Successful delivery
The full technical scope was delivered on time and under budget.
University of Kent
Supporting the University of Kent to modernise its education programmes
People & Prompt led the technical delivery of a major Education Modernisation programme, coordinating system change, governance and cross-team delivery ahead of a fixed launch point for the 2025/26 academic year.
The challenge was not a lack of technical capability. It was the absence of a coherent delivery strategy that could be governed at scale while the organisation was also changing around the programme.
The situation
A major programme with a fixed academic deadline
The University of Kent was part-way through a major £2.7m Education Modernisation programme. This involved fundamental changes to the academic term and teaching structure, delivered alongside an organisational restructure from divisions to schools.
The programme had two strands. The academic strand focused on engaging staff to support them in adopting a different term structure and redesigning modules for different credit weightings. The technical strand focused on making the necessary changes to the student data system and the downstream systems that rely on student data.
Our role was to lead the technical side of the project, bringing together teams from across the organisation to develop, test and implement the system changes ready for the 2025/26 academic year.
What made the delivery complex
- A complex, highly customised legacy system: Kent's Student Data System was built on an on-prem SITS platform, heavily customised with hard-coded logic.
- A complex ecosystem of downstream systems: Finance, timetabling, the marketing CRM and other systems all required synchronised updates to their data interfaces.
- The Clearing deadline: A fixed go-live point in the student record lifecycle sat immediately ahead of the annual student record rollover, creating material financial and operational risk.
- Organisational restructure: Delivery took place during a restructure, with teams changing shape mid-programme.
What we did
Technical leadership that made the work governable
We provided technical leadership to deliver the technical change without disrupting the wider academic programme. We also made the complexity visible and understandable to senior leaders, so decisions could be made with confidence.
- Technical leadership: We brought several technical teams and specialist resources together into a coherent project team, made progress and risks visible to senior leadership, and secured the institutional support required for delivery.
- Governance: We worked within the University's own governance processes, engaging with relevant committees to gain approval for plans and ensure ownership of process changes beyond the project.
- Operational management: We supported technical team managers to understand and deliver their work packages, and managed the £2m technical budget.
The impact
Delivered on time, under budget and ready for the new academic year
Risk mitigation
The project risk was confidently managed, including an update to the student records of nearly 20,000 students just before the main Clearing period.
Smooth transition
The changes to the student data system worked as designed and supported the University as it delivered its new teaching model for the first time.