The right kind of organisation is central for success

How to handle organisation in a large joint project of 37 higher education institutions, so that concrete value-producing solutions can be developed efficiently?

When 37 Finnish higher education institutions join forces in a shared project, it is inevitably a complex endeavour where the right kind of organisation and practices are central for success. We now want to shed some light on how we have succeeded in developing concrete value-producing solutions efficiently in the Digivisio 2030 project.

The first large visible output of the Digivisio project is the Opin.fi service, which is a one-stop-shop for the open study offerings of 37 higher education institutions. The beta stage of the service was carried out with eight higher education institutions in late 2024, and the actual launch is scheduled for April 2025.

Clarifying the value stream to focus and support prioritisation

The extensive scope of the project has required accurate prioritisation to avoid overly scattered resources. A large public project is prone to being subject to a wide range of expectations from different stakeholders, so maintaining the focus on key goals is very important for achieving efficiency and results. In the Digivisio 2030 project, this has entailed:

• making the choice that the project would especially focus on the continuous learner first
• structuring the continuous learner’s value stream from the perspective of the continuous learner and the higher education institution
• using the value stream to create shared understanding of value creation and identify development needs

Engaging higher education institutions and consulting end users

Digivisio 2030 is a joint project by Finnish higher education institutions, steered by the higher education institutions. Naturally, this reinforces the higher education institutions’ commitment to the project, but it simultaneously creates a challenge of how to manage the agile development of a new digital service while taking into account the needs and interests of different organisations.

The project has created structures for:

• Joint decision-making by higher education institutions concerning the project and the service. Responsibility for decisions on goals, ground rules, overarching themes and high-level concepts of the service.
• Mapping the needs, current solutions and preconditions of the higher education institutions and the agile testing of alternative solutions. This has most importantly involved three separate pilot stages, each including a number of higher education institutions.
• Forming a strategic and tactical view of key topics in cooperation. Theme groups have played a key role in this effort, and different higher education institutions have appointed experts on the topic. Important themes have included study offering, data and analytics.
• Processing and coordinating operational-level change between the project and higher education institutions. This aspect has revolved around the change programme and support for change management, with higher education institutions attaching their personnel to these tasks.

The higher education institutions have each decided on their level of participation in relation to their own objectives, but key decisions have always been made between all the higher education institutions in the General Assembly.

One thing that has been clear from the start of the project is that the main focus must be on understanding the end users of the service – continuous learners – and their needs. Learner engagement has been carried out with diverse service design methods, and the project and the higher education institutions have gained insight on how learners’ needs can be understood through different ways.

Cooperation across team boundaries

Effective results require much more than the agility of individual teams. In this project, it has been essential to create structures and procedures that enable seamless cooperation between different teams, also involving the higher education institutions in the development work. In this project, this has included:

• Close cooperation between development teams, where planning and testing solutions are not separate processes but a part of the development teams.
• Closely aligning technical development with teams that facilitate and support operational change in the higher education institutions.
• Regular meetings across teams, not for reporting what has been done but for sharing lessons learned and refining matters that cross team boundaries.
• Creating a culture where cooperation between teams is not an exception but an established practice.

Shared pace and goals to point the way

Managing a complex entity is easier with an aligned structure and shared goals. The Digivisio 2030 project has aimed at a clear structure and goal-oriented management, but the project has also had to enable adaptation to changing situations and requirements, and finding suitable options along the way as we gain knowledge and understanding.

It has not made sense to lock down precise procedures too early. In practice, managing the project through goals and a shared pace has meant:

• Annual goals that set the direction and framework; derived from the high-level goals and roadmap of the project drawn up together with the higher education institutions.
• The annual goals have been used to derive more specific quarterly goals every three months to determine what measures can be used to achieve the targets in the best possible way, according to the current understanding.
• Four times a year, the entire project has gathered together to plan the next three months’ work on the basis of the goals set for that quarter.
• As the quarter progresses, there have been mixed-team meetings to specify plans and find solutions to any obstacles to progress.
• At the end of the quarter, achievements in relation to the goals have been presented. In addition, the project and the higher education institutions have examined how the goals of the next quarter should be adjusted based on lessons learned and how to ensure joint progress in the desired direction.

Finally

Naturally, there have been many challenges and even poor choices along the way, but those have been overcome with the mentality of continuous improvement – solving difficult problems takes attempts and mistakes.

The Digivisio project has demonstrated that extensive cooperation between organisations is not only possible but also very successful with the right principles to guide practices and organisation. Collaboration across organisational boundaries and learning together, selecting the focus and focusing on value-producing things – alongside continuously ensuring a common direction for a shared pace and goals – have enabled creating solutions that genuinely produce value for higher education institutions and continuous learners.