For the last number of years, JobMine has been in a state that is less than ideal. About 3 years about, CECS along with IST tried to address the problem with the existing system. A replacement piece of software was searched for but nothing suitable existed. The university decided that it would be worth investing in developing their own piece of software that suited the diverse needs of the Waterloo co-op program. The development of Waterloo Works, a replacement system for JobMine began. In the spring of 2011 ,it was announced that after much investment in the product, Waterloo Works would be cancelled.
Deloitte Consultants were hired with the goal of assessing what happened, what went wrong and what lessons are to be learned. Waterloo Works was developed under different methodologies and practices than the way IST normally works on projects. Most of the issues that were identified stemmed from managerial and structural issues. Unfortunately, the structural issues go beyond the scope of this report, so there are likely very few lessons that can be applied to future projects
The next cycle of looking for a replacement to JobMine has already started. Since the process was started three years ago, many things have changed. Many more Universities have well established coop programs and software packages have responded. The hope is to find something relatively “off the shelf” that would suite the needs of Waterloo. This process is expected to take a long time and is currently in the preliminary evaluation stage.
Meanwhile, CECS is pushing constant improvements and termly updates to JobMine. Unlike the time during the development of Waterloo Works, CECS and IST plan to keep developing JobMine as a new system is searched for and implemented. This process has already started. In time for the Fall interview season the first major update to JobMine was launched. It has a more up to date backend which provides the opportunity to develop in a supported environment. This allows for future development of features such as better job searching, improved resume upload flows and features to develop a more robust system. Though replacing JobMine is a long process, the system is continually improving.
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