University Transformation Roundtable

Coherent transformation in universities – without the big bang

EVENT OVERVIEW

AGENDA

MEET THE HOSTS

ABOUT US

Hamish leads Nous’ education and skills practice. He brings deep experience including working with TAFEs, governments and other institutions to deliver high quality tertiary education that meets community needs under a variety of settings and locations. Hamish is also experienced in business strategy from development through to implementation.

David is Nous’ Chief Data Scientist and is a leader in public sector analytics. David specialises in data and analytics that sit at the intersection of the tertiary education sector and the labour market.

For any questions about this event please contact our event producer:

Anna Gould e: anna.gould@nousgroup.com

ABOUT US

Nous Group is an international management consultancy with over 700 people working across the United Kingdom Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Canada. By partnering with clients and complementing their strengths, Nous helps businesses, governments and communities transform to realise a bigger idea of success. Founded in Australia, Nous has been delivering positive influence that significantly improves people’s lives since 1999.

The challenge of delivering transformation in an organisation under pressure. The roles leaders from different parts of the university play to build a coherent approach. The case for building momentum through incremental shifts rather than a single ‘big bang’.

Jessica is a strategy and transformation consultant with more than 10 years of experience partnering with UK and international universities, governments and not-for-profit organisations. She has managed and delivered strategic and digital transformations and organisational model redesigns. She has also supported institutions to rethink their future ways of working. Jessica combines her very collaborative style with strong project management skills to support organisations to improve performance and achieve long-lasting change.

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Director, Nous Group

Jessica Weereratne

Simon is an experienced project director with expertise in strategy development and implementation, business planning, stakeholder engagement, organisational design, public policy and higher education. Simon is also a highly skilled facilitator with a track record of leading significant (and sometimes sensitive) meetings and workshops with senior participants, in diverse formats, and ensuring effective outcomes are delivered.

Principal, Nous Group

Simon Lancaster

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UK universities know they need to change but achieving change that truly shifts the dial amid financial and institutional constraints is very challenging. Universities are complex beasts. They can struggle with internal alignment and focus, frequently facing entrenched ways of working and real resistance to change. In this university transformation roundtable, we will bring together university leaders in people and technology to explore the merits and pitfalls of a Big Bang Transformation – and how smaller, incremental changes under a coherent (but implicit) framework can be a viable alternative. We’ll also look at why coherence can be so difficult to achieve, and how to create and deepen the partnerships across leadership teams that universities need to set a clear and consistent direction for the transformation.

Meet guest speakers

Meet the panellists

Event overview

Click here to view summary of key themes from this event

DATE: Thursday 20 April 2023 TIME: 1:00pm -3:00pm (Refreshments and lunch provided) VENUE: Great Northern Hotel, King’s Cross St Pancras International Station | Pancras Road | London | N1C 4TB

Agenda

This intimate roundtable with a select group of university leaders will consider:

Kirsty joined Heriot-Watt University in 2021, following seven years at The University of Glasgow, where she was Deputy Director, Planning and Performance. A higher education professional, with extensive experience of policy and strategy, and expert knowledge of key processes and data provisions, Kirsty led three Nous benchmarking exercises during her time at Glasgow.

Dr Sherwood is an obstetrician and gynaecologist with an interest in Clinical Governance, particularly with respect to surgical practice. He researched and published on the Ageing Surgeon during Sabbatical Leave in 2018. A former President of RANZCOG, he is currently the Acting Clinical Services Director at Western Health, Melbourne.

Peter has extensive leadership and consulting experience across the public, private and voluntary sectors at executive and board level. He brings a breadth of perspective, challenge and insight that he deploys effectively in consulting assignments.

Sheryl has been a midwife for over 30 years. She has worked in a variety of settings from birth centre, delivery suite, to homebirth – from private to public. She has supported over 2000 families. She teaches midwifery at university. She has an upbeat, fun way of working with families and is passionate about helping to instil the confidence you will need to navigate the system.

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Principal, Nous Group

Simon Lancaster

Phil leads Cubane’s UniForum benchmarking programme in the UK and Europe. He brings 18 years of experience in business change consulting, strategic advice and research management; including deep expertise in supporting universities’ large-scale transformation and service improvement. Phil specialises in strategy development and execution, preparing robust business cases to aid good decision-making, and designing new customer-centred service delivery models.

