Iterative improvement with Agile
Since the digital communications team were trained in the DSDM Agile method of project management at the beginning of last year, we’ve talked to a lot of people about what Agile is and what it means for the projects…
Fixing broken links using Siteimprove
We’ve all encountered the frustration of clicking on a link and instead of the expected content, ‘404 not found’ appears. Broken links are an unavoidable part of today’s internet as websites change their infrastructure…
How to avoid plagiarising online content
You are most likely familiar with the term plagiarism – the act of passing off someone else’s work or ideas as your own. You may even be aware that in order to avoid plagiarism you must give proper attribution to the…
Benchmarking university websites
We wanted to benchmark our website against other university websites, both within the UK and worldwide to see how we compare with things like responsive design, intranet usage and standardised school sites. To do this…
Planning poker—why and how we estimate
When creating a plan—whether it be a big project release plan or a smaller two-weeks’ timebox plan—you essentially need to know three things: Tasks —What are the requirements? What do you need to do? Size — How big are…
Writing for digital vs writing for print
The advent of the internet has drastically changed the way we receive and communicate information. Previously, written content could only be published as physical print, and was therefore static and unchangeable;…
T4 training
This post will explain the training process that is undertaken when trying to access our most prized possession, TerminalFour (T4) Site Manager. This is the content management system that sits behind our University…
Let’s talk about security
If you don’t already use a password manager, this post explains what they are and why we think you should be using one. Password managers As the name suggests, password managers typically allow you to store all your…
Our ground rules for meetings
Hands up if you love meetings. Anyone? No? Here are a couple of ‘inspirational’ quotations for you: Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything — John Kenneth Graham The least productive people are…
The challenges of resource management in our Agile team
Over the last year, as we’ve been formally trying to work in a more agile way, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced as a project manager is resource management. In other words, How do we know how much time each…