Building change capability

Jess Annison and Jan Jayes

July 2015

Agenda for this session

1) Introduction to the Open University, and why we need to continue to

build our change capability

2) What we’re doing, and how we’re doing it:

● Introduction to the Portfolio Office

● Our key focus areas

3) Challenges and opportunities: now and in the future

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Introduction to us!

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Jan Jayes

Portfolio Support Manager

Jess Annison

Head of Portfolio Office

The Open University Providing high-quality distance learning for all

Open to people, places, methods and ideas

“What other nation in the world could have given us William Shakespeare, pork

pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, The Open University, Gardeners’

Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit?”

Bill Bryson, author and honorary graduate of the OU

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Taught more than 1.8

million students. Almost

200,000 current students,

including more than 15,000

overseas.

72% of The Open

University’s research was

assessed as 4 or 3 star

(2014 REF)

Over 70% of students are

in full-time or part-time

employment

Four out of five FTSE

100 companies have

sponsored staff to

take OU courses.

Top ten of UK universities for

student satisfaction in the

National Student Survey, since the

survey began in 2005. 91% in

2013/14

Vast ‘open content portfolio’

includes over 800 free courses on

OpenLearn (4.5m visitors a year).

Plus Futurelearn: a private

company wholly owned by The OU

Life-changing learning What are you capable of?

Link to OU video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktAnpf_nu5c&feature=player_profilepage

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Why do we need to build our change capability?

Like the rest of the HE sector, we’ve been going through a period of significant

change:

• Reduction in Government funding

• Introduction and rise in tuition fees

• Students demanding greater value

• Emergence of MOOCs

For the Open University in particular:

• Qualifications, as well as modules

• 37% decline in UK part-time students over last five years (sector-wide)

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The changing HE landscape

Why do we need to build our change capability?

The OU has a proud tradition of innovation and pushing boundaries in distance and

technology-enabled learning.

But we mustn’t be complacent:

• We’re a large, complex organisation; there’s a huge amount of change going on:

• Incremental improvements

• Organisational change

• Strategic change

• Disruptive change

• We’re not always confident that we manage change as well as we should.

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Internal factors

What are we doing about it?

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The Portfolio Office is helping to build change management capability

• Change is being led by units across the University.

• Our team – the Portfolio Office – reports into the Director of Strategy, and the Vice-

Chancellor.

• We aim to help the OU become:

Effective

processes

Enabling

systems

An

organisation that is

comfortable with

change and confident

in managing it

through…

Capable and

collaborative people

• We’re a small team,

established in 2012

• Our responsibility is to put the

building blocks in place, and

help people to use them.

Capable and collaborative people Project professionals, and those delivering projects as a secondary skill

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• Project management competency

framework

• Reflection tools

• Standard change job descriptions

• Interview support tools

• Project management learning and

development pathway:

• External accredited training

(APM qualifications)

• In-house training

• Desk-based learning

• Mentoring and coaching

• Support individuals and line

managers: objective setting,

appraisals, development

planning

• Support recruitment, and

retention of great staff

• Improve our project capability

• Greater consistency and quality

• Greater transferability within the

OU

in order to...

Change community: shared knowledge, experiences and opportunities

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Advice, guidance,

examples

Opportunities

within the OU

News and

updates

Online discussion

- Yammer

Annual conference

Regular workshops

Capable and collaborative people

Effective processes The OU’s methodology for managing projects

• OU Project Management Methodology –

affectionately(?!) known as OUPM

• Three models: Programme, Project and Project

Lite

• Mandated for some strategic projects; others

using it on a “pull basis”

• Current focus for improvement: benefits

realisation

• Also signposting to change

management resources and

support

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Effective processes Assurance reporting to Sponsors and Executives

• Assurance reporting to the Vice-

Chancellor’s Executive on strategically

important projects

• In future? Project healthchecks, a focussed

review of project delivery with the project

team and its stakeholders

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Enabling systems The OU’s enterprise project management tool for PMs and Sponsors

• Technology solution using Microsoft Project

Server 2013 on a SharePoint 2013 platform

• Manages project information in one place –

schedule, risk and issue logs, reporting

• Embeds OUPM – our methodology

Greater consistency

Greater transparency

Reduced duplication

Greater quality

Why use it?

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So, how are we doing? Measuring and tracking our capability to deliver change successfully

• Wide take-up of services from administrative units, and increasingly

Faculties:

• 400+ members of the Change Community

• 60+ on the learning and development pilot, from a range of units

• 100+ projects being managed through the system

• Primarily on a “pull” basis, rather than “push”

• APM have accredited the project management aspects of our work

Is it having the right effect?

• Ongoing journey

• Maturity assessment - five levels

of maturity. Current assessment:

some good practice, but not yet

consistent 14

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Some key challenges and opportunities Past and present

1. Securing buy-in to what we’re doing, and why

2. Tailoring and proportionality – not one size fits all!

3. Supporting change across a large, diverse, autonomous organisation

4. Changes in senior personnel

5. Balancing ‘top-down’ initiatives within ‘bottom-up’ (or ‘outside-in’?)

6. Not just structural / process / system change – but culture change

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Does your organisation

experience similar challenges

and opportunities

in building change capability?

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Discuss in small groups (2-3)

If so, how are you managing

them?

If not, what are the challenges in

your organisation?

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Small group discussion Groups of 2-3 people, be prepared to feed back!

4. Changes in senior personnel

5. Balancing ‘top-down’ initiatives within ‘bottom-up’ (or ‘outside-in’?)

6. Not just structural / process / system change – but culture change

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Does your organisation

experience similar

challenges and opportunities

in building change

capability?

Discuss in small groups (2-3)

If so, how are you managing

them?

If not, what are the challenges

in your organisation?

1. Securing buy-in to what we’re doing,

and why

2. Tailoring and proportionality – not

one size fits all!

3. Supporting change across a large,

diverse, autonomous organisation

Any questions or comments?

Thank you for taking part!

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