It was decided early in the process that a single, centralised IT service management environment was required. The One Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) project team was formed and tasked with the goal of delivering a single, customer centric and technologically advanced service platform that could be scaled to respond to the various TAFE NSW requirements as they emerged throughout its modernisation.
With the modernisation of TAFE NSW into a single entity, and the transition of all infrastructure and technology services from the DoE to TAFE NSW, there was an urgent need to establish a service platform that could support the products and services being transitioned or developed, as well as a team who could deliver those services.
It was essential to develop a customer interface through which educational and administrative team members could easily and intuitively access help on all information technology and communication issues, problems and requests. The service platform would be a future barometer of the service being provided by ICT Group, and would need to meet the longer term vision of ICT Group and how it delivers support to its customers.
The challenges were enormous, as TAFE NSW was at the very beginning of a profound transformation, moving from a federated model comprising 12 autonomous RTOs that competed with each other into a unified OneTAFE model. Compounding the complexity of the challenge was the need to:
-Build an effective and efficient ICT team from existing and disparate RTO team members.
-Engineer and establish a new infrastructure to accommodate the transition of a large number of complex and interdependent applications from the DoE (as mandated by the Government).
-Simultaneously transition applications from the DoE without disrupting BAU activities.
-Establish a service management response to replace TAFE NSW’s previous reliance on the DoE to provide the majority of its service management requirements.
Processes and Procedures
The project team adopted a number of approaches to avoid common project pitfalls, and
ensure its critical success:
-A lean, agile approach with sprints, scrums, and retrospectives flourished. In particular, a sprint mindset for major activities including rollout - Discover, Design, Develop, and Deploy – was fostered.
-Use of simple documents, such as ‘Process on a Page’ for each major ITIL process area, was used to educate stakeholders regarding elements including: process controls, process flow stakeholders, goals, quality assurance and KPIs with inputs and outputs, roles and responsibilities.
-An empowered Product Owner ensured engagement, and assigned Process Owners supported the implementation through clear and effective demarcation of roles and responsibilities.
-Guiding principles were used to anchor the team, remove roadblocks and build effective relationships.
-Governance followed a ‘fit for purpose’ and practical mindset, with varied governance used for development vs release.
-A tailored face-to-face training program was developed for directly impacted team members in the ICT Group.
-A structured discovery process was undertaken to understand our own service management processes within TAFE NSW.
-A ‘Building Capability’ approach was adopted and enabled project positioning within the overall ICT strategy.
-A customer centric mindset was fostered and the TAFE NSW value of ‘Customer First’ was continuously reiterated. Stakeholders constantly questioning - ‘what does it mean for the customer?’
-A Guiding Coalition network was established to engage across 12 RTOs and was integral to project success by creating ‘bottom up’ awareness and desire of the proposed outcomes.
-Alignment to the TAFE NSW and ICT Group strategy paid dividends by encouraging effective stakeholder buy in.
All of the team has used the new system and find it really useful with so many changes across TAFE. It is becoming the norm very quickly
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