The Client
Swinburne University of Technology is a world-class dual-sector university creating social and economic impact through science, technology and innovation. With roughly 45,000 students and 700 academics, Swinburne offers courses in Higher Education and Vocational Education and Training (VET).
Swinburne researchers have a reputation for high-quality research with particular strengths in astronomy, physics, engineering, materials science, computer science and information technology, design and innovation, health sciences, neurosciences and mental health. Underpinned by leading digital technology platforms, researchers are collaborating with industry through embedded partnerships to drive innovation and create impact.
With thanks to Professor Tara Magdalinski, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education and Quality) at Swinburne University of Technology.
The Challenge
“Swinburne’s major pain points prior to working with Simitive and implementing the Workload Allocation Management System (WAMS) was that we were using a database that was originally built by one of our academics that had limited value in terms of configuration and reporting.
Our IT team additionally thought our system was a cyber risk! No one was satisfied with what we had and we needed far more flexibility to manage workload but also to leverage the rich datasets for other activities.
We needed something more professional made by specialist developers with quality support behind it. It had to be a product that allowed us to configure the system to our specifications and to make adjustments ourselves, rather than having to go back to the vendor with every change. Unfortunately, most products we looked at were little more than glorified Excel spreadsheets with a bit of document workflow.
We had a long list of requirements when searching for a solution. We asked key stakeholders what they needed the product to do in an ideal world. We discarded the more ambitious ideas and homed in on what we needed, such as ease of use, an intuitive product, and great data and reporting. We needed the tool to be flexible, to able to handle exceptions, and be logical.”
The Solution
We heard about Simitive while doing a market scan of available solutions, and following an initial demo were impressed with WAMS’ flexibility and configurability. It seemed to be everything we needed it to be and had additional features we didn’t even know we wanted or needed! We felt it had been created by a development team who listened to universities and really understood the complexity and nuance of academic workload allocation and management. In the end, it was a pretty easy decision to implement Simitive’s WAMS, which we call “MyWorkload” at Swinburne.
The most obvious advantages that the product offers are ease of use, configurability and access to data. The WAMS product is fully customisable, and the configuration is intuitive. We had a couple of quite bespoke requirements and Simitive’s team were able to come up with solutions as well as suggestions based on their experience working with dozens of universities to enhance our allocation process.
We were probably less concerned than many institutions when it came to the impact on the business of implementing WAMS as we already had a workload allocation platform and so were a bit further ahead than many other universities. Our previous system was developed in-house and enabled academic staff to input their own workload data, which led to issues with consistency, accuracy and reliability of the data. With WAMS, there are a limited number of staff responsible for allocating workload and our data is much more accurate and thus reliable as a result.
Since we became a customer, both the product and service have exceeded our expectations and we have developed a valuable partnership, particularly as the team at Simitive are responsive to questions and suggestions for features and enhancements.
The Outcome
WAMS has helped us achieve our objectives in a number of ways because we are a data-led institution and use data to make evidence-based decisions. Our regular reporting enables the Deans and Schools to identify non-compliance with our Enterprise Agreement, to ensure that staff are not over allocated and to identify that workload is optimised by not running units with small enrolments.
A critical benefit of MyWorkload is being able to respond to budget constraints by having good insights based on reliable data into our allocations. In trying to identify areas to optimise, we are able to see where staff are fully allocated or where there are gaps that are being filled by casual staff. A deep analysis of the data ensures we are not overspending on casual staff when there is still capacity for our own staff to teach or contribute to service and leadership. The historical data also allows us to create forecast models that we use to predict workload needs for the coming year to support our load and budget planning processes.
The transition between our old in-house system and launching WAMS was seamless. Whilst the product is not difficult to use, we were also fortunate that it was similar in concept to our previous platform. I would highly recommend a good change manager to bring staff along for the journey and to translate Simitive’s ‘Train the Trainer’ approach into bespoke training sessions and support materials. We were particularly impressed that Simitive ran training sessions for us – sometimes all-day sessions – during Australian business hours, which would have been overnight in the UK.
Summary
WAMS is super effective and has been the perfect solution for our workload allocation needs. Furthermore, Simitive has been an excellent partner in this process and we have developed an excellent working relationship such that we are actively seeking to develop additional product ideas and initiatives. Above all, as an IT business, Simitive is a very human company, one that is responsive to its customers’ needs and we have enjoyed working with them.