We’ve been privileged to speak with even more edtech and industry thought leaders throughout 2023 as part of our #FinnemoreFireside chats, and the insight they continue to provide to us and our community is invaluable.

 

Thanks to Catherine Tallis of HFL Education, a long-standing provider of MIS support to schools, for discussing how support teams must adapt as the MIS market continues to evolve.

 

Thanks to Derek Hills from Ark for sharing your views on where you see AI fitting into technology budgets and the broader education landscape, and what the future of MIS might be.

 

It’s great to speak with thought leaders from government so thank you to Edtech NED, legislator, schools and education expert Jim Knight for your thoughts on the disconnect between the education and labour market, and the need for a school system which truly meets the needs of learners, communities and employers.

 

Thank you to Chris Kirk of CJK Associates Ltd for your insight into MAT’s needs in terms of vision, strategy, operating models and governance, and what this means for suppliers – both now and in the future.

 

Our chat with Lyndon Stickley and Sam Curtis of iplicit is essential listening for everyone with an interest in finance as they discuss the importance of change in the education sector and the need for flexibility and adaptability in finance and management systems

 

Thank you to Ollie Burnett from the school support team in Coventry for talking to us about all the valuable ways they support their schools, including helping them procure and migrate to their new MIS as a group earlier this year.

 

Finally, we were delighted to speak with Izzi Dorrian and Ed Butcher, founders of the brilliant Habitude workflow platform, for an insightful discussion on the evolving landscape of MATs, the importance of infrastructure, and the need for a clear vision.

 

As always, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed making the series and are looking forward to a fantastic 2024!

 

Have a great Christmas break

 

Best wishes from Sarah & Nick

 

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We’re delighted to welcome one of our LA Support Team colleagues to our #FinnemoreFireside chats. A huge thank you to Ollie Burnett, Systems Lead at Coventry City Council, who talked to me about their work with schools and plans for the future.

Ollie has been in education since 2003, is passionate about education and aims to improve the experience for students and teachers through his work. It’s a great conversation and, amongst other things, we talk about:

 

• Having a vision for the future relies on consultation with the SLT, partnering with more suppliers, but ultimately listening and then delivering for their schools and MATs.

 

• How Support teams should understand the school’s context and goals, offering solutions beyond specific products.

 

• The importance of Support teams to schools in helping them navigate software and processes.

 

• How User Group sessions and sharing best practices among schools are promoted to enhance learning.

 

• The challenges of transitioning to new systems, praising the support provided by suppliers. Ollie highlights the need for training and consultancy services due to the shift to cloud-based systems.

 

• Support teams are becoming more consultancy-based in the future and collaborating closely with multi-academy trusts (MATs) to meet school needs.

 

Ollie also chats about the process they went through during their recent MIS switch and why they chose Bromcom. In total, 75% (45) of Coventry’s LA-maintained schools chose to move both MIS and Finance, with the Authority implementing the switch in only 3 weeks by working in a 3-way partnership between the Coventry Support Team, the schools and the supplier. It can be done!

 

 

 

 

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Working with MIS

We’ve been lucky enough to have worked with most of the maintained MIS suppliers including SIMS (then owned by Capita), Arbor, IRIS Ed:gen, Pupil Asset, and, at the time of writing, working with Bromcom as they grow their user base across the UK.

We’ve recorded tons more #FinnemoreFireside chats on the topic of MIS with MATs, school leaders, support teams, suppliers and independent consultants which you can find here or subscribe to our You Tube channel for regular updates.

Other brilliant free, independent resources we’d recommend you take a look at include WhichMIS and BringMoreData, We also run a LinkedIn group ‘The Future of MIS’ which seeks to understand the new role of MIS in schools and explore what it will look like in the future – come and join the conversation 🙂

As it’s Valentine’s Day it seems only right to tackle the issue of love and, specifically: is your company any good at it?  Many, many companies will say they ‘love their customers’ but do they really?  Or are they guilty of bad love?

