Campus Management, a symbol of a trusted partnership
Among Swiss universities, Fribourg is the only institution to have carried out a complete modernization of its information systems. A look back at a huge project initiated in 2013 to which Softcom contributed.
There are digitization projects that become school models of unprecedented collaboration. Due to its complexity, the human, technical and organizational resources involved, its uniqueness and its duration, the program of modernization of the Campus Management within the University of Fribourg, is one of these. This colossal project, which began in 2013, had as its objective the complete modernization of the information system used to manage the University’s entire administration. This includes finance, human resources, infrastructure management as well as admissions and ECTS credits, but also students from registration to graduation. All in both official languages of the canton. Among Swiss universities, Fribourg is the only institution to have carried out a complete modernization of its information systems.
An ambitious project
Alain Cochard was the project manager of this titanic program during the seven years dedicated to the development and implementation of Campus Management. The deputy director of IT services at the University of Fribourg has no regrets about this long-term collective work. He recalls: “In 2010, we realized that a global modernization of our systems was necessary in order to follow and adapt to the evolution of academic studies (Bologna); those also of our jobs within the University.” In order to begin this project, Alain Cochard and his teams have submitted a request for extraordinary resources. They will be granted in 2013. The University’s requirements are high. We still have to decide how to meet them. Then comes the time to make a choice.
The deputy director of IT services at the University of Fribourg has two options. Either he invests in a market solution and adapts it to the needs and constraints of the University. Or he chooses an in-house development. The hesitations didn’t last long: “We quickly decided to develop the software in-house to best fit our internal processes,” he explains. What also motivated this choice was our desire to run this program in an agile manner, i.e. by putting elements into production as they were developed. We definitely didn’t want a big bang. The agile methodology allowed us to ensure the efficiency of our information system while developing the new one.”
A collaboration free of the “client-supplier” relationship
Alain Cochard thus inaugurates a collaborative model that is not yet widespread: “We wanted the external provider to sell us skills that work on site within our teams. We wanted to be able to count on a partner who would provide us with the best possible resources at the moment T”. Following the public tender, the University of Fribourg naturally chose Softcom. Indeed, for several years, Softcom has been developing an agile method and processes that allocate specific and scalable resources to its customers, according to their needs at all stages of their digitization project. This method requires a strong involvement of the customer and allows us to be very reactive to his requests. This subcontractor model thus frees itself from the “customer-supplier” relationship, since it implies a close collaboration of the teams, a lot of dialogue and a considerable mutual trust.
At the height of the activity, nearly 10 Softcom employees work full-time with Alain Cochard’s team. Some of them even participated in the Campus Management modernization program from start to finish. Frédéric Jordan is one of them. The project manager, Alain Cochard, also has a leadership role with the same strategy as the university: “I arrived at the University of Fribourg with a team of four people. Each faculty had its own functioning and specificities. Our biggest challenge from the start was to harmonize their processes while maintaining certain specificities.”
Mutual trust at all tests
This long-term work requires patience, bilateral meetings and training: “There was very good collaboration between and with the faculties,” insists Frédéric Jordan. They were open to change, which allowed us to implement innovative solutions to meet their needs. But as with all standardization projects, it’s important to get everyone on board. This required a lot of discussion and negotiation to get results. We also had to keep the teams motivated over the long term” Frédéric Jordan continues: “We were able to do this thanks to Alain Cochard, who showed us his utmost confidence while making the right decisions at the right time to overcome the complexities. Without this mutual trust and a close-knit, competent team, we might not have achieved the same results. The Campus Management modernization is a very large-scale program. It’s not every day that we get the chance to contribute to it.”
The success of an IT project of this magnitude is not just a technical challenge. The stake is first and foremost human in the writing of a common language with all the stakeholders of the University so that the project is understood, criticized and adopted. Delphine Simic is a part-time administrator in one of the faculties of the University of Fribourg. Like all the collaborators of the institution, she had to change her practices, to train and to inform herself during the project: “Every week, we had a bilateral session with Frédéric Jordan to receive the latest information and compile all the needs of the five faculties and one directorate,” explains Delphine Simic. This was not easy. Frédéric Jordan has been extraordinary in human relation and in terms of governance. Because between the beginning and the end of the project, all the faculty heads, as well as the members of the management team, have changed. We had to onboarding new people along the project.”
The common search for solutions
Since the start of the 2020 academic year, Campus Management is fully operational. An innovation in information systems management that has largely enabled the University of Fribourg to manage students and e-learning throughout the pandemic: “The employees were all able to home office easily. All processes and information were combined in one portal”, said Alain Cochard, who confessed: “It was important for us to establish a trusting, multi-year partnership with Softcom; to have a company we could rely on. With Softcom we dialogue and find solutions together.”
Credit : Par Norbert Aepli, Switzerland, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1297942
