Enabling Change SIG Newsletter, June 2018

Newsletter contents

Welcome from our (acting) Chair
Innovative Quality Solutions – Digital Transformation in Higher Education, 10 September 2018 (webinar)
Upcoming elections, communications and Practitioner Groups
Past event: Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service - A journey of change, 6 February 2018 (webinar)
Past event: Inspiring positive change in complex and uncertain times, our annual conference, 22 March 2018, London
Past event: PMOs and organisational change, 23 May 2018, London
Public Services Change Practitioner Group
Methods and Standards Theme

1. Welcome from our (acting) Chair

It’s been a busy few months for the Enabling Change SIG, as we’ve gone through a few changes of our own at the same time as hosting a number of events to further our mission to improve the change capability of organisations, teams and individuals. Nearly five years after initiating the proposal to create the SIG, Martin Taylor has decided to step down as Chair and I have “picked up the reins” for an interim period until the imminent elections. Since our last newsletter I’m delighted to say that Hamza Jamil has taken on the membership, communications and events theme on our committee, and Andy Stiles from Network Rail has picked up the Transport Practitioner Group as I move on from my role at Transport for London. I’m also excited to say that Michelle DeBrett-Watson has joined our committee as the new lead for the Utilities Practitioner Group, whilst we held the inaugural meeting of our Manufacturing Practitioner Group in early May. Parag Gogate has moved on from his role leading our innovation theme, but remains a volunteer with our SIG.

So with all the activities and events you can read about below, I think it’s very much a case of “making change whilst continuing business as usual,” something many organisations are increasingly having to do. New faces bring energy and ideas, and we’d certainly welcome more to join us for the next committee year. So if you’re interested in getting involved please do consider nominating yourself for the committee elections (details below) or as a volunteer or Practitioner Group member – we’re looking into hosting more of our meetings “virtually” next year so geography needn’t be a barrier! If you’d like to find out more or have any ideas or suggestions please feel free to get in touch.

Simon Williams

2. Innovative Quality Solutions – Digital transformation in Higher Education webinar, 10 September 2018

Digital transformation is impacting businesses and institutions across all industries. While we hear a lot about how technological innovations, such as the internet of things, big data, blockchain and other digital technologies are reshaping business models and creating new opportunities, we hear remarkably little about what this means for leaders and leadership. One sector that is going through significant change is the Higher Education (HE) sector, which contains the institutions that develop our next generation of leaders. Digital transformation in UK HE institutions is paramount for enhancing the student, staff and academic customer experience.

Leading people and organisations through this profound process of digital transformation is a new and a significant leadership challenge. In this talk, Kuldip Sandhu and Paul Featherstone will discuss the challenge of leading digital transformation in HE, and what new skills and knowledge leaders need to thrive in this challenging new environment. They will both look at the trends in HE and IT and the key facets that are required for the CIO to lead this change, and how an agile data-driven approach enables the iterative achievement of business outcomes.

3. Upcoming elections, communications and Practitioner Groups

We are now at 682 followers and growing. If you would like to join the committee, you need to nominate yourself before 23:59 on Wednesday 4 July 2018. You can find further information about the process on the nomination page. We have pencilled in Tuesday 24 July 2018 for the first in-person meeting for newly elected members to meet those staying, and indeed those leaving the committee.

APM members and others are welcome to interact with us and we encourage you to follow us on Twitter, @apmecsig, where we post: upcoming events of interest to the group, share related material and much more. We are also available via email.

Our practitioner groups continue to be a great success with our members, with a passion to collaborate and cascade on new and innovative ways in the art of enabling change. Recently we have jointly hosted an event with the PMO SIG (more on this below), and are working with colleagues from the Assurance SIG to consider the case for a variation in assurance practices depending on the type of change. If you would like to get involved or know more about the groups please email us.

4. Past event: Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service - A journey of change webinar, 6 February 2018

Rebecca (Becci) Bryant, Chief Fire Officer/Chief Executive with Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, presented a webinar on how they transformed their service over the last seven years in lieu of not only the changing landscape but the reduction in centrally provided government grants.

