PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT
BIOGRAPHY Dr Anastasia Kynighou is the MBA director at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School and a reader (associate professor) in human resource management at the Department of People and Performance. She is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an EFMD‑accredited online facilitator
new hyflex space was, as you would imagine, resources, ie time and money. Again, we were fortunate enough to have senior leadership’s support and buy-in, which meant we could secure adequate funding to start working on the space and invest in the appropriate technology and installation. The second challenge was to revisit our single-space/single- audience pedagogical and delivery approaches and ‘re-imagine’ how to adapt them to a hyflex model. The third challenge was overcoming people’s resistance to change and the fear of the unknown that often comes with the introduction of any new technology. To respond to this, we kept our communication lines open as always, replied to queries and concerns and offered the team training and bespoke support. We also invested in the creation of a co-pilot role to create a seamless experience for both students and tutors. Even though we have invested a lot of time, money and energy into developing our hyflex MBA space, the socialising experience remains elusive for the time being. Garnering the support of the professional teams The third parallel project that was running at the same time as the curriculum design and hyflex development was the re-energising of the professional teams; this was important when it came to the support they offer the MBA. The strategic importance of the MBA, as the business school’s flagship programme, was brought back to the fore for all professional services teams. We started this journey by inviting every team, representing each stage of the student journey, to a meeting. Due to the centralised nature of our professional services, this meeting might have surprised them at first. However, it was crucial in establishing two things: relationships with the teams and their understanding of the strategic importance of the MBA, in the sense that it is not like any other postgraduate programme taught in the business school. The feedback from that meeting was resoundingly positive. The staff felt more empowered and had a deeper understanding of what we were asking from them. Together we developed small working groups that meet often and from which a number of new initiatives have grown; these include a career programming scheme, an MBA alumni mentoring project and bespoke payment plans for the MBA, as well as an invigoration of our marketing and recruitment. We worked closely with our e-learning team on the curriculum design to create bespoke virtual-learning-environment areas that satisfy the expectations of the MBA student body and promote cohort learning. As I’m closer to the shores of my Ithaca , I reflect on the journey and I think about how this collaborative, consultative, engaged approach has led to a massive transformation in such a short space of time. How the very soul of any MBA programme is the hundreds of people – and I mean literally hundreds – who work behind the scenes to deliver something remarkable and world-class. “Now that I’m so full of experiences, now I have understood what these Ithacas mean,” as the poem goes.
Ambition • ISSUE 1 • 2025 25
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