QUT is now in its tenth year as a University, although the institutions from which it was formed trace their history back for a considerably longer period. During 1989 QUT was formally established from the Queensland Institute of Technology, and later that year the University amalgamated with parts of the Brisbane College of Advanced Education.

The new University began as a large city-based institution which was able to adapt a substantial part of its former activities to the changing higher education environment. Its ability to do so owed much to the carefully managed process of amalgamation and the relatively high stability which accompanied the establishment of new academic and management structures.

This has been reflected in various ways, including:

• the establishment of a clear institutional mission which focuses on the real-world application of teaching and research;
• the development of institution-wide infrastructure and services such as QUT Virtual;
• institution-wide planning, monitoring and quality assurance processes such as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s Course Performance Report; and
• continuing efforts to achieve appropriate simplicity and consistency in academic structures; for example, by working towards common course and unit credit point structures.

QUT’s strategic management was from the early l990s based on the following five principles:

QUT operates a five-year strategic planning cycle which involves four major levels:

1. Institutional framework

The QUT Institutional Plan sets overall long-term directions. Developed on a five-year rolling basis, it outlines the University’s mission, organisational values, goals, performance indicators, and strategies.

2. Strategic planning within functional areas

Rolling five-year strategic plans, which take direction from and support the Institutional Plan, are prepared for teaching and learning, research, community service, resources and support activities including equity.

The teaching, research and service plans are university-wide plans which define major directions and include targets that apply at the institutional level.

The resources plan provides a five-year perspective on staff, performance culture and infrastructure required to support the University’s objectives. The corporate plan, operational plans and budget need to be integrated, and resources deployed to support them. Centrally, QUT provides funding for one-off Central Initiatives, which are allocated on the basis of bids made by Faculties and which are assessed on their strategic significance for the University, and also operates a Performance Pool, whereby a set amount of funds is allocated on the basis of performance against agreed targets.

For 1999 the Operational Performance Targets are:

Teaching

• Fee paying overseas student commencing load;
• Fee paying domestic student commencing load;
• Summer semester enrolments; and
• Course completions.

Research

• Weighted research publications;
• Higher degree completions; and
• Research income.

Service

• Low SES commencing enrolments; and
• Income from external services activities.

A challenge for the University will be to articulate suitable criteria relating target performance to the allocation of resources and to broaden the scope of the targets to ensure that attention is given to issues of quality as well as quantitative achievement.

The support plans are developed for Equity, Information Technology, Library Resources, Student Support and Capital Management.

Annual reports are prepared for each plan. These are considered by the Vice-Chancellor and senior managers, along with draft plans for the next planning period, prior to approval by the Planning and Resources Committee and Council.

3. Organisational Planning by Faculties and Divisions

Using a comprehensive Planning Package, faculties and divisions report on and develop individual five-year plans which are reviewed and approved in the same manner as institutional and support plans.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Planning Guidelines for 1998 highlighted flexibility, development of a performance culture, development of QUT’s Northern Corridor and workforce planning, with particular emphasis on future staffing needs, affordability and industrial factors. Course performance issues were also addressed. In future, the comprehensive, annual course performance analysis will be aligned with the planning cycle. Risk management has also been mainstreamed into the planning process.

4. Special Functional Plans

Single-focus plans are developed on an ad-hoc basis according to need. These are linked to institutional plans, the budget and capital management plans.

QUT has recently introduced two major new initiatives to enhance the quality and relevance of strategic planning. The first is strategic risk management. At QUT, risk management is now integrated into strategic planning to ensure that organisational areas have identified, assessed, controlled and reviewed areas of major risk. This integration has three major benefits:

• the University Council is assisted in assessing plans and reports and assuring that plans are realistic, comprehensive and appropriate;
• there is a cross-checking mechanism between university-level plans and organisational-area plans to ensure that relevant risks identified in institutional plans are reflected in faculty and division plans, and vice-versa; and
• it provides additional information about the risk management process for the University Audit Committee, which can examine and assess institutional and organisational responses to risks identified through the strategic planning process.

An operational guide for risk management was developed for use within QUT. This meets the obligations required by appropriate State legislation; it is based on guidelines developed for public sector organisations and is consistent with verifiable risk management systems.

The second major planning initiative to be introduced at QUT is a formal system of workforce planning. This component of the planning process requires that managers undertake a systematic analysis of projected workloads for the next five years, and then formulate a forecast of staffing requirements to ensure that those workloads are met.

