Strategy and platform selection
De Onderwijsspecialisten offers (continued) special education and additional support to pupils who need it. For example, because these students have difficulty learning or because they have a physical or multiple disability, a chronic illness or behavioral problems. With their 1,500 employees. De Onderwijsspecialisten provide education to 3,400 students in 25 schools. In addition, they use their expertise to realize, together with partners, education and tailor-made support in regular education. A large group of employees at various locations and complex problems requires innovative ICT for online collaboration, knowledge sharing and communication. Evolve was allowed to support De Onderwijsspecialisten with strategy, platform selection, implementation, activation and adoption of their digital workplace. In this case description, the focus is on strategy, selection and technical realization.
In short: our activities
- Business case development
- Platform selection
- Project management, including monitoring budget, schedule, and scope
In short: our results
- A business case approved by the Executive Board
- An aligned strategy and approach for implementation
- Drafted use cases
- Aligned list of wishes and requirements
- Procurement approach including user acceptance testing
- Delivery of new digital platform in conjunction with M365
New digital infrastructure on M365
Because of the complex learning challenge they face, De Onderwijsspecialisten must always be at the forefront of new innovative forms of (digital) education. In order to be able to offer good education in the future, it was decided to renew their ICT infrastructure for communication, cooperation and knowledge sharing based on M365. A digital workplace in which teachers can easily communicate and collaborate with each other and with students, which ensures uniformity of storage of documents and which provides a central place for news, policy information, pedagogical information, and specific school information. With the purchase of M365, the software was present to realize this digital workplace. How (and which parts of) M365 would be implemented and set up, however, was the question.
“The project has not been set up as a technical implementation project, but as a change process for a new way of working (together) with a strong technical component.“
Step by step towards a new intranet
In order to get all parties on the same page, a clear business case including an action plan for the project was drawn up together with the project team. This made it clear to everyone what the project entails, what the ambition was, when what was delivered and what the estimate of the costs was. A crucial starting point of the plan of action was that the project was not set up as a technical realization project, but as a change process for a new way of working (together)with a strong technical component. This means that the deliverables were aimed at End Use and not just at delivering technical functionality. This business case including action plan is coordinated with the Executive Board and the principals of the 25 schools.
Subsequently, the goals, added value, use cases and KPIs of the digital workplace were defined in more detail with some directors of the schools. In addition, the principles of the digital workplace have been drawn up with this group, such as:
- a central concept, style, and architecture, but with a decentralized, school-specific implementation
- usage is the guiding principle: just because something is technically possible does not mean it will be implemented
- information is offered in a personalized manner
“An important challenge in this is to encourage employees and students not only to think in terms of limitations and what they know, but rather to think in terms of possibilities that would greatly facilitate and improve their work (and job satisfaction).“
Afterwards, a total of 10 design workshops were held with various user groups within the education specialists; creative sessions in which requirements and wishes are converted into requirements. An important challenge here is to make employees and students not only think in terms of limitations and what they know, but also think in terms of possibilities that would greatly facilitate and improve their work(pleasure) .
Based on the principles and design workshops, 6 main use cases and various (non) functional requirements were drawn up and processed in the tender document.
For the tender, we organized a mini-competition in which six parties participated. After an initial presentation, the project group reduced this to two parties who developed a Proof of Concept. Based on this, a preferred supplier was selected, contract negotiations began and final award took place after approval by the Executive Board.
Choice of supplier
Viadesk has been chosen by the education specialists as a technical solution for content publishing and community building with integrations with M365 in the areas of Calendar, mail, user management applications and document storage. This solution combined the user-friendliness of Viadeskplatform with the main working functions of M365.
Technical realization
Then the actual technical realization began. On the one hand, this meant setting up/configuring the Viadesk platform and on the other hand linking the platform with the internal systems of the education specialists. Evolve was the linking pin between Viadesk, the project group and the IT department, continuously monitoring that the project was delivered in accordance with scope, budget and time and that the coherence and demarcation with M365 was ensured. At the same time, the deployment of SharePoint Online as a location for document storage and the migration of documents from the operations and education staff and the first two pilot schools to this M365 cloud environment began.
Before the new environment could actually be delivered and launched internally, it had to pass three tests.
- A performance/system test of the Viadesk platform and M365 environment
- An integration test for the connections between Viadesk, M365, and internal systems (HelloID/AD) of De Onderwijsspecialisten
- A user acceptance test to test whether the new environment met the user requirements of De Onderwijsspecialisten.
For this last test, various test scripts have been prepared based on the previously prepared use cases.
After all the tests were completed successfully, My Digital Workplace – as the new digital workplace is called, was completed after a realization process of approximately 3 months for the staff departments Business Management and education and the first two schools. In the following year and a half, we supervised the migration of the remaining 23 schools to their new digital workplace.
Want to know more?
Do you want to know more about this project, strategy or platform selection or do you have a question that we can help you with? Please contact Peter via peter@evolve.eu or contact us at info@evolve.eu
