Challenge
The University of Dundee needed a robust new website to serve the needs of its many different audiences.
Having selected Drupal and Acquia’s platform for the site, the University needed both technical expertise and guidance throughout the delivery phase to ensure it was built and managed successfully.
Working as an extension of the web team, we helped build capability and confidence in iterative ways of working, digital best practice, and a wide range of technologies including Drupal.
We agreed on a co-location approach, with our team on site each week to provide hands on coaching and support as the University switched from waterfall approaches to agile.
Solution
The web team at the University of Dundee had already carried out extensive research with over 100 stakeholders across the institution, to find out what they needed from the new site. The first phase of our work was therefore to unpack this research, understanding the user groups and requirements and creating a product backlog — a list of features for the new site.
We then ran a series of prioritisation and refinement workshops to break the features down into delivery phases based on what would deliver the most value to both users and internal stakeholders. This formed the basis of an initial 6 month delivery plan.
Using Scrum methodology, we worked in two week iterations with each iteration starting and ending with a demonstration, retrospective and planning workshop. Through robust processes and constant communication we operated as one unified team, which allowed us to adapt to changing requirements and deliver a focused product on time.
Impact
After the successful first release of the undergraduate courses pages, the web team at the University of Dundee is now focused on delivering new features and areas of the site iteratively, in line with their product roadmap.
The addition of personalized “Open Days” calls-to-action on course and subject pages have driven 86% of all conversions. Personalisation campaigns based on applicant journey stage and geotargeting have delivered impressive results. The “Open Days” campaign has been most successful, increasing bookings by 220% over the previous year.
Thanks to our close partnership throughout this project, the web team has grown in confidence in both Drupal and agile project management, building their reputation and proving to their organisation that they can deliver on time against their plan.
The new Drupal platform, Gitlab Continuous Integration tool and Acquia platform has enabled the team to undertake much more rapid, focused and robust development processes. It has also rebuilt a level of confidence which had been lost with the old platform.
We chose TPXimpact because we felt that their culture was the best fit for our existing team and that they would push us to become better digital professionals. They have exceeded our expectations and have become a real extension of our team. Their work is of a consistently high quality and what has impressed us most is the time they have taken not only to understand the sector that we work in, but also us as a Higher Education institution.
Andrew MillarHead of Web Services, University of Dundee