The Student Journey – Leading People through Change (April & June)

It was a welcome return to Bournemouth University to see how things had moved on with their Student Journey project since the early days ChangeWise was involved. We remember when a ‘classic’ IT project proposal crossed our desks focused on replacing the Student Record System because the current system was reaching the end of its service support life.

A typical IT-focussed not business-focussed project.

We realised there would be a missed opportunity if the project went forward based on IT requirements only. If we reviewed all of the student administration processes first and looked for opportunities to streamline them (they had previously been built around the IT system and matched the flow of the system not the student), then understood our customer journey we could not only achieve a lower cost service provision, but enhance it through Service Excellence by maximising the student touch-points (called moments of truth) to give a better student experience.

After many facilitated ‘End-to-end Process Review Workshops’ with brown paper and Post-It notes followed-up by facilitated stakeholder sessions a wide number of staff had been engaged, involved and pleased to be integral to the design of the future Student Journey through the university. The eventual IT procurement specification became much more advanced and tailored to the University’s needs specifying a unique, tailored record system and a Customer Relationship Management system in parallel all integrated with process changes and operating model restructure to be based on service provision.

ChangeWise were pleased to be welcomed back to deliver several one-day personal development workshops in April and June on ‘Leading People Through Change’ to help the Directors of Operations of each School, the Head of functions in the Professional Services and the Assistant Admin Managers understand change and how to support and provide guidance to their staff throughout the transition to the new service-led operating model.

We covered the drivers for change, how to change culture, Kotter’s 8-step change process, the impact of change on their staff, the emotional and rational responses people have to change, the factors that lie behind resistance to change and how to gain staff engagement, support and buy-in so that any transition can be successfully embedded so that it becomes the new ‘way we do things round here’.

If you are interested in using this course as an integral part of your transition journey or running bespoke end-to-end process review workshops then please contact Mike Williams on 02380 464 153 or 07866 537 580. Alternatively see our website and blog for more information and case studies.