 

Bad love is where you really absolutely genuinely love your customer . . .  based on the fact they provide you with £XX revenue per year.  Would you still love them and spend so much time on them if they didn’t provide that income?  If you were being honest, would you say it’s the money you love, not the customer?

 

Good love is where you absolutely genuinely love your customers and if it ends a fruitful financial relationship then great!  And even if it doesn’t then your business will still gain in brand and reputation as you build a network of contacts who regard you as helpful, professional, willing to go the extra mile and not just interested in the next order.  Yours will be the sort of business they recommend to others even if they don’t need your services themselves right now.

 

Love your customers for who they are, not how much they are worth to you financially.  As with all relationships, the stronger they are the happier you will be.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Our first #FinnemoreFireside of 2023 is with Catherine Tallis, Director of Business Services at HFL Education.

HFL Education (formerly Herts for Learning) is a national provider of school improvement and business support services, training and resources.  As long-standing providers of MIS support to their schools, this Q&A discussed in detail the ways in which support teams must adapt as the MIS market continues to evolve. Being a SIMS-only support team, as was usually once the case, is now a risky strategy for any team wanting to remain in business in the coming years.

 

It’s a fascinating chat and, amongst other things, Nick and Catherine discuss:

• The precarious state of school finances and the impact that has on decisions, and the huge amount of pressure on schools as they are taking on more as services around them are cut to the bone (e.g. CAMHS, social care, etc.)
• How academisation and changes to the way schools licence MIS have led to the sector completely changing, and how HFL Education have adapted into a multi-MIS support team to help their schools
• What will happen to teams who aren’t able to adapt quickly, and how the conversation needs to shift away from software support to whole school strategic support
• The challenges around understanding overheads as a business where teams are still part of an LA
• The democratisation of data, and how HFL Education supports meaningful school improvement through the effective use of data
• Schools are great at curriculum change but not always so great at change across other systems, and this is something support teams can help with
• HFL Education’s vision and plans for the next five years
• What Catherine would like to see from the market and from suppliers

 

We’d love to hear your feedback; what would you like to learn from support team leaders?

 

 

The MIS sector in England continues to be in a state of flux and there are currently no signs of it settling down. Schools and MATs continue to switch suppliers, businesses and support teams are changing the way they operate, and new partnerships and being formed to enhance the value suppliers offer.

 

Is this a good thing for schools and MIS users? We certainly hope so, with change comes innovation, but I can see why MIS can feel like a pain in the backside as opposed to an opportunity to improve things for some schools and MATs.

 

Here are some of the big talking points in 2022 and our predictions for 2023

 

 

The challenges around ESS’ move to direct licencing and 3-year contracts continue

When ESS announced to all its schools that they required them to licence with them directly (as opposed to via an LA licence deal) and that all contracts would be for 3-years now as opposed to one, there was a great deal of pushback from schools culminating in a challenge from them and a subsequent investigation by the CMA.

 

ESS, having offered various incremental ‘break clauses’, is now proposing a ‘New Break Clause Offer’ which will allow some schools to apply to break their contract if they can provide ‘objective evidence of a clear intention to switch’. The application will then be assessed by an independent adjudicator. Whether or not the CMA feel this is fair and workable remains to be seen. At the time of writing, the investigation is still open but the decision is likely to be soon as the last CMA consultation period closed in December 2022.

 

Our predictions: given just how many schools are affected by the ESS decision to change their terms, it’s likely the CMA would have received many responses during the last consultation period – both from schools and suppliers alike. Is it realistic to ask schools to provide written evidence of conversations – that would have likely happened verbally – in order to be able to apply to move? Is the application process itself so complicated that it puts schools off and they simply stick with what they’ve got? All questions the CMA will be considering, but we can see this rumbling on into 2023.

(**UPDATE** on 10th Jan 2023, the CMA published its decision to accept commitments from ESS that enable certain schools (meaning those which had considered switching providers but concluded they did not have sufficient time to do so) to apply to an independent adjudicator for a 12-month break clause. If granted, the clause will allow them to exit their current three-year contract with ESS and choose an alternative provider, should they so wish. More details on our blog here, schools have until 10th Feb 2023 to make their application.)

