0. Executive Summary

The PIPaL project piloted the JISC Self-Analysis Framework for Relationship Management with a group of external facing units at Loughborough University.  It assessed institutional maturity and possible next steps towards an institutional Relationship Management system.  The project concluded that the institution as a whole had an Operational maturity, moving to Tactical in certain key areas such as Development and Alumni Relations.

A number of observations relating to the Self-Analysis Framework are made in this report – notably that it may be difficult to reduce key processes to a flowchart process map format, and that there is a danger of alienating colleagues working in education through excessive use of business jargon.

We also make a number of suggestions for further development of the Framework, and further work by JISC.  These include investigating the role of Government in addition to the Student and Business, the role of Shared Service contact databases with multiple contributors, and the potential of a Linked Data approach to creating a “University API” – or at least identifying a common set of vocabularies across the sector to facilitate data interchange.