Chloe Mansfield

Massey Univeristy

Francisco Molina

Massey University
Thursday 4 October 2018
11.30am-12.00pm
Concurrent Session 2A

Presentation Title

Breaking The Mould: Using Citizen Development And Emerging Technology To Change The Customer Experience

Abstract

During 2018 Massey University has reinforced its digital strategy by starting the ‘Digital Workplace Programme’ which, among other initiatives, includes the improvement and automation of internal business processes. The focus for this portion of the project has been to improve and modernise the customer experience for staff when they are dealing with administrative processes.
 
In order to do this, Massey has decided to use PowerApps and Flow as the primary software tools, which, in conjunction with process improvement exercises, are being used to design and build the new process experience. PowerApps and Flow are both part of MS Office 365 and have been defined as “low-code” tools, allowing the business to have some independence from the classic development model where apps and tools are developed by professional ITS developers.
 
We have started this journey with a hybrid model; utilising professional developers for consultancy purposes only, but have maintained the development of the apps and workflows within the ITS department by using Business Analysts to drive the process and build the apps, as they have a little development experience and a good understanding of business processes and technology.
 
In this presentation, we will discuss:
• An overview of PowerApps and Flow in the context of citizen development
• The kind of processes that we have already put into production and how they have changed the customer’s experience – what our customers think of this model
• What have been the pros and cons of using the combination of these tools? Are they the right tools? Is it really for business users?
• What are the challenges we see for the future? How does this model fit with ITS’ solution management?

Bio

Chloe is a Business Analyst with Information Technology Services at Massey University who has 3 years experience, and primarily works on HR systems and mobile app development.

Francisco is a Senior Business Analyst for the Digital Workplace programme at Massey University, and has 10 years of experience on process improvement and management consultancy.