 

 

The rate of churn in the market continues at an even higher rate than expected

The most recent census figures are out and show that, over the past year, 2,734 schools have moved away from SIMS to alternate MIS suppliers. It means they’ve lost 18% of their market share in one year, probably higher than anyone expected. It also means that lots of challenger MIS are gaining ground with Arbor and Bromcom being the big winners, and lots of other new and existing MIS suppliers continue to gain ground (I’d recommend checking out Josh Perry’s blog for a detailed breakdown of market share by supplier).

 

Our predictions: Is this likely to continue into 2023? Everything indicates that it will. The school census figures are a good indicator of what’s going on but they always give a slightly delayed view on the market; they tell us which MIS the school used to submit the census, but they don’t reflect any recent procurements or new contracts schools may have entered into (e.g. the recent West Sussex procurement).  In the face of an enforced 3-year contract, many SIMS schools scrambled to move to an alternate MIS and there are still migrations in progress. We know that more schools, academies and MATs also intend to test the market there but felt that they couldn’t run a fair and thorough procurement within a limited timeframe (we talk about this below).

 

The acceleration in churn we’re seeing is not just due to contract issues though. There is a real desire for new solutions which offer schools something different, and which better meets the needs of MATs.  Bromcom and Arbor have made significant gains, and the primary-focused cloud MIS (Scholarpack, RM Integris and Horizons/Pupil Asset) have held fairly steady.  There are also new players out there which schools are happily choosing to switch to. IRIS Ed:Gen was the next fastest grower, and Compass Education is already busy getting schools live here in the UK.  ET-AIMS and Go4Schools have new MIS offerings which are sparking interest, and Satchel recently announced that they intend to build an MIS too. There’s lots of potential for growth and a very high likelihood that we’ll see more churn.

 

 

What’s next for Support Teams

The role and nature of school support teams continue to evolve. As an LA team, only offering support for one MIS option feels more and more precarious as the level of churn amongst schools, academies and trusts increases each year. However, by and large, MATs, schools and academies often still want to buy into local support – they still want to work with the colleagues with which they’ve built such great relationships.  As a result, the number of support teams forming partnerships with MIS providers other than SIMS has increased drastically, and many now offer multi-MIS support. The progressive teams understand that the priority is helping their schools achieve their goals, and it’s something they plan to continue to do in the future – irrespective of the systems they use. They “support the process, not the product”.

 

Our predictions: unfortunately, those LA teams that only offer SIMS support to their schools are going to find it harder and harder in the future. LAs no longer hold a SIMS licence in perpetuity as was once the case as ESS mandates that all schools licence with them directly so LAs are no longer a route to a preferential SIMS licence deal. ESS is offering its own support contracts directly to SIMS schools at a favourable price so these teams may find that some of their schools won’t buy into their MIS SLAs at all. In addition, we’ve heard anecdotally that ESS plans to discontinue the annual entitlement rebate that has traditionally been available to LA teams in return for them supporting SIMS. For many, it may mean there is no longer a viable business.

(N.B. we have a new #FinnemoreFireside coming up with Catherine Tallis, Director Of Business Services at Herts for Learning Ltd where we discuss the challenges above – watch this space)

 

 

An increased focus on procurements

As indicated by the amount of churn, it’s clear there are likely to be more procurements underway than ever. Depending on the size of the school or trust, this can be a complex process involving stakeholders from across all areas of operations, teaching and leadership.  At any one time, an MIS supplier will also be responding to multiple tenders so we’d definitely encourage the use of a framework such as  G-cloud or Everything ICT. It helps the process run smoothly and helps guard against any legal challenges.

 

Our predictions: We anticipate school and MAT requirements becoming more high-level and strategic as it becomes clear what brand-new cloud-based MIS can help them achieve. While lots of requirements have tended to focus on functionality in the past (e.g. can you take a register, can you submit the census) these are things that all MIS can do. A decision which is made purely on basics and price rarely gets schools and Trusts what they need.

