not understand the technical aspects of school networks to dominate -they are fundamentally responsible for the legacy spaghetti. Instead, it is worth considering two other common models:

1. Digital Governance Committees. These groups combine some of the senior team with teachers and the Network team. Together they can evaluate new technologies and put in place the necessary infrastructure to ensure that it is effective. Such a group is well placed to draft the initial Digital Governance Document and to revise it as necessary. Large organisations may like to differentiate between a wider digital governance group, which oversees policy, and a narrower network architecture group, which looks at the technical specification of the network required to deliver that strategy. 
2. Digital Leadership Roles. It has become quite common for large firms in industry to appoint ‘Chief Digital Officers’ (CDOs) to drive digital change from an executive level. Some schools have appointed Assistant/Deputy Headteachers/Principals to fulfil this role. This is undoubtedly an excellent solution as it means that a single senior leader has time and authority to drive the necessary change. However, the difficulties are cost and finding a candidate with sufficient pedagogical and technical knowledge to be able to do the role effectively. 

The ‘How’ of Digital Governance 

As with all other areas of school life, there are inevitably good ideas competing for limited resources. The Digital Governance document should define the process by which IS/IT decisions are made and how competing IS and IT priorities should be managed and implemented. It is often helpful to consider these as either ‘demand’ or ‘supply’ decisions: 

1. ‘Demand’ Decisions include deciding how much to invest in IS/IT and how these decisions are prioritised. (‘We want to be able to . . . . ‘) 
2. ‘Supply’ Decisions include deciding on required IT capability, how projects and programmes will be managed, and IT services delivered. (‘Here’s how you can do it . . .’) After Peppard and Ward, 2016, 371 

The ‘What’ of Digital Governance A Digital Governance document should define the School’s IS/IT policies on the following areas: 

1. Define the core Information Systems for the organisation 
   At JESS our core Management Information System is iSAMS and we are endeavouring to consolidate other systems into it. 
   At JESS, we are moving to a Teaching and Learning environment in Office365, migrating away from a locally held Intranet. 
2. Define the compatibility requirements for new software 
   At JESS we are endeavouring to ensure that all educational software can either be run from remote desktop, or on the Cloud. o 
   We are endeavouring to ensure than all other administrative systems integrate with iSAMS. 
3. Set out the rules for procuring Cloud-based services. There is a trend away from making a one-off purchase of a ‘software package’ to contracting for ‘software as a service’ on an annual licence. The same applies to ‘storage as a service’. In many ways these are no different from other contracted services which fall under the remit of financial governance. 
4. Define the specification for hardware procurement outlining specification requirements and clear expectations in terms of performance. This should include the specifications for Servers, Switches, Cabling, End-user devices, and other Peripherals (especially printers!) o There is much to be said for having an agreed specification for the ‘standard classroom’ – this brings greater reliability to the system, allows for quick and easy replacement if a piece of kit fails, and aids familiarity for teachers moving between classrooms. o For example, at JESS we have a policy of replacing Interactive White Boards (IWBs) with 75” Screens. This means that we will not be replacing like-for-like when IWBs fail. (In practice, we reallocate resources to ensure that the new monitor is installed in the location in the organisation where it will be most effective, which is not necessarily the classroom where the IWB failed.) 
5. Define BYOD and Guest User Policies. Schools need to have clear policies on Bring Your Own Device and outline the Terms and Conditions under which non-school devices might be connected to the network. 
6. Define the School’s User Behaviour and Security Policies. It is essential that school have clear policies relating to data access and levels of security, which outline what to do if the event of a failure or breach. These should sit alongside the school’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) which defines the way in which all users in the organisation conduct themselves on the network and online. 

Given the fast-moving nature of IS/IT, each policy needs to be subject to regular review, at least at six month intervals, although it makes sense to review hardware specifications on a monthly basis, given the rate of change in this area.

Links, References and Further Reading:  

• Does your school have a legacy spaghetti network? - Digital Governance Part One
• Peppard and Ward The Strategic Management of Information Systems Fourth Edition 2016, pp.366-389
• Westermann, Bonnet and McAfee Leading Digital 2014, Chapter 7 pp.133-151

Does your school have a legacy spaghetti network? - Digital Governance Part One

Does your school have a
legacy spaghetti network?

