A digital strategy to realise Melbourne Polytechnic’s future vision
A digital strategy to realise Melbourne Polytechnic’s future vision
Melbourne Polytechnic, a TAFE in northern Melbourne, offers over 300 courses across seven campuses. It has many international students and delivers courses overseas.
Digital was a key enabler of student, staff and industry experience
Melbourne Polytechnic understood digital’s importance as an accelerator and enabler for learning in a TAFE and for operational excellence. Nous was engaged to develop a digital strategy to support Melbourne Polytechnic to achieve its strategic goals for sustainable growth, efficiency and agility in a networked environment.
The digital strategy was co-designed with users
Nous developed a digital strategy that is demonstrably aligned to our stated strategic outcomes for students and industry. Nous engaged deeply and widely with our stakeholders to ensure outcomes were tailored to Melbourne Polytechnic’s particular circumstances.
Claire Britchford
Drawing on our expertise in digital, design, strategy and organisation transformation, Nous developed a digital strategy that applied trends in education to Melbourne Polytechnic’s products, services and operating model. We applied a design framework that placed students at the apex:
We worked with Melbourne Polytechnic leaders to deliver the strategy in three stages:
- Understand strategic priorities and assess current digital capabilities: We engaged executives and staff to understand the five-year strategic and education plans and assess capabilities and activity.
- Discover opportunities to link new capabilities into an integrated experience: We led an executive workshop, known as a Fusion Room, to articulate the future state and digital vision, ensuring alignment with the strategic and education plans. This established how digital would enable contemporary learning and work experiences while maintaining efficiency, resilience and adaptability. Our interactive and collaborative workshops across campuses identified pain points and co-designed the desired experience.
- Develop a compelling strategy and practical implementation plan: The co-design activities revealed insights that varied across levels of digital literacy, accessibility needs, courses and campuses. We synthesised, tested and refined opportunities for digital to optimise the student and staff experience over three time horizons and identified the required capabilities. We undertook gap analysis and developed initiatives briefs to highlight implementation requirements and funding considerations.
The strategy will improve the student, staff and industry experience
Nous developed a digital strategy that articulated the future digital environment accompanied by an implementation roadmap for realising its strategic ambitions, including priorities, dependencies and investment requirements.
The digital strategy was informed by digital and education industry trends, as well as insights from stakeholder engagement, resulting in a roadmap that suited the institution’s capabilities and resources.
It has been endorsed by the board and its sub-committee, with Nous commended for our clear linkage between the digital strategy and the institution’s broader strategic objectives.
What you can learn from Melbourne Polytechnic
- The digital strategy must clearly demonstrate alignment and ability to deliver overall strategic objectives.
- A digital vision requires input from customers, staff and industry partners to deliver realise the future outcomes and investment benefits.
- Stakeholders should be brought together to identify a feasible roadmap and implementation priorities.
