Managing Change at Loughborough University

Managing Change at Loughborough University Dr Anne Mumford, Director of Change ProjectsLoughborough University

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 • Peer to peer challenge • Scaling Up – service improvement and saving money • Change Team • Change Academy • Discussions on Change Projects

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: • 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 NOWNOW! • Resources available for 2013/14

So, what would you change? • Peer to peer challenge • A method that you could use if you wanted to with colleagues • Why do we/you do it like this? • Central local balance • I can get it cheaper, who do I have to do it this way?

What would you change? • Feedback session

After the Break • Change Team • Change Academy • Discuss the difficulty of implementing change and how the University and the team might approach this • Service review proposals from the new COO

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 • Planning to bring 6-7 projects to the Change Academy 21-23 January, Burleigh Court

Some Change Areas • Stopping unintended consequences - the way we manage finances • Getting people to accept central purchasing policies – the example of travel • How do we manage change in academic areas and put in place sustainable financial management?

Topic One: End of Financial Year • 31st July is the end of the financial year • Quarterly reviews • Most budgets cannot have a carry forward • Massive spend in June and July • Adds pressure on to those managing the spend and the resulting activity • Sometimes (more often than not?) waste money

Travel Bookings • The University spends £2.5M on travel and subsistence. 50% goes through 2 main suppliers, the rest of the orders are placed with 800 other suppliers. • Booking through our main suppliers involves significantly less administration (none apart from the booking) and could result in reduced cost. • How can we persuade people to use central purchasing policies such as this?

Discussion Topic Two • 18 months ago Information Science reported a deficit for the 5th year running • Although once a leading provider of Librarianship qualifications there is little demand for this and UG and PG numbers and applicant quality had declined • Other Universities are recruiting well to PG courses in information management • There is a link between areas of research in the department and those of colleagues in the Business School (information management) and English and Drama (publishing)

Do Central Services Create the Deficit? • This is a really strong case made when School are challenged • From their income schools get an “indirect charge” per person as well as a “space charge” • £9,000 per student plus research grants and contracts • Charge of £3,083per person and £152 per metre

Questions • For those of you in academic schools: • Should you support schools that are having a hard time? For how long? For what reason? How do we implement change in such circumstances given the cycles of recruitment and length of study? • For those of you in professional services: • How can we justify increasing costs when the unit of income is static? How can we justify and communicate what we do? Can we make changes to reduce costs? To improve services?

Ideas Regarding Service Improvement • DEFINE the process that we are seeking to improve - from the customer’s perspective. • CHECK – collect information and data on the current process (customer perspective) • CATEGORISE that data into “Value” and “Failure” demand. • MAP the current flow of the process at a high level – again from the customers perspective • ANALYSE the demand patterns and current flow - waste, hand-offs and duplication. • DESIGN a new, simpler flow at a high level. • EXPERIMENT with a sub-set of customers by taking them through the new process. Do this manually not with IT system. • SCALE-UP the experiment by computerising the processes and rolling in additional work.

Some Final Points • Institutional change can be managed with a small (even one-person) resource • A lightweight central resource means projects can only be delivered if people get involved and this then means greater buy in and higher chance of success – why not get involved? • 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” • Good communication is essential

Managing Change at Loughborough University