Get everyone on board with a solid governance structure

So far we’ve looked at the people you need for your project, and how to get started with a capability model. This month, we’ll examine how project governance brings these elements together to support user adoption.

It is received wisdom that people are resistant to change. I’ve always struggled to buy into that. Afterall, if we were so resistant to change, would fast fashion or the routine upgrade of phones, laptops, televisions etc. be so prevalent?

People are happy to change when they’re in control of that change. And that’s why there’s so strong a link between a transformation project’s governance and a successful change management approach.  This is especially true at a university, where many staff members have significant autonomy. 

Project governance provides a framework to formalize project activities: who is responsible for them, how input is gathered, and how decisions are agreed. It is fundamental to how well changes are embraced by the broader university community. 

There’s no single ‘right' model for governance as each institution has its own unique culture that influences the structure. However, there are key principals that should underpin the process: 

Decisions need to be made at the right level

The strategic vision for change should be set by the senior leadership team, but the details of the changes should be agreed at a lower level whenever possible—as long as they support the strategy. 

Clearly document your decision hierarchy

Establish and document clear terms of reference for the teams and the overall decision making hierarchy. This clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the various elements of the decision process, and where it’s appropriate to try and influence the process.

Let the users decide

The number of approval levels will vary based on university culture and program complexity, but keep decision making as far down the chain as possible and align it to your capability model. This approach empowers your staff, results in more pragmatic decisions, and supports user adoption. 

Establish your governance structure early

This should be one of the first things you do and will ideally be in place well before even procurement activity starts. This allows teams to form and the cadence of meetings and decisions to bed in before the program kicks off. It also removes some of the challenges during implementation initiation, as teams have already established themselves. 

Harness your capability model

This is where your hard work building your capability model starts to pay off. Use it to organize your user groups around the key elements scoped in your model—Admissions, Staff Recruitment, Payroll, Payables, etc. Keep groups to a manageable size of 6 - 12 and select staff from across your faculties and admin units. This gives you diversity in perspectives and helps break down organizational barriers.

Fill the groups with influencers

The staff in these groups will ideally also be influencers within the organization. These are the vital process champions we talk about in Part 2. Their role is to represent the entire unit—academic or administrative—from which they’re selected. They’ll support data and requirements gathering and feed progress and decisions back to the business. As such, they’re key to the user adoption process, as well as decision makers.

Long term commitment is key

Make sure the staff selected have time to fully participate and can commit long term. Although initial involvement relates to a specific project, they’re best placed to support the continuous improvement activities required by cloud applications. The core project team will vary over time according to the skills needed at each stage, so these decision groups will provide continuity of vision. They’re also a vital collaboration conduit between the project team and the broader business.

Now, if we apply this as a straw man, what does it look like? 

At a basic level it looks like this:

While this varies based on the size and complexity of the organization, as you see, a lot of people are consulted to develop and improve processes. Even more if you include all the UCISA capabilities.

Involving this broad range of stakeholders supports the decentralized decision-making and distributed authority models often present in Higher Education. Perhaps more importantly, by involving diverse  perspectives supports change management and softens resistance to change.

Engaging actual users in the process minimizes the risk of missed requirements and ensures concerns are heard and addressed. It empowers your staff and gives them a sense of control of the change, rather than feeling like this is something being done to them. This sense of ownership supports user adoption and opens minds to the new ways of working. 

This approach also begins to lay the groundwork for a culture of continuous improvement. The ongoing enhancement of cloud environments means frequent changes to the system, and these are much more powerful if they’re aligned to what your organization and students need.

Establishing your governance model is the final building block in your project’s foundations. In the next blog, I look at planning your project.

If you’d like more information on how to establish a governance model that supports user adoption and continuous improvement, please reach out.