Driving digital transformation: how Adult Learning Wales used our digital elevation tool
Using our digital elevation tool, Adult Learning Wales engaged managers, tailored assessments and continues to advance digital transformation across its organisation.
Adult Learning Wales is a national provider of adult community learning in Wales, offering a comprehensive curriculum that spans pre-entry learning through to Level 4 qualifications.
The organisation, which has existed in various forms for around 100 years, has not had a physical campus since the closure of its Coleg Harlech site in 2017. Today, its activities take place in community spaces and online, supported by business staff who mainly work on a hybrid or remote basis.
Taking a whole-organisation approach
The Covid pandemic had accelerated Adult Learning Wales’s adoption of online delivery and collaboration tools through necessity. As long-standing Jisc members and users of its services, Adult Learning Wales began using the digital elevation tool in 2022 in a project led by Rhydian Williams, digital development manager, to move the organisation towards full digital capability, assisting with the organisations ongoing commitments to the Digital 2030 framework.
Rhydian identified early on that it would be beneficial to add other managers, outside of IT, as digital elevation tool admins, to facilitate buy-in and ensure that a rounded view of the organisation came through in scoring. He said:
“The digital elevation tool allows you to add colleagues to the platform, and I felt that was a good approach because management colleagues could answer those questions from their experience. Having shared ownership has helped us with progressing towards goals – underlining that digital transformation is not just an “IT thing” but something that involves the whole organisation.”
Adapting the tool for a different delivery model
Given the differences between Adult Learning Wales’s model and those of traditional campus-based institutions, the team worked to adjust responses to some questions and ensure the scores generated by the assessment were seen in context.
From there, the process generated a series of goals for Adult Learning Wales to work through. Rhydian exported goals data from the digital elevation tool to Microsoft Lists, an action planning platform Adult Learning Wales’s team were used to working with.
Regular meetings are held to compare progress against the goals, with data sourced from the digital elevation tool presented through Microsoft Power BI, helping stakeholders to visualise the information most relevant to them, and monitor progress against goals.
Tangible short and long-term impact
A focus on “easy wins first” helped people across the organisation feel the impact of the ongoing transformation, while more difficult transitions – for example, those that represented budgetary challenges – were progressed in a longer timeframe.
Using the digital elevation tool has empowered a shift of perspective, so that all Adult Learning Wales’s operations are seen through a digital lens across the organisation, with complete buy-in from a leadership, governance and culture perspective.
“I use the analogy of international air travel to talk about how the DET has helped us. It’s not just about having a nice fancy aeroplane, which is the technology. There’s far more to it – the ground crews, the pilots, the customer experience in the airport, the screens, tyres, fuel, the airport parking, the buses… This tool helps you think about all of the different things that are interconnected and interrelated – and it’s really good at it.”
– Rhydian Williams
The impact for learners
The effect of the ongoing transformation for Adult Learning Wales’s end users is already being felt in tangible ways. One example is improved focus on digital accessibility, for example by implementing tools such as ReciteMe accessibility readers for digital content.
“A lot of work is being done to improve various aspects of the themed areas. Some of them have an immediate impact on the learner experience in a positive way and, with others, it improves over time.”
– Rhydian Williams
A tool to power sector-wide change
The team at Adult Learning Wales valued the way the digital elevation tool provides structure to the digital transformation process and poses questions that organisations may not have asked on their own.
Having conducted the digital elevation tool assessment, and now as a leader heavily involved in the flexible implementation of its recommendations, Rhydian has first-hand experience of the tool’s potential to accelerate transformation across the sector:
“There's an entire section on leadership, governance and culture, and goals to support those, which we may well have not even thought about. Instead of starting with a blank page, the tool gives you scaffolding to support change. From a sector point of view, it supports and empowers consistency in digital transformation across organisations, supporting collaboration and the development and furthering of digital strategies, while underpinning business cases for investment in technology.”