Lean HE Europe - Annual Report

Post date: Oct 16, 2017 7:27:29 AM

The European Continental Division has been active this year and there’s a real sense of enthusiasm building as previously isolated practitioners are making contact.

There are two formally established regional groups within the UK, with approximately 80 people engaging in seminars and meetings, the network in Scotland continues to be active.

The European group has held two formal seminars to date, and are producing a paper on lean maturity within the sector.

We are focusing on developing active networks in Poland (two seminars have been held), Scandinavia – building up a network and the Netherlands.

Our challenge for next year is to continue to focus on the three emerging European networks and produce at least one further paper to benefit the lean HE community.

We are planning to have three seminars in three regionally accessible locations and to produce more articles that will be published via the Efficiency Exchange. We will also be supporting the 2018 conference that will be held in Europe. If you are from Europe, make sure you are a member of the LinkedIn Lean HE group and follow #LeanHEEurope on twitter for more details.

Lean HE UK Southern Regional Group

28 delegates from 13 different Universities attended the Southern network group meeting on October 4th. Hosted by Middlesex University, the day provided some valuable and informative networking together with two main agenda items for exploration.

The first session, Value for Money, was led by James Kennedy, CFO at Middlesex. James fronted a very informative discussion as delegates considered the role of continuous improvement and lean practitioners in contributing to the value for money agenda , conscious of both Hefce and individual institutions expectations. James presented a provoking account of his expectations as a CFO, with a clear focus on the need to measure contributing benefits in the context of the financial environment the sector is working within. The session was additionally contextualised by the Middlesex University approach to measuring benefits.

In contrast to this session the afternoon had a very different feel. Amy Bray, Director of Strategic Change at Christ Church Canterbury together with Judy Walker, Consultant, NEL Healthcare, led a session entitled “After Action Review: enabling continuous improvement through reflection and learning”. Sharing this very useful tool which was new to many and a refresher to others, was additionally beneficial from sharing experiences from outside the sector.

Feedback from both sessions and the whole day was very positive, bringing together both the hard benefits focused approach with the human side of change for practitioners.

The group will hold two further network sessions this year and a range of topics, offers of sharing tools and case studies have been gathered as well as host institutions. All in all a very positive and energising day.

Lean HE UK North and Midlands Regional Group

Nottingham University hosted a seminar on Coaching Kata in May and we are looking forward to Sheffield Hallam's seminar on Creating a CI Service later in the year.

The steering group was formed in January 2017 and we continue to go from strength to strength building a network with both formal seminars and informal support and sharing.