changing processes changing people - liz hunt and lynsey hopkins, university of sheffield
TRANSCRIPT
Changing Processes, Changing People How a core process was radically changed without (many) tears… Liz Hunt Lynsey Hopkins The University of Sheffield Admissions Service July 2016
Introduction
What? • Our project: the Admissions Service going paperless
When?
• Happened over the course of several years • Covered lots of staff and process changes
How?
• Planned as far as possible… • But large elements of making it up!
Now? • Where are we now?
Learn?
• What did we learn? • Advice for those embarking on change
• ‘Takeaways’ throughout the presentation
The Background
Background
harnessing an external driver can help get over lack of internal momentum
Admissions used to be paper heavy
PG processes flabby and labour-intensive
UG based around UCAS
Sector pushed for UCAS paperless ultimatum
External driver gave power when fighting for resource
Making it happen
Some basics: • Getting a good spec makes all the difference (in-
house vs. external systems)
• Don’t reinvent the wheel: once we had built a great PG system, we based our UG system on it
• Review your processes (this provided the internal impetus for getting our PG system built – we realised how much waste there was)
• AUA Good Practice Guide No 43
• Make your case (internal as well as external drivers: in our case, more centralised activity)
• Marshall your resources
The biggie:
communicate!!
Stakeholder engagement
Admissions Service
Admissions Tutors
Computing Services
Senior Managers
Stakeholder engagement: all staff able to give input at all stages, through design, development and implementation
Gaining Momentum
Business as usual?
constraints can be your best friend
PG system made its own argument and gave momentum to UG
Tight time constraints but used this as a positive to aid
prioritisation
Keeping business as usual going is essential and helps
remind us of what is important at every stage
Involve new people as they come along – necessary but
also helpful to have fresh eyes
Momentum
Communications again…
Constant communications over the course of the project
Use a range of channels – forums, meetings, task groups, emails, briefings, newsletters
Open up opportunities for involvement – we used volunteers from junior and senior staff for the project team
Don’t underestimate the drip-drip effect of taking every opportunity to remind and update people about the project
Use communication channels to gain feedback and ideas to constantly feed into project development
More communications…
Making the argument for the project can be easy (our Admissions Service couldn’t wait…)
…but can also be the most difficult part (some Admissions Tutors were worried to the point of tears…)
…so take all concerns seriously and take time to reassure where needed
Think about communication timings, especially around the academic cycle
don’t underestimate the effect of constant drip-drip communications
Implementation
Passing ‘Go’
as they (nearly) say in the military, prior preparation prevents particularly poor
performance
‘UG Online’ was heavily time-constrained – two
weeks to implement between the summer madness and the new
cycle
But, constraints proved our friend again: swift and
effective buy-in, good concentration of
resources, institution-wide focus
Good preparation counts: getting the right rooms for training, providing
‘drop-ins’, having simple but helpful
documentation
We didn’t pilot but would recommend you do!
Did we mention comms?
Good communications remain as essential at implementation point as throughout development
You will never have a better opportunity to get feedback than in the early weeks of implementation
Be ready to tweak your written guides and send out regular operational updates
Feedback loops are essential at this stage – done well, positive reinforcement really beds your system in and moves it on
strike while the iron’s hot and get your feedback immediately and regularly
After the storm
Don’t think you can relax now
embrace continuous improvement
Put in place a system for ongoing development and improvement
Implement formal and informal channels for continuing to gather feedback
Secure resource for after the project is formally completed (easier said than done…)
Be prepared to have to make tweaks and even bigger changes for a long time
Bring your lessons to bear on other projects – we did and got an amazing Confirmation system
Lessons
What did we learn?
3 big lessons
Plan and map as much as you can
Establish your rationale for the project and make the argument
that will give it momentum
Get buy-in at every level and every step of the way – design,
development and implementation
Ongoing challenges and unintended consequences
1 • Once the project is ‘live’ resource can disappear
2 • Working practices can change in unintended ways • People de-skill themselves in the face of good systems
3
• Nothing is forever – our systems may already be reaching the end of their lives
• Moving on from a good system is more difficult than changing from a poor one
Change management models We didn’t use a model, but you might want to
Lewin’s Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze
model
The ADKAR model
Kotter’s 8 step change model
We recommend looking at the model first… We’re about to have massive technology change again and we are going to take our own advice!
Final thoughts harnessing an external driver can help get over lack of
internal momentum
communicate!!
constraints can be your best friend
don’t underestimate the effect of constant drip-drip communications
as they (nearly) say in the military, perfect preparation prevents particularly poor performance
strike while the iron’s hot and get your feedback immediately and regularly
embrace continuous improvement
Any questions? Lynsey Hopkins Head of Admissions [email protected] Liz Hunt Undergraduate Admissions Manager [email protected]