Collaborating early to define a shared digital future

Introduction

In our last blog, learning from digital leaders, we talked about how digital leaders across the post‑16 education sector are collaborating with colleagues to shape their digital strategies, and the benefits that come with involving people early. In this blog we look at how digital leaders can begin to shape the benefits of that collaboration through a well defined digital strategy.

Start with a vision

When asked to write a digital strategy, the most common question digital leaders ask us is simply: “Where do we start?” It’s a good question. Drafting a digital strategy can feel like a big undertaking, and many people naturally look for a template to guide them. Templates can be useful, and for some people they do the job nicely. But for others, templates don’t always fit the format required by the organisation or they just don’t spark inspiration.

At its heart, creating a digital strategy is about expressing your digital intent. Like any strategy, it begins with a clear vision:

Why you want to achieve a particular goal, and
What worthwhile benefits will be gained by achieving the goal.

Answering those questions can feel daunting, but there is a well‑trod path to follow. It helps to ensure your digital vision is not only well‑defined but also aligned to your organisation’s core mission. And that’s exactly what we’re focusing on in this blog: defining your digital vision and tying it closely to your organisation.

No matter what form the final written digital strategy takes, your stakeholders need a clear picture of where you’re heading. There’s plenty of advice out there on crafting a strong vision statement, but at its simplest, your digital strategy should start with a digital vision which:

Provides direction, spelling out why digital matters for your organisation.
Inspires and motivates, painting a compelling picture of the future we’ll be working toward and benefits to be gained.
Unites effort across the organisation: giving everyone a common goal to rally around.
Supports strategic planning: functioning as the anchor point for setting objectives and allocating resources.

These points provide a good structure to form your digital strategy vision statement. As we said at the beginning, digital leaders now seek the views of many stakeholders before drafting anything. Consider asking your colleagues:

What does a compelling digital future look like for them?
What can digital do to help us engage students and learners more effectively?
How do we want digital technologies to help students and learners to study?
How should the digital experience improve the work and study experience?
How can we use digital to create an inclusive experience?
How can digital help us to improve sustainability?

There’s no doubt the response to these questions or others like them will vary enormously, but many points will also be similar and these can become the foundation of your digital vision.

Align

This is where your organisation’s mission statement comes in. The mission explains what your organisation does, how it does it, and who it serves – your students and service users.

A strong mission statement helps you:

Keep decisions aligned to your core purpose.
Make consistent choices about where to focus time, energy, and investment.
Communicate your intent clearly, both internally and externally.

When your digital vision and organisational mission sit comfortably together, you create a strong foundation for your digital strategy and a shared sense of direction across the organisation. More importantly, it is essential to show that digital strategy isn’t just a nice to have, but that it is vital component in helping the organisation deliver its primary purpose.

How we can help you get started

If you’re not sure where to start our subject specialists can provide initial advice. To arrange a call contact your organisations Jisc Relationship Manager who will be pleased to arrange an online meeting.

Alternatively if you would like to make contact with other digital leaders consider joining our Digital Leadership and Culture Forum. This is an online community of leaders working in higher and further Education to advance digital transformation. Anyone can be a digital leader so the forum isn’t just for traditional leadership role.

If you prefer to do some reading before getting in touch our Digital Strategy Toolkit would be a good place to start. Finally the Department for Education, under the standards for meeting digital and technology standards in schools and colleges, can offer useful guidance on digital leadership and governance.

Summary

Digital vision and mission statements don’t need to be wordy and long. They need to communicate direction and inspire others to join in and contribute to the challenging we all face in bringing about a digitally transformed learning and teaching experience.

In our next blog we will discuss creating high-level strategic goals.