The introduction of the ‘Own Learning Route’ was accelerated by strengthening leadership, structure and team strength. Joint sessions brought vision and organisation into motion.
At Windesheim in Almere and Zwolle, over 27,000 students study and over 2,800 staff work. It is a broad university of applied sciences with more than 200 shorter and longer courses and high-level training programmes.
Windesheim wants to introduce an individual learning route that students can shape themselves, tailored to their personal development and experiences. This requires not only a clear vision of education, but also a coherent organisational strategy and unified processes for the entire college.
Instead of separate systems, one information chain is needed and a way of working that starts from what the student needs, not what the teacher offers. This is a radical organisational change which required a lot of lead time to really get moving. The question to us: could we help accelerate, focusing on develop leadership and strengthening team force within Windesheim?
In a two-day event, in which both content and organisational culture were central, new energy emerged. Then, step by step, we started building the framework conditions for this organisational change: an integrated plan with workflows, a clear structure, simplified governance and a predictable rhythm.
That rhythm proved crucial: weekly consultations with work streams and a heartbeat every two months with 50-150 stakeholders. Meanwhile, teams work more closely together, some 900 students have started in the new information chain and challenges are taken up in multidisciplinary teams. In this way team force, leadership and the new organisational strategy each other.
