“Digitalisation should help the ETH Zurich administration accommodate the university’s growth.”
ETH’s growth presents a number of challenges to its central administrative services and processes. Increased use of digital technologies should provide some relief. A digitalisation strategy has therefore been drawn up for the administration of ETH Zurich in the context of the rETHink project. In this interview, members of the working group explain what this strategy involves.
Peter Müller, you headed the working group charged with drawing up a digitalisation strategy, which entailed conducting a thorough analysis of the ETH Zurich administration. On a scale from one to ten: how well does the ETH Zurich administration score in terms of digitalisation?
Peter Müller: I wouldn’t like to give a score – that was not within our remit. Essentially, ETH is in a good position in terms of digitalisation. Most of the central administrative processes have gradually been digitalised over the years. The pandemic has accelerated this trend. What’s more, ETH staff are very open to new technologies. Even so, there are several possibilities for improvement: in the digital support of cross-cutting processes, for example, or the roll-out of new technologies.
Your working group has drawn up a digitalisation strategy for the ETH Zurich administration in the context of the rETHink project. What has been your main objective?
Peter Müller: Our top priority has been to exploit the potential of digitalisation so that we can continue to deliver high-quality administrative services at ETH, even as the university carries on expanding. The ETH Zurich administration is keenly aware of this growth. Digitalisation can help us become more efficient and thus accommodate some of this growth. At the same time, the strategy is intended to speed up the pace of innovation at ETH Zurich.
Paul Cross: We also want to use the digitalisation strategy to create internal networks, thereby allowing our digitalisation know-how to be distributed more effectively. It is crucial for digitalisation projects to be tackled with a coordinated approach, rather than in an isolated fashion in individual departments.
Kathrin Noack: Similar questions emerge repeatedly in such scenarios. It therefore makes sense to create synergy effects and to address recurring challenges, such as managing information security and data protection in a more integrated manner.
How did your working group set about drafting this strategy?
Peter Müller: We started by making a detailed analysis of the current situation and identifying strengths and weaknesses, before going on to analyse the trends that might have consequences for the administration of ETH Zurich. We defined six strategic action areas (see infobox) that we believe provide the maximum possible impact and drew up two or three concrete measures for each action area. At the same time, we suggested how governance structures should look – in other words, how ETH should manage the digitalisation of its administration.
Who exactly is “we”? Who was in the working group?
Kathrin Noack: It was important for us to include as many different perspectives as possible. So apart from the leadership team of Peter Müller, Paul Cross, Dieter Wüest, Andreas Wenger and myself, our working group comprised colleagues from almost all areas of the ETH Zurich administration, including IT Services of course, along with a student and representatives from the academic departments.
And what were the most important key points of the strategy?
Peter Müller: There are three major threads running through all six action areas: First, we have proposed concrete digitalisation projects, one of which was the roll-out of a digital meeting and records management tool. Second, we have defined common standards for the execution of digitalisation projects. A key priority here is to ensure the close involvement of end users. And third, we want to ensure staff keep their know-how in the area of digitalisation up to date and increase it even further.
Paul Cross: The ability of all ETH employees to use digital technologies effectively – digital literacy – is a crucial factor. ETH must make sure staff can continue to build and develop their skills in this area. The digitalisation strategy also addresses this issue. One of the first steps is to conduct a survey in all departments to assess the level of digital literacy in each case and identify where more support is needed.
Alongside these key points, the strategy highlights how the implementation should be organised. A central element is the introduction of a Digital Transformation Steering Committee. What are the tasks of this committee?
Peter Müller: We gave a lot of thought about whether yet another new committee was actually needed within ETH. We came to the conclusion that it definitely was in this case. The Digital Transformation Steering Committee has three main tasks. The first one is to oversee the implementation of a strategy that has only existed on paper to date and to check whether it really works. Its second task is to provide coordination across the entire university – in other words, holistic thinking. After all, digitalisation projects should not be allowed to end at the borders between departments. And its third task is to ensure good continuity, and subsequently planning, over the current three-year time frame. Digitalisation is not simply a project we can finish at some point in the future. It will be a permanent topic. For this reason, a committee is needed to continuously address new problems as they arise.
