Managing Change: How to achieve effective, large-scale, long-term change in a UK University setting. CDE workshop conducted on 7 February 2012 by Professor Stephen Brown (De Montfort University, CDE Visiting Fellow). The lively session was attended by managers, senior managers and policy makers from within and beyond the University of London. The workshop aimed to help attendees to develop effective strategies for achieving large scale lasting change within their institutions, and examined the implications of different levels of stakeholder engagement for the success of sustainable institutional change and demonstrate how to employ a participatory design approach derived from the experiences of the JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery Programme. These slides are best considered alongside the accompanying workplan/report from the session, found here: http://cdelondon.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/cde-workshop-managing-change/.

1. Managing Change
Professor Stephen Brown

2. “The capacity to cope with change
will be the hallmark of success
in the 21st Century”
Extract from The Learning Age, UK Government Green Paper on
Lifelong Learning 1998

4. Aim
To develop effective strategies for achieving
large scale lasting change in your institution
Outcomes
• Describe your institutional culture
• Identify key stakeholders and motivations
• Produce a “baseline” picture
• Develop proposals that everyone buys into
• Keep your stakeholders on board

5. • 27 projects
• £8m
• 4 years
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/curriculum
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-
management

8. Transformative change
“The answer to large scale change is not to
try to emulate the characteristics of the
minority who are getting somewhere under
present conditions….
Rather, we must change existing
conditions so that it is normal and possible
for a majority of people to move forward.”
Fullan,M. 2001. The New Meaning of Educational
Change. New York: Teachers’ College Press

12. Traditional Complex Adaptive System
Few variables determine outcomes Innumerable variables determine outcome
The whole is equal to the sum of the parts The whole is different from the sum of the
(reductionist) parts (holistic)
Direction is determined by design and the Direction is determined by emergence and
power of a few leaders the participation of many people
Individual or system behaviour is knowable, Individual or system behaviour is
predictable and controllable unknowable, unpredictable and
uncontrollable
Causality is linear: every effect can be Every cause is also an effect, and every
traced to a specific cause effect is also a cause
Relationships are directional Relationships are empowering
All systems are essentially the same Each system is unique
Efficiency and reliability are measures of Responsiveness to the environment is the
value measure of value
Decisions are based on facts and data Decisions are based on tensions and
patterns
Leaders are experts and authorities Leaders are facilitators and supporters

15. Organisational
cultures
• Collegiate
• Bureaucratic
• Innovative
• Enterprise

20. Proposition 1
Effective change management =
Engaging critical mass of key
stakeholders

21. • Understand your project from the
perspective of each of your key
stakeholders
• Check the alignment between project
aims and stakeholders

22. Stakeholder Stake in the Potential Expectations Perceived Stakeholder Responsibility
Project Impact on of the attitudes Management
Project Stakeholder and/or risks Strategy
College Policy and High Experienced Lack of clarity Involvement in Project
Registrar process owner staff to be about Project Manager
who involved in preferred Steering
determines user group and approach. Board.
institutional user Views project Regular
administrative acceptance team as too update
policy and testing. technically meeting with
procedures Commitment to oriented. project leader.
implementing
change.
Heads of Manages Medium Commitment to Lack of interest Involvement in Registrar and
School School Admin implementing in project. briefing Project
staff who will change. sessions at Sponsor
operate the quarterly
new system at School
local level and meetings.
academic staff
who will
indirectly input
and directly
extract data
Admin Staff Will operate Very High Contribute to Concern about Involvement in Project Team
new system system and increased user groups.
process design workload.
and testing. Worried about
what training
they will
receive.

23. Stakeholders
Stakeholder Stakeholder goal

24. Measures of What do they
success want to see
(Goals) happen?
Discovery How will you
find this out?
Monitoring How can you
provide this
stakeholder
with progress
feedback?
Risk What might
go wrong and
what can you
do about it?

25. Goal alignment
Stakeholder Stakeholder Project goal
goal

26. Aims Outputs
Stakeholders
Activities Outcomes
outcome 1
output … stakeholder 1
aim 1
activity 1
activity 2 output ...
aim 2 stakeholder 2
outcome 2
output ...
activity ... outcome ... stakeholder ...
aim ... output ...

27. Proposition 2
Stakeholders need help to keep
them engaged

28. Goals Engagement
Activities Stakeholders
Outputs Outcomes
•Processes • Changing people and culture
• Influencing organisational change
•Tools
• Embedding or aligning a curriculum design
approach
• Creating usable tools and resources
• Open approaches to learning and
curriculum design

29. Outcomes Stakeholders Embedding activity
1. short name activity 1
Describe stakeholder 1
outcome
activity 2
stakeholder 2 activity 3
outcome 2
activity ...
outcome ...
stakeholder ...
activity ...

30. Baselining
• Documents
• Interviews
• Questionnaires
• Auto recordings: blogs, wordle tags, video booths
• Focus groups
• Concept maps
• Rich pictures

31. Weekly Wordle

33. Alternatives
Where are we now? Risk
Mistrust
Skills
Infrastructure
Costs
Individualism

34. Review
• Culture change is a prerequisite for
embedded institutional scale change
• Culture change is about engaging key
stakeholders
• Genuine engagement is a participatory
process
• Outcomes may not be what you expected
• Activities to produce outputs may not be the
same as activities for embedding

35. Review
1. Sustainability =
critical mass of happy stakeholders
2. Sustainability strategy =
Embedding activities that ensure critical
mass of stakeholders are happy

36. http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/curriculum
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/chan
ge-management
sbrown@dmu.ac.uk

37. Soft Systems Methodology

38. Change roles
• Sponsor
• Manager
• Agent
• Champion