| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
|
|
The fundamental strategy used to implement this initiative was the incremental implementation driven by the significantly large number of stakeholders. In this effort, there are more than 35 CMs, around 140 sponsoring agencies, and close to 150,000 students by the end of 2012. The incremental implementation strategy was adopted primarily not to interrupt the existing manual operations that could cause service downtime. In addition, the different stakeholders have their own organizational cultures that may not be easily changed by the introduction of Safeer. The geographical distribution of these stakeholders added another demand for the incremental implementation. The resistance to change was forecasted to be immense at the beginning of the implementation and the slice-and-dice approach was a key to convince users of the value of this change and how it would result is enhancing the efficiency of the workplace. For example, smaller agencies and CMs were targeted at the beginning of the implementation to pilot with and to build and improve the implementation learning curve. Most complex workplaces were left to the final stages of the implementation intentionally as implementation maturity was built over the course of the program.
|
|
| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
|
|
Being the primary responsible agency of administering King Abdullah’s vision, the Ministry of Higher Education initiated this effort. The effort started as part of a major initiative made by the Deputy of Planning and Information of the Ministry. Saudi Cultural Missions engaged in the implementation early enough and were driven by the Ministry’s leadership and the immense need to simplify the increasing operational loads at their offices. Later on, sponsoring agencies became part of the implementation is a rather staged manner. It is important to mention that the effort was made solely internally using the resources of the Ministry. Analysts, designers, developers, testers, and operators were all Ministry’s staff. A number of consultancy tasks were made during the design and implementation of this effort as needed.
|
| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
|
|
Safeer Program is a Saudi government strategic initiative. The Saudi government sponsored, and still sponsors, the program. Generous funds are allocated as part of the national budget. Program resources are made available by direct hiring and/or contracting agreements. Resources are solely allocated to operating and enhancing the program and its products. Future resources and funds will be directed to expanding the services and to further automate manual operations. Currently, the program is initiating direct integration with a number of main stakeholders on the system level. A call center with an interactive voice response application is being planned for.
|
|
| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
|
|
Safeer Program had undergone a number of major milestones of implementation. In 2008, the program starts with the deployment of its core database aimed as a repository of students’ documents and credentials. This was soon followed by the launch of the scholarship admission portal that would allow students to apply for scholarship online. Safeer Financial was then released to automate the students payrolls and monthly stipends. The next milestone of Safeer implementation was the deployment of Safeer Workflow, which allowed students to initiate requests online and CM to process such requests without the need for any physical interaction between students and their respective CMs. The program is under massive improvement and enhancement to add further services and to integrate with sponsoring agencies on the system levels.
|
|
| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
|
|
Beyond its role in efficiently administering and overseeing the KASP effort, the MoHE also needed to ensure that educational outcomes were in-line with the program's vision and strategic objectives. It was thus essential to establish the necessary platform to allow KASP's stakeholders to evaluate its ongoing progress and detailed status. Such information would be critical if stakeholders were to be expected to proactively manage any gaps within their domains of responsibility. And as the old adage suggests, you can only manage what you measure.
Accordingly, Safeer incorporated the necessary processes and technology to collect, analyze, and report on a wide range of service level quality and program performance, measures. In order to develop a relevant set of metrics, Safeer created an internal team to obtain the input of individuals responsible for the various program areas to be measured. Once stakeholders identified the key performance results they were aiming for, it became a simpler task for Safeer to establish the necessary performance indicators. This process of seeking wider involvement in the effort of defining metrics also helped Safeer obtain buy-in from stakeholders. Among the key metrics being tracked by Safeer includes:
- Safeer Service Monitoring , Availability, and Incident Management
-CM Outreach and Network
-CM Workflow Digitization and Efficiency
|
|
| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
|
|
There were major obstacles confronting the implementation and success of Safeer Program. Firstly, it was found that every stakeholder has its own way of doing work. The internal operational practices among stakeholders had few similarities. These large differences in how stakeholders run their internal processes made it extremely hard to arrive to a common model that could be implemented for all stakeholders. This resulted in a great deal of customization at the business and presentation layers. Governing and administering the changes needed to be made on the program was difficult to manage and orchestrate. Many iterations of business refinements had to be conducted to ensure that the automation of manual processes and operations are made with the least possible impact on the stakeholders’ workplaces.
Secondly, given the business nature of the different stakeholders and their vast distribution around the world demanded a 24/7 support and operations from the program side. As a result, services had to be monitored and measured continuously to ensure availability and to run satisfactorily.
Additionally, given the massive size of the program implementation and the huge number of users scatters in the premises of the many stakeholders, information security and data confidentiality has always been a major concern. To overcome the potential problem of information leakage and other threats on information security, the program runs information protection awareness sessions on different users levels and conducts a number of precautions on the system level.
Perhaps the most challenging aspect in the implementation of this program was that no similar programs were available at the time of staring the program. Had similar programs existed, knowledge and expertise of such programs would have been explored and benefited from. Safeer Program can be considered of the pioneering programs that serve students, cultural missions, and sponsoring agencies in a near paper-less environment.
|