And who are the members of this steering committee?
Kathrin Noack: The members have not yet been decided: this process is currently under way and being overseen by Robert Perich. One thing is clear, however: every Executive Board domain should send a representative, or else their vice president should sit in person on the committee – as in the case of Julia Dannath, Ulrich Weidmann and Robert Perich. IT Services and representatives from the academic departments will also have seats on the committee.
Peter Müller: It is important that this steering committee also has a project management office (PMO), whose staff still have to be appointed and that will be responsible for operational aspects. This PMO should act as a central contact point for all ETH units and provide support for digitalisation initiatives.
How will the digitalisation strategy affect ETH members?
Peter Müller: We have defined 70 individual measures in total – not all of which will have a conspicuous effect. One thing everyone will hopefully notice is the central support provided for digitalisation projects. Digitalisation is also a topic that will feed into our HR processes, so that everyone can continue to develop skills in this area. Obviously, we hope the strategy will encourage all departments to screen their processes for digitalisation potential. And employees will hopefully notice that new technologies are introduced more quickly in the ETH Zurich administration.
And if you had a wish – what would be the first thing that you personally would digitalise in the ETH Zurich administration?
Peter Müller: The first thing that comes to mind is the small inefficiencies that dog almost all applications and that users repeatedly stumble over, whether it be an unnecessary mouse click or a missing view. This extra effort may not be significant for just one person, but if hundreds of staff stumble over the same thing day in, day out, optimisation would be worthwhile. We should create a culture with a much stronger focus on the needs of end users.
Kathrin Noack: This focus does not mean that all individual requirements can be catered for. The aim should be to rethink and simplify processes wherever possible.
Paul Cross: Ideally, all important processes at ETH will be digitally supported, and moreover with end-to-end processing wherever possible. There are currently still too many digital breaks. This makes end-to-end processing impossible, given the involvement of different departments, for example. That’s exactly why central control and exchange between project managers is so important. For me personally, it’s therefore already progress if we create more transparency and manage to learn more about digitalisation from each other within the administration.
Digitalisation of the ETH Zurich administration
In the context of rETHink Workstream 5 Organisation of Central Administrative Units, the working group led by Peter Müller, Professor of Computer Science, was commissioned to draw up a digitalisation strategy for the administration of ETH Zurich. The strategy was discussed and refined in workshops with representatives of all administrative departments and several academic departments before eventually being approved by the Executive Board in mid-May. The strategy focuses on six action areas:
- Systematic data analytics
The systematic use of data should help make internal processes more efficient and more effective. - Meeting and records management
A central document management system should allow the vast amount of information within the ETH Zurich administration to be stored, organised and distributed to members more easily in future. - Use of new technologies
New developments present new challenges to ETH in very different areas (data security, law, ethics, etc.). The goal is to assess the potential and the challenges of new technologies and make recommendations for their use (or non-use) within the ETH Zurich administration. - Stakeholder and requirements management
ETH should establish a modern stakeholder and requirements management system for digitalisation projects that transforms the needs of the stakeholders concerned into a manageable set of requirements. - Process coverage and process orientation
One goal of digitalisation is to identify processes that could benefit from better support through IT systems. However, digitalisation alone is not enough: the processes themselves also need to be optimised. - Digital literacy
Nearly all tasks in the ETH Zurich administration require the use of IT systems, which means that ETH staff need to have a high degree of digital literacy.
The complete digitalisation strategy can be downloaded here:
- protected page Strategy for the Digitalization of the ETH Zurich Administration
- protected page Roadmap for the Implementation of the Strategy
Any questions should be directed to Dieter Wüest, Paul Cross or Kathrin Noack.
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