Open University - Best practice guide

As the Open University (OU) celebrates its 40th anniversary, it has become the UK’s largest university, teaching almost 200,000 students each year.  Since its establishment in 1969 it has helped over 2 million students further their career development or fulfil their life long learning ambitions.

Opportunity

Following the 1964 Labour election win Prime Minister Harold Wilson appointed Jennie Lee to take on the ‘University of the Air’ project.  Since then the OU has changed the face of the higher education system through the exploitation of technology as a tool to make distance learning accessible to all. Fundamental to this achievement was the ability of the organisation to manage innovation and change through projects.

Its immense success has in recent years been to a large degree based on its advanced ability in online technology development.  So it was only natural that when the OU embarked on a project to review and refresh its in-house project and programme management methodology it wanted to support it by a ‘best in class’ online project management resource.  Rather than reinvent the wheel it turned to partnering with CITI, the UK’s leading experts on project and programme management. 

Approach

Having seen demonstrations of CITI’s online project management best practice tool, the e:PMguide, the OU saw a unique opportunity to further develop and tailor the guide for its internal use.  A vital factor in the OU’s decision to partner with CITI was their ability to tailor the online resource so that the OU style, standards, approach and templates could be seamlessly integrated into the existing guide, greatly enhancing its business relevance and thus ability to obtain the support of the many stakeholders across the University.

Dean Taylor, Head of Strategic Projects Support at the OU, recognised the need for consistency of approach and terminology, given the many changes the OU is undertaking to expand its services and improve efficiency. “In collaboration with our Human Resources Development Team we have embarked on a University-wide project management best practice programme which encompasses many facets, including developing project leadership and project management capabilities and enhancing project governance and assurance practices.  The foundation of our work is the refinement of the OU project management methodology and approach which will be embedded through the online e-PMguide and linked resources.”

Outcome

The e-PMguide has been structured for everyday use, with the emphasis on what must be done to achieve a project’s objective, as opposed to all the things that could be done. The guide provides an essential set of templates and examples of their use. Again, the focus is on success and flexibility, with each project receiving an amount of management effort that is optimally geared to its size and complexity.

As well as best practice guidance, the e-PMguide contains a method ‘handbook’, which is based on ten project disciplines and seven project roles. This enables all members of the project community to understand their responsibilities within projects so that they can contribute to successful project delivery.
Nigel Pigott, Strategic Projects Manager at the OU commented “The great thing about the guide is that it combines very rich content with the flexibility and ease of use which make it accessible and helpful to managers across a wide range of projects.”