Strategy Pilot Report Cambridge Regional College May 2010 1
The Issue
1.1
Context: In 2008/09 the College’s out-turn in two key performance measures was poorer than predicted. Exploratory work to clearly identify the cause of this underperformance (forecasting income and improving student success on courses which supplement main learning programmes) concluded that the College was not effectively working across internal institutional “boundaries”; that insufficient attention was given to local intelligence when making decisions with regard to budgets and targets; that negotiation and consultation with managers was perceived to be underdeveloped and that deadlines were routinely missed because managers were “too busy”. As a consequence, in Autumn 2009/10, the Senior Management Team (SMT) commissioned an internal improvement project, “Improving Practices”, to seek further details from the College-wide Management Group (“CMG”), and selected others with distinct cross-College roles, about the specific areas they would like to see improved. Improving Practices ran in parallel with a culture change programme, aiming to empower managers more fully, and was intended to provide managers with the tools, processes and support to effectively deliver their responsibilities.
1.2
Strategic Planning Issues to Address: i)
SMT committed to: a) Reviewing communication mechanisms, particularly around consultation and negotiation; b) Actively reviewing decisions and priorities and identifying when not to take projects, initiatives or ideas forward; c) Clarifying priorities, allowing for low-priority work to be deferred; d) Providing people with an environment in which they can succeed in their roles.
ii)
The methods through which these changes were to be effected were discussed with SMT in early January. Primarily SMT agreed to: a) Take a more structured and deliberate approach to assessing their decisions when they impact upon CPG for implementation;
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