Most school IT systems have evolved with well-meaning enthusiasts in the vanguard of the IT revolution: a school management system here, a time-tabling package there; a laptop programme in Physics, an iPad programme in French; a great app for English teaching here, a graphing package for Maths there.

Most school networks are testimony to at least a decade of anarchy. 

It is common for schools to hold data in multiple databases and to use a range of local, network and web-based packages which aren't integrated. Each new teacher and administrator joining the school brings great new ideas and 'innovation' and, with it, even more complexity to an already overloaded system. The result is what Information Systems experts term legacy spaghetti.
Ultimately this situation is a failure of a past school leadership which did even know they needed to understand how IT systems work before setting them up. Such an oversight is both understandable and forgivable for it was a time when IT expertise was not part of the school leader's toolkit, but it does pose a significant challenge for today’s school leader.
Why is legacy spaghetti a problem? 
‘Legacy spaghetti schools’ are tying themselves up in more and more layers of complexity that mean that pupils, teachers and school administrators are wasting precious time and resources. At some point the school reaches a point (and perhaps yours is already there) when the whole system begins to run so slowly that upgrades and simply adding more RAM and Terabytes just won't solve the problem. In the long run legacy spaghetti means that the school network will no longer be fit for purpose will prevent schools from keeping up with innovation. Resolution of these historic issues is possible but it does require strong Digital Leadership today and good Digital Governance going forward.

In Part Two Digital Governance - What it is and why you need it in your school I will explore what is Digital Governance and how schools can put it in place.

Leading Digital – Turning Technology into Business Transformation by Westmann, Bonnet and McAffee – Key Points

Leading Digital outlines how firms in any industry can harness digital technologies to gain strategic advantage. The book categorises four types of organisation according to their ‘level of digital mastery’ with the follow characteristics:

1. Beginners – an immature digital culture usually with a management sceptical of the business value of advanced technologies; 
2. Fashionistas – a digital culture which lacks an overarching vision; but has many advanced features which exist in silos. 
3. Conservatives – an overarching digital vision which is underdeveloped, but active steps are being taken to build digital skills and culture; there is strong digital governance across silos.
4. Digital Masters – a strong digital culture flowing from an overarching digital vision with excellent governance across silos; many digital initiatives generating measurable business value. Digital Masters combine digital capabilities and leadership capabilities to achieve performance that is greater than either dimension can deliver on its own. 

The book also has some very useful self-assessment tools:

• How well is your organisation building digital capabilities?
• How well is your organisation building leadership capabilities?

Structure of the Book

Part One: Digital Capability: the what of digital mastery 

• How firms engage with customers and how they can create a ‘compelling customer experience’. 
• How digital technologies can transform operational processes and ‘exploit the power of core processes’
• How digital technologies can produce and reinvent new business models. 

Part Two: Leadership Capabilities: the how of digital mastery

• How to create a ‘transformative digital vision’. 

Re-envisioning the customer experience

Re-envisioning operational processes

Combining both of these to re-envision business models 

• How to engage and energize employees to make the vision a reality. 
• How to put in place good ‘Digital Governance’ which will keep the transformation on the right track. o Standandise o Automate o Accelerate 
• How to develop ‘technology leadership capabilities’ to drive the transformation forward. 

Part Three: the Leader’s Playbook for Digital Transformation – concrete management guidance on how to get started. 

• How to frame the ‘Digital Challenge’
• How to focus investments
• How to mobilise the organisation 
• How to sustain the change. 

Some favourite quotes from the book: 

“The digital operations advantage is about more than great tools. It’s a combination of people, processes, and technology connected in a unique way to help you outperform you competitors.” p.69 

“Companies fall apart when their model is so successful that is stifles thinking that challenges it.” p.87 

“Leadership capabilities are essential to achieving true digital transformation, they turn digital investment into digital advantage.” p.95 

“When your technology leadership capabilities are weak, everything is a risky struggle. When they are strong, you can do great things.” p.171 

“Focussing investment is where the rubber meets the road in digital transformation.” p.189 

Some thoughts in response to the book

• Digital technologies have not brought cost savings in education because of increased compliance. 
• Digital transformation will not be possible in secondary schooling until it is liberated from the shackles of the (British) examination system. 
• So many schools have not imposed digital governance. Enthusiasts have been allowed to run off in all directions. There needs to be a balance between empowerment and anarchy.