Implementing the discovery tool in your organisation

Our digital capabilities framework and discovery tool look at digital capabilities from the perspective of enhancing the capabilities of individuals - our staff and students. But if we're truly to move towards enabling our staff and students to thrive not just survive our organisations as a whole need to develop their cultures, policies and infrastructure to enable and support digital practices.

The discovery tool can help staff and students reflect on their digital capability whether your organisation is at the forefront of innovation or at the start of your journey. But do you have the pieces in place at an organisational level to best enable individuals to thrive?

Tips for success

• Consider your organisational context (see resources in section below)
• Develop a common language - see our digital capabilities framework and role profiles
• Ensure strategic support is in place - for example:
  • Senior leadership leading the agenda
  • Strategy articulating the vision (for example University of Leicester case study)
  • Establish a cross-institutional stakeholder group to drive the initiative (for example University of Hertfordshire case study)
• Engage HR - see our guidance for HR teams on supporting digital capability
• Communicate the benefits - for example:
  • Use our poster templates
  • Review our guidance
• Reward and recognise innovation
  • See how others are approaching this - see our case studies, for example UCLAN and Cardiff and Vale College

Tools and resources

Our tools and resources can help you reflect on where you are as an organisation and provide tips for success:

• Have a look at Digital Kintsugi: a 5-step approach to digital development (pdf) for tips on implementing the discovery tool alongside other Jisc tools, including Digital experience insights and Digital elevation tool
• Try our organisational checklist (Word): this provides question prompts to support a review of organisational digital capability. If you want more try our full audit tool
• Our organisational maturity model (Word) provides indicators of good practice at different levels of maturity. This will help you reflect on where you are as an organisation and identify next steps on your journey
• Find out about what others are doing:
  • Identify case studies that could help and make contact
  • Use our subscriber mailing list
  • View presentations from past community of practice and support webinar events
• If you work in Further education, you can use this scheme of work to create a programme of digital skills development for your learners

Further information

Our resources and guides provide further information and explains the concepts in greater detail:

• See our organisational framework (pdf) for digital capability
• Explore our strategic steps towards organisational digital capability model

You may also be interested in signing up for our digital leaders training programme