The resulting projection is being used to guide decisions relating to future employment of staff and enable the University to respond in a systematic way to the provisions of the Higher Education Contract Employment Award (HECE). As stated in the 1999–2003 Planning Package, ‘The intent of the HECE Award is to encourage universities to make more informed longer-term decisions about the engagement of staff.’ In essence the workforce planning process comprises:

A key aspect of QUT’s approach to implementing its strategic planning is the development of staff performance management. In the past few years QUT has pursued through the enterprise bargaining process, both for academic and general staff, the development of integrated and comprehensive performance management processes for all staff in the university.

The current interest in establishing sound performance management mechanisms grew out of frustration with previous staff processes that separately addressed a range of performance related issues such staff development, personal promotion, contract renewal, probation, incremental advancement, unsatisfactory performance and role clarification. Supervisors experienced problems with the processes because of their voluntary nature, confusion over what process addressed which outcome, limitations on directly addressing performance and the unclear linkage with work area objectives.

With the development of more sophisticated organisational planning processes in the university, it became apparent that integrated performance management processes were required to more closely link individual work efforts with work area, faculty and divisional outcomes.

In 1997, and as a result of the enterprise bargaining agreement for general staff, an integrated performance management process for all general staff was introduced in the university. One key outcome from the introduction of the process has been the generally favourable response from staff to a scheme that provides them with feedback on performance and involves them in work area planning. The development of a university-wide feedback instrument on supervisor performance is the final element of this process that to date has involved over 1,500 staff in the university.

In 1998, and again as a result of an enterprise agreement, the performance management process for academic staff was introduced for Associate Professors and Professors, with implementation for all remaining academic and research staff scheduled for completion by July 1999. This process was developed by a representative group of academic staff following guidelines established in the enterprise agreement. Addressing the four key areas of academic endeavour (teaching, research, academic leadership and professional leadership) the process encourages staff and supervisors, through an annual process of negotiation and dialogue, to set collaboratively goals for the next work period, reflect on performance to date and negotiate on resource support sought. The process provides staff with a current and regular opportunity to update individual plans on work area and career development needs. The process reinforces the relevance of organisational goals to individual effort through linkages to academic outcomes such as probation, incremental advancement and personal promotion. The implementation of the process has featured extensive training for academic supervisory staff, progressive introduction for academic staff accompanied by information sessions and training activities.

QUT has a comprehensive strategic planning process that incorporates planning and reporting for both the institution as a whole and for constituent organisational areas. In addition, there are a number of other planning and reporting processes that are used to support various processes across the University.

QUT was an early proponent of significant, systematic external reviews of organisational areas, usually conducted on a five-yearly basis. The goals of this review system are to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes for self-evaluation used by the faculty/division, with particular emphasis on the faculty/division’s self-assessment of its recent performance, current activities and proposed strategic directions; to examine the efficiency and effectiveness of policy-making and strategic management processes and their implementation in the faculty/division undergoing review; and to be an instrument for managed change and continuing improvement in the University.

Three examples of major improvement programs across the University are the Senior Management Development Program (SMDP) the Teaching and Learning Large Grants program and the ‘Student as a Client’.

The SMDP provides a comprehensive university leadership development program for senior academic and professional managers. A key feature of the program is the close linkage between the strategic direction of the organisation and the issues, skills and development activities sponsored by the program. An annual program of events, culminating in the Senior Staff Conference in November, is designed around the themes of Strategic Development, Operational Development and Individual Development. Managers are invited to access the program through a variety of processes and events.

The Teaching and Learning Large Grants program is a central system which has been operating since 1992, aimed at encouraging innovation and excellence in teaching and learning across the University. In recent years the scheme has been refocused to support large-scale projects which will have a significant and enduring impact on teaching and learning, managed through project teams with senior management support. Particular emphasis is placed on ensuring that the Faculty has planned for the ongoing implementation of the innovation should it prove successful. This contrasts with the earlier system whereby projects depended heavily upon the areas of interest and ongoing commitment of motivated individuals. The total amount available under the program is around $600,000 each year, and individual projects can receive up to $150,000 in funding over a two year period.

The ‘Student as a Client’ program has been a major focus of improvement in the University’s support systems and services to students. In the mid 1990’s QUT decided it needed to re-evaluate and improve its approach to student services. It did so with two goals in mind: to improve its processes in order to operate more efficiently; to be more responsive and flexible to the needs of students; and to change the culture of the organisation to one which recognises and responds to the notion of the student as a valued customer or client.

