Listening to a podcast by journalist and author Jon Ronson, I was struck by what he had to say about social media echo chambers and feedback loops. It made me think about the parallels between his observations and findings, and how we run user-centred projects. In particular, the importance of working in the open.

From January to May, we collaborated with the Student Immigration Service (SIS) to improve the student experience around applying for visas. In this post, I recap the highlights and outcomes. How we ran the project This was the first project for my newly formed team. Neil and I were committed to introducing new team members […]

It’s done! Our team has delivered a new website for the Fees Service which will greatly improve student fees experience and make life easier for staff. The effort took 8 sprints, was underpinned by robust evidence, and designed with significant collaboration from the Fees and Student Support team.

Our first sprint of the New Year (and of the new decade!) has just wrapped up. A key delivery was the rapid and successful refresh of our undergraduate degree finder content. Read on for a quick overview of the sprint activities and achievements.

We’ve finished our last fortnightly sprint before Christmas. Much of the focus of this, our 4th sprint, was on the existing postgraduate fees experience. It has been a productive two weeks and we’ve managed to uncover a few final parcels of valuable insight before festivities begin! Read on for a quick overview of what we’ve […]

During the early part of December, we ran a series of events to engage with the student recruitment and website management communities. In this post I’ve pulled together slides, video and a write up of what I said.

The new Prospective Student Web Content Team is adopting an Agile approach to delivery, using the Scrum framework. Although this represents a new way of working for many in our team, it’s already a nice fit for our mission. We’re getting on with the job at hand.

In these early stages of our new team, I’ve been introducing everyone to working within an agile framework. Scrum is new to everyone except Neil and I, but I’m finding everyone is adapting to the methodology really well. This is a quick overview of what it’s all about.

Principles are important. They’re what unite us. A commonly agreed set of principles is a powerful way to ensure that, while we may be working independently at times, we are likely to make decisions that keep us moving in the same direction. In this post, I’ll look at the principles that are setting out how […]