Kurt Jensen is Head of the Department of Computer Science. And he’s constantly amazed at how much time he has to spend on IT systems that have been set up to require his personal approval whenever new projects are launched, travel insurance cards are issued, or money is disbursed in lieu of holidays that were never taken.

Kristine Stougaard Thomsen is the System and Development Manager at AU IT. And she’s constantly amazed at how often she has to get her staff to quickly cobble together an IT system using any old bits and pieces they can find lying around.

Per Dalbjerg is Chair of the Student Council. And he’s constantly amazed at how unreasonably difficult it is to be a student at AU. For instance, students sometimes have to leave their laptops at home and suffer all the trials and tribulations of doing written exams using a ball-point pen and three-copy carbon paper.

Top priority for 12 projects

Jørgen Jørgensen is the University Director. And he’s wondering how to explain to everyone else at AU that the management does actually have a plan regarding all the tasks involved in adapting an administration to a large, merged organisation like Aarhus University.

Actually, the word “plan” might be putting it a bit too strongly. To be more precise, the university management and deputy directors have been working with portfolio management for almost two years in an attempt to create a more efficient administration. Most recently, the management have considered over a hundred projects – giving top priority to the 12 most important of them between now and the end of 2014.

Jørgensen explains why these 12 projects were selected in particular:

“It’s no secret that the choice reflects our recognition of the fact that the vast majority of the problems encountered in connection with administrative service are related to IT support,” he says.

A good start, but …

Which brings us back to Kristine Stougaard Thomsen. She is the latest person to have offered her views in the debate at au.dk following the publication earlier this year of the results of the psychological workplace assessment in 2012. One of the things she said was that lots of people have good reason to complain about the university’s IT systems; and she asked the management to identify clear priorities for projects designed to make the administration more efficient.

Stougaard Thomsen regards the announcement of the Top 12 projects by the management as the first step in the right direction.

“I think it’s a really good start. The management have now identified 12 projects which are to be given top priority at the university.”

But despite the praise, Stougaard Thomsen still has her reservations.

“The management need to remember that the project called Sparto – number 4 in the Top 12 – deals with administrative issues dating all the way back to the mergers in 2006-2007 and the subsequent reorganisation in connection with the academic development process in 2011. There are still some gaps in our basic master data about all the people connected to the various units at Aarhus University. We need to invest major resources in this area to get this sorted out once and for all.”

And Stougaard Thomsen continues:

“I’m not sure that the management are capable of generating the support – and the patience – needed for that project. But the Top 12 might not make much difference if we have to rearrange our priorities constantly to invest resources in chasing the various hobbyhorses that the management like to ride.”

“The deans and deputy directors all have legitimate wishes for things they want to improve in the organisation. But they don’t necessarily adopt a holistic view of the situation. For instance, we were told to provide a quick solution for the Blackboard learning management system because it was about to be launched at BSS. So we had to cobble something together at top speed. We aren’t satisfied with what we produced, and we have no desire to repeat that process the next time this happens.”

More haste less speed

Kurt Jensen also refers to the learning management system in his criticism of the management’s short-termism when introducing new systems.

“The university management – including the deputy directors – often place people under severe pressure to get a new system introduced in a hurry. The latest example is the way the Blackboard system was introduced across the board at BSS. It’s not surprising because the old systems were undoubtedly inadequate. But it makes no sense to introduce a system that hasn’t been completely developed or properly tested. People just get frustrated. It’s more haste less speed.”

Jørgen Jørgensen accepts that this criticism of the BSS pilot project is not entirely unjustified.

“The Blackboard project was a bit quick, and it’s true that we under-estimated how many resources we would have to invest in it. BSS did a lot of hard work themselves, but the project also had an impact on the administration. So you could say that the estimates for the project weren’t completely realistic right from the outset.”

Why not ask the right users?

Kurt Jensen also praises the university management for their Top 12 priorities.

“The management have taken the right step in focusing on 12 projects and choosing to let other projects which are also important wait until later. But I’d like to know whether their decisions are based on realistic timeframes.”

