Establishing an Operational Management Community of Practice for dRTP Leaders: Insights and Outcomes!

Phil Bradbury, Project PI and Research Software Engineer at the University of Manchester, shares the progress and impact of his recently completed DisCouRSE-funded project. The project brought together dRTP leaders from Manchester, Durham and York to establish a new Community of Practice and support the development and Open Sourcing of the Capacity eXtended (CapX) tool.

Building a Community

The Research Software Engineering (RSE) team based in Research IT at The University of Manchester have developed a tool called Capacity eXtended (CapX) which helps teams to plan resources, manage operations, and report on impact using integrated data models. Securing funding from DisCouRSE allowed the team to build a community of leaders at other universities to be early adopters of the tool.

A Helping Hand

Many dRTP group leaders have found themselves in leadership roles without formal training or a clear development pathway. The lack of training available can have an impact on service delivery and management practices, with leaders under pressure to demonstrate impact, make data-informed decisions, and secure recognition for their teams. At the same time, differences in organisational structures and institutional policies make it difficult to share knowledge or adopt common approaches and tools.

Collaborating Across Institutions

The Manchester RSE team delivered a presentation at RSECon25 on the CapX tool; and how/why it is used at Manchester. After the presentation they were approached by both Durham and York Universities who were also interested in using the tool. The conversation developed into an approach about working collaboratively on CapX and a successful bid was submitted to DisCouRSE. The funding allowed for assistance to install the tool at their respective institutions and then work towards Open Sourcing it to remove “Manchester specific” aspects as well as making is it accessible for all. A training day was held in Manchester for the teams from Durham and York which worked through how the tool might fit disparate needs. Following on from this, York hosted a follow up meeting to agree and set up the terms of reference, website and policy/procedures for the dRTP Operational Managers Community of Practice. There was also progress in establishing how best the tool could be shared widely in terms of overseeing/agreeing code change requests.

Forming a Community

Over the course of the 5 month project, a Community of Practice for dRTP Resource Managers was established including the creation of a terms of reference and a website which details the groups aims and objectives. CapX has been Open Sourced so it can be shared among the membership (currently Manchester, Durham and York) to assist with resource and project management. The tool is now live and in the initial stages of being used at Durham and York.

“Without the project funding we wouldn’t have been able to dedicate the time required to go down the path of Open Sourcing the code for CapX, or to be able to initiate working with colleagues in other institutions to get the Community of Practice off the ground. Ultimately we’ve put in far more hours than we got funding for, but it certainly helped offset the associated staff costs and also helped focus our efforts.”

Phil Bradbury, Project PI, Research Software Engineer