Blueprint of Student Transition
Blueprint of Student Transition
What is the blueprint?
This study has found that, as in many large complex organisations, there are many disparate actors, systems and processes involved in the service delivery and too often staff work in silos with little or no understanding of the personal impact of the student journey.
Our approach to break down these barriers was to engage the end-users, both staff and students, to draw up a service design blueprint, using Microsoft Visio, viewed entirely from the student perspective. These student 'touchpoints' were analysed and using 'swim lanes', all front and back stage operations were identified and the interoperability of the nature of the service was laid out, for the first time, in its entirety.
What did we find?
The technique has proved a powerful tool in engaging not only staff involved in the processes but also management, who can see clearly, in diagrammatic form, both the complexity of the system and how it holds together. The identification of fail and wait points has proved a very powerful approach to focusing effort on enhancements where the biggest impact will be made to the felt student experience.
The blueprint has also fostered empathy, and has helped staff to understand the role others have to play in delivering the service. In developing a new, holistic, service enhancement plan we have been able to say that we have planned and mapped out improvements and interventions with the key stakeholders. However, the fundamental change has been in rather than assuming that what we knew, or thought we knew, would be best for the students, we have actively sought their input as end-user designers and co-producers of their own student experience.