Managing Director UK & Europe, Cubane

Phil Copestake

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meet your hosts

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Managing Director UK & Europe, Cubane

Phil Copestake

meet your hosts

Coherent transformation in universities – without the big bang | Summary of key themes

TOPIC 1 The case for building momentum through incremental shifts rather than a single 'big bang'

TOPIC 2 The roles leaders from different parts of the university play to build a coherent approach

TOPIC 3 The challenge of delivering transformation in an organisation under pressure

TOPIC 1

TOPIC 2

TOPIC 3

The case for building momentum through incremental shifts rather than a single ‘big bang’ THE CHALLENGES OF THE EXTREMES Setting up a transformation with a ‘big bang’, ‘catchy name’ type approach can be appealing, where continuous improvement or targeted projects are not seen as enough. However, there is a real risk of setting the antibodies off within the organisation and generating resistance – particularly if there is no perceived significant burning platform. In contrast, taking an approach that is too incremental and subtle can mean that not enough momentum is generated – and successes aren’t necessarily recognised. APPROACHES THAT CAN HELP Framing the change around ‘renewal’ or ‘resetting’ rather than ‘transformation’ can help bring everyone along. Don’t underestimate the amount of planning and stakeholder engagement required (e.g. with boards, councils, committees etc) to ensure that the change remains on track and senior leaders feel supported. Spend lots of time upfront scoping and planning the solution – but once the new operating model/structure is agreed, move quickly. For large (and potentially sensitive) programmes of work, establishing a dedicated team is key as it allows a quick and coordinated response. It also creates a good culture of working as part of a team to drive forward the change. Leadership being bought in is key, and in particular, the role the VC (COO, DVC) can provide in giving direction. Need to build the skills and capabilities of leadership to address concerns of ‘naivety’ when it comes to appreciating the scale of the change and effort required being under-scoped.

TOPIC 1

TOPIC 2

The roles leaders from different parts of the university play to build a coherent approach CHALLENGES THAT ARISE Creating a separate new team to design and implement can create challenges as the BAU teams may be resistant. Need to support staff to think from the point of view of ‘the subjects of the change’ rather than just ‘stakeholders’ (i.e., an individual or a team might be a ‘pinch point’, with multiple change initiatives landing on them at once). Leadership might buy into the high level ‘Why’, but if they don’t do the prioritisation work, then can end up with professional services prioritising from a bottom up point of view, without the bigger context. Transformation can risk playing into an ‘us and them’, ‘Centre vs Colleges’ vibe. There is a risk of not really accounting for value stream across multiple functions – which leads to just pushing problems along the chain. HE institutions often don’t have a business plan which means they haven’t gone through the process of making the hard choices between what ‘loss making’ activities they are comfortable doing, rather they just do all, which places increasing pressure on the whole institution. Can be difficult to achieve reform when resources are spread across the university: example of a new system that should have reduced 10 FTE to 2, but those 10 FTE were scattered across different areas, with no mechanism to realise the savings. WHAT NEEDS TO BE IN PLACE TO SUCCESSFULLY DELIVER CHANGE Establish agreement on the starting point and what is being achieved as a whole, not just in individual areas. Develop a shared understanding of the institution’s readiness. Get the foundatioSummary of key nal pieces right (e.g. the processes, ways of working and systems). Need to get the levels below Exec aligned. Consider using a specific initiative (e.g. student services centre) as a ‘trojan horse’ to implement new changes, and new ways to design the solution. Need to focus on ‘Capacity, Co-creation and Continuity’. For many universities, the pandemic got all the Executive working together – need to continue drawing on this if possible.

TOPIC 3

The challenge of delivering transformation in an organisation under pressure CHALLENGES, EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED Senior teams can be looking for one golden solution, rather than accepting the more mundane reality that there are 200 hard processes to fix. There can be an expectation among senior leaders that will reach some sort of utopian end point and then everything will just continue on successfully by itself – there is a failure to realise that change will be ongoing. There is a desire by Exec teams to do more and more, but with the same resources. Universities won’t get the benefits until they buy into the discipline, e.g., single data source. Not enough work is done up front to redesign processes and ways of working, before going out to procure a new system. Shouldn’t reduce head count (in anticipation of savings from new system), before fixing processes and systems. Some universities look like they have lots of staff, but problems with system implementation mean that it takes team a lot longer to do tasks. One university used student centre staff to tell us student needs and gave us their point of view – when should have done actual student research and journey mapping. Universities changed/pivoted quickly in response to COVID, rapidly shifting the delivery of education, learning, research and services online. However, as the dust settles cracks are appearing across these areas. There is an opportunity and a need to review and redesign how education and learning, research and services are delivered in a blended environment, that gets the most out of both of these worlds. IDEAS THAT CAN HELP One university set up a Digital Transformation Team of three – also known as the ‘Anti Drudgery Team’ – where anyone can put forward a process for reform, taking an iterative approach rather than a Big Bang, which has showed real momentum, releasing capacity. There’s no right or wrong answer but it comes down to getting the right people in the right room to solve the problem. Need to see the technology (e.g., ERP and other systems) as an enabler only, whereas Digital (eg, learning analytics, student engagement), is where the competitive advantage lies. Adopting a product-based operating model (derived from Agile) can help. Can universities come together to deliver at scale? Need to create a culture that welcomes and accepts change.

For any questions about this event please contact our event producer:

Anna Gould e: anna.gould@nousgroup.com

ABOUT US

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For any questions about this event please contact our event producer:

Anna Gould e: anna.gould@nousgroup.com

ABOUT US