Jensen also believes that making priorities is not enough if you want to make your administration more efficient. You also need to listen carefully to criticism. And one of the things that have been criticised is that the users at our departments need to be included far more in the development of new administrative IT systems.

“What they do is include staff from the various administrative divisions because the people developing the systems think that these people know what goes on at our departments. But unfortunately this is rarely the case. The managers of the departmental secretariats are the ones who know what goes on in our departments.”

Willing to listen

Jørgen Jørgensen agrees that Jensen may have a point.

“I can only agree: we should include the relevant users in our projects. We’ve often discussed this issue in our user panel, and I can’t claim that what we’ve done so far has struck the perfect balance. We are willing to listen to input regarding future projects.”

It’s ridiculous!

Kurt Jensen also has plenty of examples of trivial administrative issues that take far too much of his time – and his staff’s time as well:

“Lots of the systems that are developed require the relevant head of department to provide advance approval of various things. But I trust my staff to behave in a responsible fashion, so I don’t need to personally approve new projects, travel insurance cards or payments made in lieu of holidays that were never taken.”

The professor takes a deep breath:

“It’s ridiculous that I have to spend my time on this kind of thing. I wouldn’t dream of appointing a member of staff and then suspecting them of misusing a travel insurance card. I just need to be kept informed every now and then – or have the option of finding the information I need online if I ever need to get hold of it.”

At the end of the day

Per Dalbjerg, the Chair of the Student Council, agrees with the professor’s criticism regarding the failure to include relevant users.

“I think the problem is that the easiest thing for the administration to do is to include users from the administration. They tend to forget that at the end of the day it’s the students and staff at our departments who have to actually use these systems. Their attitude is revealed on the rare occasions when they do visit the departments – there are one or two students and one or two staff from the department, but everyone else comes from the administration.”

Thousands of log-on codes

Dalbjerg also quotes a few examples from the everyday lives of the students to show how difficult it is to cope when administrative IT systems fail to work across organisational boundaries:

“Every time students cross the boundaries running across the university, they face loads of problems because of our IT systems. For instance, if you want to study a subsidiary subject or a supplementary subject in a different main academic area, you have to remember thousands of different log-on codes for computers and learning management systems, and you also need a number of different printer cards.”

Not a giant leap for mankind

Deputy Director Flemming Bøge from AU IT wrote the following words about the Top 12 in a recent newsletter to staff. He is currently on holiday, but his department know all about the demands made on them in connection with AU’s IT projects:

“I’m fully aware that (…) a single decision by the university management doesn’t basically solve all the challenges involved in having too many projects. But it’s the first step in an attempt to avoid spreading ourselves too thinly, as well as preventing all the challenges that result: a lack of progress, uncertain planning and significant time loss in our projects. It might not be a giant leap for mankind, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

“That’s a really good way to put it,” says Jørgen Jørgensen.

“The reason why we’ve defined the Top 12 is that we’re spreading ourselves too thinly at the moment, because the main problem before we started working with portfolio management was an excess of willingness. Nobody wanted to say ‘no’ to a good project, so too many projects were launched. But there is only a limited number of staff to carry them out, so a lot of projects slowly ran out of steam because there were simply too many of them,” he says.

- You say that there was an excess of willingness. But couldn’t you also say that there was a lack of control? For instance, have the administrative management failed to control these projects in various areas?

“I don’t want to pass judgement, but I know that the problem we were facing was a lack of progress. And one of the reasons why the university management have identified the Top 12 as part of their portfolio management is that we realise that priorities are necessary in order to create the kind of calm atmosphere in the organisation that’s needed in order to appreciate the way things hang together,” concludes Jørgensen.

Facts: DKK 12.6 million granted in 2013

In addition to the current budget for 2013, the university management have granted DKK 12.6 million, primarily for the first four IT projects in the Top 12.

In its application for Top 12 funding, the administration asked the university management for DKK 21 million for 2013 and DKK 25 million for 2014.

Apart from the four first items, the Top 12 list is not in order of priority.  

Top 12

The steering committee for portfolio management – including the Top 12 – will have more information about individual projects in September. You will find more information at medarbejdere.au.dk/administration/administration/portefoeljestyring (In Danish)