 

We’re starting to see Trusts ask more of MIS suppliers in terms of how they will help them meet their own overall strategy. For example:

 

• How will the MIS help them meet Carbon net zero targets by 2030?
• How will the MIS provide the insight on students we need to successfully run a national academy chain?
• How does the MIS help us allocate budget to staff resources accordingly based on effective pedagogy?

 

Being a straight admin/office tool is not enough anymore, Trusts are looking for software partners with long-term benefits.

 

 

 

The desire for cloud solutions continues

There has always been a strong case for a school to move all its systems to the cloud, and this was brought into sharp focus by the pandemic.  Anytime, anywhere access became absolutely crucial as school staff were unable to gain physical access to buildings. Even when they could, many students were still attending school remotely so there had to be solutions in place to cope with remote learning – it caught a lot of people out and accelerated cloud strategy.

 

The argument around TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is now more important than ever as, once again, schools find their budgets being shrunk so any way to save money has to be considered. Cloud solutions mean that schools don’t need to buy or house a server so there are all the associated power and air-con cost savings that go with it.

 

Carbon targets and a successful net zero strategy are also becoming a higher priority for schools as we head towards 2030, they want to waste as little energy as possible and the cloud helps them get there.

 

Our predictions: schools will of course want to move to the cloud where possible and all the MIS suppliers understand this. The fast-growing suppliers are cloud-based as you would expect, and ESS has a cloud strategy with its Next Gen solution planned for the future.

 

For schools and Trusts who find themselves with a client-based MIS for the foreseeable future, there are other options out there to help your cloud strategy. For example, suppliers can sometimes help with this directly, and school support teams such as Scomis offer SIMS hosting so you no longer need to buy and maintain servers.

 

 

 

 

Partnerships, mergers and acquisitions

There has been so much acquisition activity around MIS in recent years and this continued in 2022 with RM announcing the sale of the division that includes the Integris MIS to The Key Group. When the deal goes through, The Key will have around a 33% MIS market share in the English-maintained sector (across Arbor, Scholarpack and Integris) which makes them a huge player, second only to ESS SIMS which currently has around 56%.

Suppliers of MIS-adjacent solutions have also continued to form fruitful partnerships as it becomes clear that there’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for schools and Trusts, and flexibility is everything.

 

Our predictions: We’re seeing increased merger, acquisition and partnership activity amongst support teams too. For example, it was recently announced that School ICT Services Ltd had been acquired by Oxfordshire-based provider of education ICT services, Turn IT On.

 

We’re also seeing more and more LA support teams working in partnership with each other in order to pool expertise and deliver valuable services to their schools. For the reasons outlined earlier in the blog, we see this sector in particular as one to watch as the nature of SIMS support teams changes.

 

 

 

So, all in all, an eventful year in the sector and we can see more change coming in the future. While it feels like a lot of battles are currently being fought around contracts and agreements, we’d really like to see what’s coming next in terms of innovation.  Who’s out there redefining the role MIS will play in schools in the face of changing requirements?

 

 

We’d love to hear what’s next and look forward to working with suppliers, schools, Trusts and support colleagues throughout 2023.

The number of schools switching MIS is at an all-time high and this trend looks set to continue (check out this previous blog for the reasons why and the movement we can expect to see in the future).

 

As schools are taking on new MIS all the time, it’s important for all suppliers of all school management software – be that the MIS itself or any one of the hundreds of products which sit alongside it – to understand what’s most important to schools when looking at alternatives.

 

 

In Spring 2021, The Key sent a survey to all primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units in England on the subject of MIS which produced some fascinating insights, including (amongst other things):

 

• What’s most important to schools when looking for an MIS, and how likely are they to move supplier
• How effective are MIS at saving schools time, and how well are schools supported
• How intuitive are MIS solutions for new users, and do they give schools the right tools for the job in terms of collaboration and data?

 

The Key sent out a similar survey in Spring 2022 so, using these results, we’ve been able to compare how opinions on MIS have changed and gain some insight into what schools might do in the future.

