Page 18 - DUT Annual Report 2020

16
DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ANNUAL REPORT 2020
brought to life by the Right people and enhanced by the Right structures, where the Right people play their roles Right.
ENVISION2030 identifies three SOs under the Systems and Processes Perspective: Innovative Curricula and Research, the Digital Environment and the State-of-the-art Infrastructure. Before I deal with each of these SOs, I briefly highlight a number of Systems and Processes that provide evidence of a DUT that is Different, Upended and Transformed.
Institutional Planning
Institutional planning remains arguably the most important component of our Systems and Processes. It is through this function that we determine the APP, set targets and track actual performance on a quarterly basis across the University. With the strategy already approved by Council in 2019, the planning function focused largely on determination of impact-focused Key Performance Indicators and measures for all 12 SOs.
In April 2020 the joint meeting of EMC and SENEX took a decision to evaluate the long-term impact of CO VID-19, particularly regarding implications for the future. The Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous ( VUC A) environment will challenge DU T over the next 15 – 20 years and many more, and impact EN VISION2030. The CO VID-19 pandemic is but one of a number of disruptors within this time frame. A volatile environment will offer both risks and opportunities to DU T strategic planning. Even though EN VISION2030 had just been approved, a scenario planning exercise was agreed and embarked on. This demonstrated the organic and perpetually iterative nature of our planning regime.
In so many ways, our scenario-planning exercise in the midst of CO VID-19 and EN VISION2030 is an enterprise risk management activity, whereby we could anticipate opportunities and potential risks and discontinuities in our environment. Scenarios can also inform our SOs and assist in achieving these outcomes with some level of economy of means.We have therefore decided to develop a set of DUT scenarios against which to stress-test our responses to COVID-19 and our SOs encapsulated in EN VISION2030. The framing and scanning phases of the process started in November already, with interviews conducted with a select sample of critical staff members. The project will be completed in 2021.
Institutional Review
Under the Institutional Culture section above, mention was made of the institutional review exercise. It is as much a transformative initiative as it is a system change exercise.
The important work to review the whole structure of the University is continuing in earnest but taking longer than expected, with further disruptions to this work caused by CO VID-19. However, CO VID-19 also presented us with an opportunity to question some assumptions regarding the future of work, with digitisation now taking root across the world. While the project was started on the back of numerous DUT pathologies, the forced transition to remote working and implementation of the new strategy with a 10-year horizon also suggest that we have a responsibility to think more deeply about the future of work at DUT. Inevitably, new functions and institutional structures must follow what ENVISION2030 dictates as our strategy. In parallel, we reimagined the functions and structures while we undertook the organogram verification project to ascertain where we are so that we could chart a clearer future.
Performance Management
The Performance Management System (PerMS) sets the stage for ensuring that our Strategic Objectives are met, and that relevant support and training are provided to our people to meet them and align individual and divisional performance to the University’s strategic intent as encapsulated in ENVISION2030.By establishing clear performance expectations and standards that are results-based, PerMS aims at achieving key outcome targets through regular feedback and coaching, where problems are diagnosed at an early stage and corrective action taken for improved performance. Performance management plays a major part in transformation to embed a culture of responsibility and accountability, that should be an integral part of our Institutional Culture.
In 2020, 80% of staff in employment category P1 to P5 subjected themselves to PerMS. There is certainly an upward trajectory in the participation rate, and this could be largely as a result of increased confidence and interest in PerMS. At lower levels, the participation rate of 42% is concerning. While admittedly this is low, it is significant given the inertia that Management has experienced, as driven by the unions, which have even made applications to court to stop the implementation of PerMS. Just like what is reflected above with regard to increasing participation at P1-5, we have no doubt that we will see increased participation at lower levels.
A new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system will be introduced in 2021 to, amongst others, improve efficiencies in managing performance.