Becci highlighted during her presentation that despite a 55% reduction in the central grant, the service saw a 35% reduction in calls and a 50% reduction in the number of people losing their life, or being seriously injured in an accidental dwelling fire. The write up page for the webinar has embedded resources.

5. Past event: Inspiring positive change in complex and uncertain times, our annual conference, 22 March 2018, London

Our annual whole day conference held at the Holiday Inn was well attended and was opened by the chair of the APM John McGlynn. John used our secondary theme VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) as a frame to describe the organisation’s clear strategy moving forward, and asked us to consider the opportunities that such an environment brings as well as the threats.

Our next speaker, Elizabeth Harrin of Otobos Consultants, spoke about three trends affecting how customers respond to change – video, artificial intelligence and customisation.
Royal Mail has been on one of the largest change journeys since its conception, and we had John Mackie and Chris Bennett present their case study on how they delivered a major IT service transformation and homing in on the importance of stakeholder management.

Patrick Hoverstadt from Fractal Consulting, referring to VUCA spoke on how different system approaches might be used to help deal with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity inherent in contemporary projects. His observations from the project management space were compelling, leaving us to ponder over his view that projects are all about change, while project management appears to be about stopping changes to requirements.

Reminding us of some classic change management techniques, including the McKinsey ‘7 S’ model, Nicola Busby brought some activity to the event. The attendees had been seated on tables of about five, which leant itself well for an effective working number of groups. This was followed by Lee Sankey and Rebecca Kemp, who used a case study on the design of an early router to highlight their theme: creating change through design.

Simon Williams our very own SIG committee member and acting Chair rounded out the day sharing the experience of the SIG’s Transport, Public Services and Utilities industry Change Practitioner Groups to introduce an interactive session on “Achieving Positive Change in Constrained and Regulated Environments.”
An attendee has written a blog of this conference.

6. Past event: PMOs and organisational change, 23 May 2018, London

The APM Enabling Change and PMO SIGs partnered together for a fully booked afternoon event, to address the subject of PMOs driving change and how it can impact those involved in the change themselves.

The first speaker Mark Reeson gave a fascinating and detailed briefing on the change programme, and the new PMO and project delivery approach that he has been implementing over the past two years in Saudi Arabia. This was followed by Martin Butcher, who looked into the key success factors behind change and the roles that people have within the communication of these factors. He noted some of the key areas where PMOs can add particular value, for example in conducting timely and focused gate reviews.

After a short break, Matthew Hill delivered an emotional presentation around how change had impacted Higher Education, and he added his personal touch of how the change had altered his life through being so successful.

The last of the speakers was Simon Williams, with a talk on the way that change of an organisation can impact a change programme as they are delivered in parallel. Using a case study from Transport for London, he covered a number of recommendations including areas such as change capacity, leadership and engagement.

To close the event, Mark Reeson returned to introduce the new Smart Model that he has developed over the last few years and to undertake a short workshop to teach the concept of Think SMART. He demonstrated how a business can remain sustainable even in the hardest times, and how a readiness to change keeps a business ahead of its competition. A write up page for the has been published.

7. Public Services Change Practitioner Group

Hot on the heels of Becci Bryant’s successful webinar of a journey of change in February (see section 4 above), the Public Services Change Practitioner Group relaunched and has welcomed some new members. At our March meeting the group identified three objectives for 2018/19:

Act as a ‘practitioner advisors’ to the Change Leadership strand in APM’s research project.
Investigate different approaches to public sector organisational restructuring and identify learning / best practice / recommendations.
Document current approaches to Programme/ Change Management training to see how a more integrated approach could improve outcomes.

Our latest meeting on 13 June focussed on making and building stronger links between change management research and supporting best practice for change and PPM practitioners. The group is seeking more members so if you are interested in joining do get in touch!

8. Methods & Standards Theme

APM Enabling Change SIG Change Methodologies Survey
In April we launched a short survey aimed at change practitioners to gain an insight on how change methodologies are used, and to see what tools would be useful to members in the future.

Thank you everyone who completed the survey. The results are in and currently being reviewed. This will be used to produce an assessment of the change methodologies currently in place, as well as providing the SIG with an insight in to further areas of focus for the rest of the year and going forwards that will aid its members.