 

 

 

What it is that schools look for in a new MIS: what’s most important to them?

 

The surveys asked schools across England to prioritise what they felt was the most important factor in terms of price, support, functionality, integration, partnership and reputation when looking for a new supplier. The results are outlined below:

 

 

As you can see, the trend of what’s most important to schools is broadly unchanged but there are a couple of notable things here:

 

• Even in a world of huge budgetary pressure on schools, price has not scored as highly as last year. It’s still the second most important factor, but it’s interesting to see that functionality has not only remained the most important factor by far, but the percentage has increased too.

 

• Being a trusted procurement partner has become more important and has (only just!) overtaken reputation in terms of importance. This could well be a reflection of the way in which MATs prefer to work, as they often use trusted procurement partners to help select their school management software and technology. There are also a number of frameworks in place to help schools and MATs through the procurement process e.g. G-cloud, Everything ICT

 

 

 

How satisfied are schools with their MIS compared to last year?

 

In both 2021 and 2022, the survey asked respondents to rate how satisfied they were with their MIS, on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being extremely dissatisfied and 10 being extremely satisfied. This graph shows that there are actually fewer schools towards the ‘Extremely satisfied’ end of the chart, and more are rating their satisfaction at 5 or lower (You can find the full results plus analysis by supplier on The Key’s blog here).

 

 

What could be causing schools to report that they are less satisfied than last year? There are a few possible explanations:

 

• Given so many schools have moved or are on the move at the moment, it’s likely that a number of respondents are in the MIS transition period which is always the most nerve-wracking time where the least satisfaction is felt.

 

• It’s possible that schools are feeling unhappy with their existing supplier if the contract and support terms have changed as this often puts them under pressure.

 

But it may be that this is an accurate reflection of how schools are feeling about MIS in the current environment, in which case it’s all suppliers should take note!

 

Ultimately, if schools are citing functionality as the main thing they look for in a new MIS, how confident are MIS suppliers that their functionality is truly meeting the needs of schools? Aside from the basics, what makes one stand out from the other?

 

What do you think users are looking for in their MIS?

 

 

 

Why are some businesses more successful than others?

Is it because they provide a better solution technically?

Is it because they were first to market?

Or is it just luck?

You could say all these statements are true, however, more often than not it is the way you look at a solution and how easy it is for a potential customer to purchase, on board, reduce their pain, and continue to enjoy the experience of working with your solution and business. It’s all about reducing friction.

We work and continue to work with several businesses across the edtech world and, in the main, the majority of companies that are not growing as quickly as they would like comes down to how hard are they making it for customers to either buy in the first place or make it hard for them to choose to stay, its all in your power to solve!

Look at your Customer Journey, look at every step, and understand when you are making it hard for the customer/user.

Ask yourself:

• Have you made it easy for the potential customer to find you and know what you stand for? Where do they receive their information?
• Have you made it easy for them to purchase? Do they know you are going to take away a problem better than your competition?
• Have you made it easy for them to onboard? Through little to no manual or human interaction.
• Have you made it easy for them to get to the value? This may include human intervention to understand best practices, however, if you can make it light touch this is great for the business and your customer.
• Do you have processes of ensuring that the customer continues to have a great experience of the solution and the business? To make the decision to be loyal easy.

 

If you say yes to all these questions, ask one more! Are you looking at this from your perspective or the customer’s? If you answer from yours, as we know best, you are not reducing Friction!

Is signing into a multi-year contract for your MIS a good thing?

If it’s something you’ve actively chosen to do as a school, academy or trust then, yes, it’s a great idea. It means you’ve had the chance to look at the options out there, and you’ve asked your suppliers for three-, four- or five-year pricing to guarantee a bit of budget certainty for the future.

If a multi-year contract is something you’ve had sprung on you in the small print – leaving you a very short window to either agree or cancel – well, it’s unlikely to be very popular. No one appreciates feeling like they’re being backed into a corner ☹

An unforeseen change in contract terms like this poses all sorts of questions for everyone involved in MIS:

❓ How does this affect the relationships schools have with the local support teams out there whom they’ve worked with and accessed their MIS licence through for years? It leaves Support Teams having to manage a difficult message from the MIS provider.

