15:00 – 16:30 CEST

Informal kick-off meeting

Let’s gather informally to break the ice, meet your fellow participants and also our superb group of mentors and facilitators.

14:30 – 16:30 CEST

Group round-table around prep work for the block week 1 (modules 1 & 2)

Get together in small groups with your assigned mentor to discuss the preparatory work you’ve done throughout the week.

14:00 – 19:00 CEST

MODULE 1: Empowered Leadership for Quality Assurance

• Julie Perrin-Halot

Behind the tools and techniques that quality managers use to drive continuous quality improvement in their schools, leadership skills empower their professional roles and help to make quality assurance a highly effective means for achieving operational and strategic excellence in their schools. Leadership skills also enable bringing purpose and meaning to what we do.
This opening module of the programme will explore the softer skills that facilitate leadership of the institutional quality assurance agenda. It will help participants to unpack what it means to “lead’ as a quality manager and explore how their role fits into the wider leadership grid of their schools. The module will also serve to reinforce the role of leadership in the quality manager’s toolbox and to support participants in looking at ways to help those they lead to understand the greater purpose, the “why”, of what they do.

14:00 – 19:00 CEST

MODULE 2: Communication in QA – A matter of adjustment and balance

• Anna Blombäck

Being responsible for quality assurance implies being “the spider in the web” and having connections with all levels and functions within the school. Not all colleagues are enthusiastic about quality assurance, though, and some might perceive the quality manager as a source of non-compensated work tasks.
Communication has a crucial role to play in quality assurance for getting a wide range of stakeholders committed to the school’s quality work and related goals. In this module, we will discuss the influence of stakeholders, the organisation, and our individual approaches to communication, on the planning and execution of communication in quality assurance management.

14:30 – 16:30 CEST

Group round-table around prep work for the block week 2 (modules 3 & 4)

Get together in small groups with your assigned mentor to discuss the preparatory work you’ve done throughout the week.

14:00 – 19:00 CEST

MODULE 3: “Sapere Aude” (Dare to Know): Data as a Competitive Advantage

• Benjamin Stévenin

This module aims at developing a deeper understanding and appreciation of a typical business school’s Information System framework. Participants will explore how properly managed data can enhance quality assurance/management (QA/M) outcomes. They will furthermore review different systems in place to create a better approach toward data management linked to Quality processes. We will look at various schools’ examples and the different solutions they have put in place to create data repositories and how they ensure the quality and granularity of data to provide the most accurate and meaningful basis for reporting. We will also analyse different best practices that Higher Education Institutions and different sectors have done to re-think their data process to create clear information management.

14:00 – 19:00 CEST

MODULE 4: Mastering the Double Hurdle: Managing Projects Successfully and Managing Successful Projects!

• Ulrich Hommel

Quality assurance work is like managing a series of projects, some running side by side, others ordered as sequential tasks. This module focuses on a portfolio of techniques that help participants and the teams around them at home to get organised. It involves developing project plans, assembling and managing teams (not all belonging to a quality assurance department), aligning schedules, factoring in risks (budget and deadline overruns) and, most importantly, achieving and maintaining clarity on project goals and communicating effectively on outcomes. Resource management is key as quality assurance work often relies on shared and temporary resources.
The module will also tackle some of the common challenges of managing quality assurance projects such as lack of due diligence to confirm project feasibility, scope creeping as quality assurance professionals are “shooting at a moving (school) target”, milestone tracking and problem feedbacking as well as conflict management within project teams.
Participants will furthermore be able to familiarise themselves with simple process modelling tools that can help them simplify and structure their day-to-day work. Simple exercises will demonstrate the benefits in comparison to an ad hoc approach. The standards of the Project Management Institute will serve as a reference.

14:30 – 16:30 CEST

Group round-table around prep work for the block week 3 (modules 5 & 6)

Get together in small groups with your assigned mentor to discuss the preparatory work you’ve done throughout the week.

14:00 – 19:00 CET

MODULE 5: Positioning a Business School for Success: Structuring your School’s Accreditation Story

• Sarah Vaughan

Positioning your Business School’s story for accreditation purposes holds particular challenges, requiring you to evidence and persuade, through aggregate analysis of data, that you occupy a distinctive place for prospective students, students, faculty, alumni, community partners, accreditation agencies and donors. The process of preparing your self-assessment and strategic documents, whether for an initial or re-accreditation, brings together all stakeholder groups. Maintaining their engagement across the timeframe is critical and requires strong leadership skills and internal “marketing”.
This module will explore ideas, practical tools and best practices to contextualise and leverage regional, national and international requirements for your internal stakeholder groups, in order to construct and disseminate a persuasive, compelling and data-informed business school narrative. It will identify the key phases of project communication with internal and external audiences, including integrating external accreditation feedback into actionable plans and strategies to guide improvements.

14:00 – 19:00 CET

MODULE 6: Seeing What is Next: Potential Futures for HE and the Role of QA

• Kai Peters

The focus of this module is to contextualise the centrality of quality assurance within a framework of systemic relationships and emerging trends. Quality has internal, institutional, national, and international components covering both the right to practice as well as the recognition of quality through accreditations and rankings. Numerous challenges arise for joint ventures and joint degrees, through online education, trans-national education, professional bodies and through stackable degrees.
Using strategic management and change management techniques, this module seeks to position QA professionals at the heart of institutional thinking.

15:00 – 17:00 CET

Graduation ceremony