Dripping Tap

Over the last two years(!) we have been constantly sending out messages at all levels of the university, regarding managing:

• our projects using a Change Management Office Approach (i.e. P3M3)
• our information

Methods we have used included:

• One to one meetings- with a focus on faculty/service needs
  
  • with senior staff
  • with project managers
• raised at committee meetings
  
  • informally with a focus on issues raised in committees
  • presentations raising issues that have been raised during one to one meetings and how they link to points above
• Summary documents and articles

After hitting a number of issues with getting these messages across including:

• Loss of executive staff
• Loss of engagement when making presentations
  • Using wrong language
  • Not using relevant examples
  • no real examples of what success looks like
• Starting new initiatives without full stakeholder engagement
• Limited communication by projects outside of committees
  

We have now found that the message has sunk in at all levels, so would like to say to all our colleagues trying this to hang in there! We now get to hear the same message being said back to us during committees, and have got the new senior executive sponsor fully engaged with the project. After a few false starts initiatives are starting to be run with stakeholder engagement, communication across the university is growing (including the development of an online change service - more on that later). We are starting to look at projects from a central perspective and understanding that changes to one area of business impacts can impact other areas. So it's all good here at Enable.