❓ How does this affect how Support Teams work with suppliers? More and more Support Teams have moved to be a multi-MIS support team, choosing to support their schools irrespective of the systems they use as opposed to only offering one option. All of the ‘big 5’ MIS have established Support Partner programmes (some useful links are below), as well as many of the newer entrants to the sector.

❓ How does this affect everyone (both schools and LAs) in terms of meeting procurement rules? Does everyone now need to get quotes and go through a tender process to even just stay with the MIS they already use?

❓ As academisation continues, what happens when a Local Authority maintained school is tied into a multi-year contract that converts to an academy?

Lots to think about which will hopefully become clearer soon.

 

If you’re a school, academy or trust and you’re affected by this and are wondering what to do, I’ve seen lots of posts on this already but it seems like the best advice is:

• Remember, YOU are the customer, so don’t be afraid of looking at alternatives and moving as it can all happen a lot quicker and easier than you think. Everyone is well-versed in migrating data from your system and it’s possible to be up and running very quickly.

 

• If there’s too much time pressure to look into things right now, don’t feel you have to lock in for a further three years, but do definitely contact your supplier to negotiate an alternative term length. They may be open to shorter contracts in the face of schools cancelling altogether, and this will give you time to plan for 2022.

 

• Talk to people! Get in touch with your local MIS support team if you use one, or with any of the MIS companies directly. They are all friendly and knowledgeable and will walk you through everything you need to know (or send a message to me or Nick as we’re more than happy to introduce you).

 

‘Big 5’ Support Partner programme links:

RM Integris https://www.rm.com/products/rm-integris/partner

Bromcom https://www.bromcom.com/LA-partners

Arbor https://arbor-education.com/become-a-partner/

Scholarpack https://scholarpack.com/who-we-help/support-partners/

ESS SIMS https://www.ess-sims.co.uk/products-and-services/sims-support-units

 

 

 

Our next fireside chat is with Schools ICT Service Manager and all-round MIS expert, Keren Wild.

Schools ICT is a fully traded service of NYCC working through North Yorkshire Education Services (NYES), which means they work with all types of organisations and education settings across the UK, not just in North Yorkshire.

We’ve known Keren for many years, and it’s great to speak with colleagues from MIS support teams as it gives such a unique and insightful view of the landscape. In this Q&A, we chat about a wide range of topics including:

• The North Yorks framework and how this has given choice to the schools
• The value that Support Teams offer to Edtech companies; how support teams protect their schools and take away the pain of IT
• How technology has encouraged primary schools to make different choices, especially with the added pressure of Covid closures
• How Support Teams will evolve in the future to include wider services, multi-MIS, more competition, and becoming being a partner to MATs
• Academisation and its role in moving Primary schools to cloud-based solutions
• The role of Senior leaders in the decision change MIS, and how this can be a challenge
• How well schools’ understand data and what an MIS can do for them
• Anytime, anywhere access to MIS and how this has become even more important since Covid
• How secondary schools feel about cloud MIS options
• Usability and change, and what challenger MIS could do to make their solutions slicker
• The difference between ‘one-stop shop’ and ‘best of breed’ solutions
• The opportunities for Edtech to partner with support providers as they have insights and connections which will give Edtech companies insights to the customer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What does it mean when we talk about MIS solutions being intuitive? The concept of something being ‘intuitive’ often gets mistaken for ‘basic’; there’s a belief that something is intuitive to use because it’s not rich functionally, but this is simply not the case. The smartphones we use today are some of the most sophisticated tech consumers have ever carried around – and they don’t come with instructions. We know how to use them because we’ve grown up with the more basic mobiles; one of the reasons we find them intuitive to use is because we learnt the old stuff the hard way!

Also, companies (in particular gaming companies) have identified ways to make it easy for us to use their systems using clever software such as WalkMe; the goal is to reduce friction and allow users to play games or use systems starting with the most basic flows, then introducing you to the more complicated features later.

