Maximising Efficiency and Reducing Costs: Optimising Software in your MAT or School

‘There’s an app for that’ was an advertising campaign which supported the roll-out of the iPhone 3 in 2009. More importantly, a classic Sesame Street song was released soon after and bears some significance to today’s blog topic…

Including lines like ‘If you need to practise singing skat, there’s an app for that’ and ‘if you want to comb your cat…’ (https://youtu.be/EhkxDIr0y2U if you really want to go there).

Source: https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/There%27s_an_App_for_That

Scroll forward to 2023.

We had just finished a software audit for a secondary school and the numbers were rather overwhelming for the network team to whom I was presenting the result.

“105” was their shocking answer – “we run 105 different pieces of software”

The sense of incredulity was palpable and the follow-up question even more revealing… “is that good, or bad?”

Of course, there is no straight answer to whether installing 105 pieces of software is going to have a positive or negative effect on a school, so let’s weigh up the outcomes.

Advantages to masses of software

1. Suggests a positive attitude towards technology within the organisation
2. Indicates enthusiasm for best practice and sourcing better software solutions to tackle specific tasks
3. Correlates with a desire for continuous improvement

Disadvantages to masses of software

1. Your network management team will need to know multiple software applications inside-out
2. There will likely be redundant software that you’re continuing to pay subscription licensing for
3. Your technicians will be expected to be able to manage support challenges across a wide range of software. How many can you really expect them to be expert in?
4. Staff could be in a position where it is unclear which software they should use to achieve
   certain tasks
5. Induction for new staff becomes even more challenging when there is so much software to
   become acquainted with
6. When staff have been trained in a certain software, their expertise may also be spread very thinly across the organisation. A MAT I worked with recently was surprised to hear they used more ‘quizzing’ software applications (12) across its schools than it had schools (10). This led to a lack of effective communities of best practice, as staff were struggling to help each other with the overload of knowledge and the quizzing options available.
   
   

I worked with eight different network managers during my two decades in school leadership. I had a
similar discussion with each one:

• Schools are such complex organisations doing so many different things
• Our IT support needs are far more complicated, labour-intensive and expensive than IT support in business
• We acknowledge that one of the reasons for this is the multiplicity of software within the organisation

The above are issues not often replicated elsewhere. So – what needs to be done?

One of the network managers I mentioned recently posted about this topic on LinkedIn (see below). I agree that the Software Audit recommendation is a great place to start.

Source: Martin Byford-Rew, LinkedIn

Take the “105” test yourself to reveal exactly what is on your systems, then find out if and how this software is being used in your organisation.

If you work across a group of schools, this could be an appropriate time to strategically identify the preferred applications being used across your group or Trust and create a ‘Software Catalogue’, to serve as a reference point for all schools within your Trust.

If you do find yourself in a “105” position, don’t worry, it’s completely understandable and perhaps you have good reason for maintaining multitudes of software. If you do have valid reasons, then it is crucial to ensure your network infrastructure and support services are capable of making the magic of school IT continue and succeed.

We've combined more detail about effective software management and assessment in our Novatia Note 'Software Audit – how much software does a MAT or school need?’

Steve Warbuton – with thanks to those 8 network managers for the fantastic job they did!