To achieve these goals, the University adopted a holistic approach by identifying and addressing a wide range of those issues which might affect current or potential students. The centrepiece of the University’s strategy has been the Student Focus Project, other elements include development and ongoing improvement of key University-wide infrastructure and information system, such as QUT’s datawarehouse (now known as QUT Virtual) and the Student Information System.

The Student Focus Project was initiated by the Vice-Chancellor in 1996. Using the skills of QUT’s communication students as one of their formal assignments, the University set out to assess student perceptions of its services. The attitudes and expectations of students were systematically surveyed via questionnaires and student focus groups. The findings were presented to senior university management and three specific sub-projects were distilled out for further attention. These were orientation, enrolment and timetabling. Resources were allocated to these three priority projects, teams were established and improvements in these three areas were systematically addressed. The Student Focus Project is now officially concluded as a special project, but has been mainstreamed into the normal work program of the University and particularly its Student Administration Department. Many of the outcomes of the project rely heavily on the further development and inherent flexibility of the University’s Student Information System and the QUT Virtual.

There has been much discussion within higher education, both here and overseas, about the merits or otherwise of different approaches to managing the affairs of a university. Within QUT, as is the case with almost any large organisation and especially a university, there is a degree of scepticism about contemporary management practices. However, there is widespread understanding of the character of QUT and acceptance of the need to achieve high standards of performance in ways that are consistent with that institutional character.

QUT has a relatively high degree of institutional cohesion, with considerable attention given to ensuring consistency of services and academic structures across the eight faculties and a strong framework of corporate planning. However, this does not imply central control of the faculties’ academic activities: each faculty has considerable delegated authority and responsibility, and has wide latitude to achieve its own goals in a manner consistent with QUT’s broad strategic directions.

However, the ways in which the various programs are implemented and integrated, and the ways in which they enable major themes to be consistently pursued across a large and complex university, are specific to QUT. The University continues to learn from past experience, both good and bad, and will undoubtedly refine or replace many of the approaches its has taken to ensure more effective management. QUT has learned, for example, that in relation to strategic planning:

• strategic planning and resourcing focus on the broadest issues of an organisation, usually over a relatively long-time horizon, typically five years at QUT. One of the lessons learned has been the need to retain a focus on this bigger picture at a time which operational planning, dealing with tactical details over a relatively short timeframe, typically a year at QUT, can assume a more immediate priority;
• there is a need to support a commitment to a vision and direction from Council members, through senior and middle managers and ultimately all staff. This remains a challenge as staff and Council changes occur, as diversity of contribution is recognised, and as external factors such as the industrial climate and pattern enterprise bargaining conspire to generate an ‘us’ and ‘them’ climate;
• recognition of diversity and the differential contribution of diverse parts of the University must constantly be protected to prevent a ‘one size fits all’ approach, while still recognising the parts contribute to a common overall direction of the whole;
• there can be a tendency to give greater emphasis to the front-end of planning at the expense of monitoring, and monitoring requires both the selection of sound indicators to monitor and good information upon which the monitoring is based;
• to the extent that discretionary resources are being allocated on an initiative or performance basis, there needs to be transparency and confidence in the application of criteria; and
• excessive information in planning processes can become too bureaucratic and retard the very purpose for which it exists and result in planning ‘burn-out’.

Nevertheless, despite the need for ongoing changes, what will remain is the fundamental objective of achieving excellence as a university through the strategic use of resources and the commitment to performance and quality by the people who work within QUT.

This monograph was not intended to set out the achievements of QUT in organisational management. Rather, its purpose was to distil some lessons from the University’s experience and to reflect on ways in which the University might respond to major challenges for the future. Three key challenges remain:

• QUT has a strong record in monitoring performance against its various institutional policies. However, it will need to enhance its capacity to develop and refine those policies in the face of ongoing change;
• much of the University’s planning has taken place around the existing organisational ‘silos’, in particular the eight Faculties. As the University engages with an increasingly complex and multidisciplinary world, it must work effectively across traditional disciplinary and organisational boundaries; and
• dealing effectively with change requires not only a range of planning and management structures and processes, but also ownership of these by staff and their genuine engagement. Securing this ownership and engagement in an environment of change and increasing pressure for performance will be a significant challenge in coming years.