 

It’s a similar story with MIS, but the idea that something will be hard to learn still holds people back when it comes to looking at alternatives – especially if their recollection of learning the existing system was painful.

It’s rarely the case though, and a good analogy here is that of learning to drive. You don’t have to re-take your driving test every time you get a new car.  You know how to drive already; you just need to find out what’s different in the new car and get used to using it.  It’s easy, and the new stuff is usually the best stuff (hello sat nav and park assist!)

It’s the same when you change your Management Information System.  You don’t need to go on lengthy training courses or re-learn from scratch. You know how to use an MIS already; you just need to find out what’s different in the new system and get used to using it.

 

A recent survey¹ of 2,146 schools asked, amongst other things, how intuitive their MIS is for new users.  The pie chart below summarises the responses:

 

The vast majority of respondents (38.15%) fell into the satisfied category which is good to see, with a further 25.34% taking the middle ground saying they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. However, what’s surprising here is that over a quarter of respondents (25.39%) said they were either dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied when asked how intuitive their MIS is for new users. It’s a worrying stat as no MIS supplier sets out to make a solution that’s prohibitively difficult to use.

 

According to the Interaction Design Foundation, members of the interdisciplinary research group Intuitive Use of User Interface offer the following definition of intuitive use:

 

“A technical system is—in a specific context of a user goal—intuitively usable to the degree the user is able to interact with it effectively by applying knowledge unconsciously.”

 

Based on this definition, there are a few reasons why respondents might not feel like their MIS is intuitive for new users:

• If the MIS you use now is the MIS you’ve always used, it’s likely that you may not consider it to be intuitive as you remember your first learning curve.
• Newer, SaaS MIS may be perceived as more intuitive as their users have used something previously so ‘know how to drive’ and won’t find it a challenge.
• Equally, solutions based on more recent technology will likely be easier to work with as they don’t have the old legacy-system hang-ups of having to navigate out of one module and into another. It will undoubtedly be an easier and more seamless experience.
• For brand new users, solutions built on more recent technology tend to require minimal training and are easier to learn. Older systems involved attending courses – which often made them all the more difficult to roll out to teaching staff given the time required.

 

The graph below shows a breakdown of the survey results for the ‘Big 5’ who, between them, they make up 96% of school market share² (namely Arbor, Bromcom, RM Integris, ScholarPack and SIMS):

Ultimately, how intuitive an MIS solution is perceived to be is down to a combination of things:

• How easy the solution is to access, and how quick it is to navigate
• How confident the user is with technology as a whole?
• How experienced the user is with MIS and the concepts of records, data dependencies and analysis
• How the user was introduced to the solution in the first place. For example:
  • Did they start the role when it was already in place, so they ‘had’ to use it? If so, what sort of intro did they have to the system?
  • Were they part of a team where the school started using a system for the first time? If so, what was their introduction to the MIS like?
• How well supported they are throughout, and the source of the support (local team, colleagues, provider, someone else?)

 

But most importantly of all, the concept of a solution being intuitive or not comes down to how well the product managers, designers and developers know their users, and how much time they spend listening and understanding.

The point is MIS users already know how to use intuitive software.  If they don’t have a basic understanding of how to use the MIS software by playing around with it for a few minutes then, as an MIS supplier, you’ve sadly missed the mark.  But if you work alongside your users on what’s important to them (and avoid the pitfall of developing something clever and technical just because you can), you can deliver a solution that users can take to without having to hesitate and wonder how they can execute an action.

 

 

 

¹The data was collected by The Key from a survey that went out to all primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units in England, by email. It was not sent to independent schools. The survey was completed by Headteachers, Deputy and Assistant Heads, and School Business Managers / Leaders between 29 March and 27 April 2021.

As part of the survey, respondents were asked which MIS they use. The results are outlined below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

²Market share statistics are sourced from two excellent blogs: Graham Reed’s Omega Pegasus https://www.omegapegasus.com/mischallenge and Josh Perry’s Bring More Data https://bringmoredata.blogspot.com/