Managing Change at Loughborough

UniversityAnne MumfordSam MarshallMeg Stafford

Managing Change at Loughborough

• How do we Manage Change at Loughborough?• How the Director of Change Projects came about• What has been possible for 3 years with one person• Scaling Up – service improvement and saving money

• Change Team• Change Academy• A process review methodology for the University

• Peer to peer challenge• Giving our methodology a go

Managing change at Loughborough

• Staff say we do it badly and we need to do it well • Too quickly without getting buy-in and thinking of the

unintended consequences• Too slowly resulting in stress on staff• Poor communications

• We need to take time to prioritise the projects, agree where we are heading and get involvement – resources do not help if we don’t get this right

How we got here and what have we done?• Appointment was a result of reorganisation• Vision of the Chief Operating Officer to deliver

change in his area but now wider remit• In VC’s Office, reporting to COO• Examples of projects prior to 2013:

• Institutional step change for: • Environmental sustainability, Business continuity

• New ways of working across the institution for:• Central timetabling, Workload modelling

• Building moves – into open plan and more integration

Managing Projects

• Forced to work with people or I could do nothing! This has been good for embedding.

• Some close involvement, some more distant• Some formal project management board, others task and

finish groups• Very pragmatic approach rather than a formal one• Some with PMB and then an implementation team• Involvement of academic expertise

• Sustainability, business continuity, email efficiency• Working across the University – schools and services• Look at two examples – timetabling & building moves

Central Timetabling

• Aim was to move from 20+ different approaches with a central room booking to a centrally managed but with local involvement approach using a shared system

• Formal PMB with an implementation group• Outcomes and lessons

• Came in without (almost) people noticing• Great staff appointment• Widespread involvement across the university• People were ready for this having been resistant – enough people and

depts. were ready to make the change and took others with them• We really listened and worked with people - and had to because the

central resource was small

Relocating Staff

• Project comprised the refurbishment of two 1930s buildings which had been halls of residence into offices for 250 staff moving from other buildings many in single or small offices.

• Aim was to create environmentally sustainable open plan offices & improve cross-section working through co-location.

• What we did and what we learned:• Lot of fear, anger, angst – KPI to turn this into joyous happy-ness!• Worked with the building project manager and ran sessions for people

moving and developed a way of working with departmental heads and staff who are moving – interface to the project manager

• Ensured enabling factors included e.g. meeting rooms, help for move• People now proud of where they are and working more effectively.• Lessons learned about how to manage change for building projects.

Building on the Good Work

• Change projects perceived positively• Suddenly popular• Want to expand• Want to save money• Want to do things better• Want to do it NOW NOW NOW!• Resources made available for 2013/14

Creating a Change Team

• Expand capability and capacity – but not a permanent team

• Secondments of staff who will get experience, training and mentoring

• Consultation on priority projects which might deliver significant savings• Senior colleagues, staff campaign

• Change Academy

Change Academy

• A way to spend time on the “difficult to solve problems”• 3 day, 2 night residential• Facilitated by the HEA using a well tried and tested model

supported by the Change Team and involving colleagues from the University.

• Time for teams to work individually and jointly• Sessions on managing change, thinking creatively• Attracted academic and professional service colleagues

Change Academy Projects

• Loughborough in London• IT support• Developing our Technicians• Procurement• Catering Provision• Increasing income• Sustainability of programmes & modulesAll discussions have moved the agenda forward

So, what would you change?

• Groups – each person identify something and the barriers to making this change

Group 1: James, Steven, Ashley, Carla, MegGroup 2: Matt, Stuart, Simon, SamGroup 3: Darren, Wendy, Lizzie, Lin, Anne

Feedback on the barriers

What would you change?

• Feedback session

Process Change Methodology

• Process Change methodology• Based on Vanguard methodology

• Change from command and control to systems thinking

• Improved services to customers at lower costs and improved morale

• Adapted and promoted by Richard Taylor as a standard methodology for the University

• Over to Sam………………

Understand Before Changing

• Add Richards plan, do, check slidePlan Do Check

Understand before changing

Check Plan Do Check

Process Review Methodology

• DEFINE the process from the customer’s view• CHECK – collect information• FOLLOW – the flow (literally)• CATEGORISE – value & failure demand• MAP the current flow from customer’s perspective• ANALYSE the demand patterns and flow• DESIGN a simpler flow• EXPERIMENT with the new flow• SCALE UP

Let’s have a go

• Over to Meg to introduce the exercise……….

Induction at Loughborough University

• This is supposed to be standard for all staffhttp://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/sd/new-staff/induction/

• Anecdotal evidence suggests this is not the case• Let’s have a look!

Process Mapping Induction

• DEFINE: Induct me as an employee of Loughborough University

• CHECK and FOLLOW:your homework

• CATEGORISE, MAP, ANALYSE:your activity

In Groups

• Prepare a presentation for the COO which includes a map of what happens in reality, comparing it to the University’s policy

• Identify value and failure demand and hand-offs• Make recommendations as to what should

happen next in creating a clean flow• Groups:

Group 1: Steven, Matt, Ashley, Lin, Stuart +Meg & SamGroup 2: James, Darren, Wendy, Lizzie, Simon, Carla + Anne

Induction Process at Loughborough

University

Presentations to the COO

Where now for the Change Team?

Current active projects involving process review:• Bought in Teachers (scale up)• IT Support (going into experiment)• Agents’ fees (experiment)• Module choice (experiment)• Exams outside halls (analyse)• Procurement (experiment)• Managing exchange students (experiment)• Managing Multi-function Devices (scale up)Other Projects:• Developing technicians, increasing incomeFuture projects:• Admissions, assessment, staff recruitment

Some Final Points

• Institutional change can be managed with a small (even one-person) resource. We hope to be funded next year.

• Strategic priorities for change need to be agreed and appropriate buy-in obtained.

• Need high level commitment and agreed appetite for the changes.

• Need to clearly articulate and agree on the “end game”.• Don’t do things to people, do it with them.• Involve and trust people.• Good communication is essential.