Change Management Workshop (Mind-set and Process Improvement)

On 27 March 2023, twenty-one colleagues from 14 Schools and Offices (DBM, IPO, FO, ARO, HRO, FYTGS...) attended the Change Management Workshop (Mind-set and Process Improvement) in our IAS building.    The workshop was facilitated by an external consultant with extensive consulting and training experience in this area. 

Before the workshop started, the Associate Directors from HSEO and FO, Ms Christine Chiu and Mr. Raymond Wong, shared with the attendees the reasons why changes were an important part to the success of the digital transformation journey, and changes also actually happened in our personal daily life.

The attendees then participated a few ice-breaking games.  These games helped the attendees communicate and understand others better as they came from different Schools and Offices.  In addition, games were a good way to illustrate teaching concepts and they were intrinsically motivating.

Subsequently, the attendees were split into 4 separate teams.   They raised the following as their ‘process improvement’ topics/projects for discussion purposes. The four topics were:  

1. Budget Approval and Payment Process (how to ensure data correctness and avoid subsequent amendment)
2. Appraisal Calibration (back-and-forth process involving many parties and taking long time to complete)
3. Graduation Event (how to avoid confusion with the arrangement of seats for parents and their family members to attend)
4. Recruitment Process (compliance issue related to conflict of interest). 

Throughout the workshop, the external consultant provided guidance and methodology for the attendees to define, analyse, and improve business processes by detecting and eliminating errors and bottlenecks in their processes.

Now, we may ask the question ‘Why is process improvement important?’

Processes are the foundation on which our University runs our operations. They define how specific tasks should be completed and identify how to respond to internal and external factors caused by changing business trends and policies.  Process improvement is important because it helps us identify and address challenges in certain processes and controls that could hinder our digital transformation goals, productivity improvement and improvement in controls and user experience.      

After the workshop, we tried to obtain the feedback from a few attendees who attended the workshop.  They all provided positive feedback about the workshop.  

Dr. Karman Leung, Head (Intellectual Property Management), said that the workshop was very useful to refresh her skillset and tools to prepare for the Intellectual Property Management system project; a project which her team had already started reviewing the existing process flows and preparing for the 'future to be' processes.  Ms Samantha Leung, Head (Undergraduate Admissions), said that this workshop was very helpful for the team to learn the process of change management.  The consultant had used different examples for illustration to explain the concepts and she would recommend this workshop to colleagues if it could be held in future.  Mr. Michael Chan, Senior Manager from FO, said that the workshop was helpful by explaining the different phases of process improvement framework with tips for process redesign. From his perspective, the challenging part was how to design and facilitate changes to existing processes.

If you or your office is interested in understanding more about this workshop, please contact issupprt@ust.hk.