Change Blueprint

Change Framework & ToolkitsShared change purpose2. Define Change Governance

2. Define change governance

‌What is it?

This process involves thinking through the roles and responsibilities for the change initiative and putting in place the right people and reporting lines to existing or new steering groups to most effectively facilitate the successful implementation of the change. It is important to identify the sponsor, change leaders, board members (representing key stakeholder groups) and change team.

Why do it?

This process:

  • Enables clear and accountable decision-making
  • Supports decisive change leadership
  • Build a common understanding of the path to implement change
  • Provide a mechanism to escalate risks and issues

When to do it?

We need to define the governance as early as possible to establish the decision-making authority – failure to do so can cause confusion

Inputs

Stakeholder Analysis

Outputs

Change Governance Structure

How to do it?

2.1 Understand existing governance structures

For Transformative change initiatives, the change governance will come under the remit of the Strategic Delivery Group, so you should consult with the SDU.  For operational and transactional changes, consider what governance structures exist within the relevant College or Department and explore how these could be utilised to oversee the change initiative.

Identify a sponsor for the initiative.  This is a key role in change and provides the ultimate credibility and authority for the changes that will be made.  They will need to:
  • Participate visibly throughout the project – the sustained presence of an actively engagement sponsor is necessary to build and maintain momentum for change
  • Communicate, support and promote the change – employees impacted by the change what to hear why a change is important from a leader at the top of the organisation, focusing on the reasons for change and the risks or costs of not changing.  An effective sponsor legitimises the need for change and sets the prioritisation of change through direct engagement with impacted stakeholders
  • Build a coalition of sponsorship – the sponsor must mobilise other key leaders and stakeholders so that they can advocate for the change and legitimise it in their part of the organisation.  A strong coalition of sponsorship is particularly important for changes that stretch across multiple departments or colleges
The sponsor is accountable for the outcome of the change initiative and for realising the benefits.

2.2 Define change team and change governance arrangements

Once the sponsor is on board, you need to identify the people that will help to deliver and sustain the change required.  These key roles include:

Sustaining Sponsors – senior representatives of impacted or affected areas of the University.  These people will form the steering group for the change initiative

Change Leaders – the managers of the impacted staff. They are ideally positioned to coach and influence employees through their individual change process.  There are five roles that managers and supervisors must play in times of change:

  • Communicator: Staff prefer to hear messages about how the change directly impacts them from the person they report to
  • Advocate: Demonstrate support for the change – if the manager opposes the change, chances are their team will too – and usually the opposite is also true.
  • Coach: Helping employees through their own personal transitions is the essence of change coaching by middle managers
  • Liaison: Interacting with the change team, taking direction and providing feedback (in large change initiatives managed by the SDU)
  • Resistance manager: Research shows that the best interventions to mitigate resistance come from the employee’s line manager.

Change Agents – these are influential members of staff (with formal or informal influence) from within the impacted teams or in stakeholder or ‘customer’ teams that can help to explain and champion the change.  These change agents will form the Change Network.  Work to identify and support change agents and the change network are detailed in the ‘ Smart Engagement and Communications’ theme.

Once the key roles have been identified you should consider the guiding principles or ways of working for the change governance.  This will include:

  • Meeting structure / frequency
  • Agenda and minutes
  • Decision-making authority
  • Communication
  • Interaction and reporting to other University boards and groups
The  RACI Matrix provide information about roles & responsibilities

2.3 Define change network

This step will be informed by the work to create the  9. Stakeholder Analysis Stakeholder AnalysisStakeholder AnalysisStakeholder Analysis and will feed into the work to Build the Change Network.

Use the Stakeholder Analysis to understand the different stakeholder groups involved in or impacted by the change initiative.  Also, consider the Culture Change Asessment created in the ‘ Supportive Organisation and Culture’ theme to see where commitment is crucial to the adoption of new ways of working.


Identify potential change agents who can help spread the message about the desired future state and new ways of working and organise a workshop to engage this group with the change vision and roadmap.

Characteristics of Effective change Agents:

  • Change Agents need the ability to build trusting relationships with stakeholders, demonstrate empathy and have the ability to influence others. 
  • They must have the confidence and respect of their colleagues – this is known as ‘followship’.  This needs to be coupled with an excellent understanding of the business area they represent and an ability to make sense of the change from their stakeholders’ viewpoint. 
  • They must also be committed to making the change happen and have a belief that the change is beneficial and will create improvements.

  Illustration depicting the four stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, and action.

The benefits of an effective change network are:

  • To ensure awareness and understanding of the changes by the end user so that the end users gradually become owners of the changes
  • Increasing the acceptance of change and reducing resistance by representing the end user’s perspective in the change effort
  • Enabling a faster, better and smarter implementation of the changes through close relationships between the Change Leadership, Sponsors and impacted stakeholders

Identify what support the change network needs to fully engage with the initiative.  This might include:

  • Training and knowledge developed specifically for the change agents
  • A review of the change governance to ensure the change network’s voice is heard
  • Lines of communication to ensure the change agents get early sight of documents and deliverables and that there is an effective two-way feedback loop in place

This work will contribute to the Build Change Network process.

Once the change governance and change network have been identified and documented they should be signed-off by the Sponsor.

The roles, responsibilities and guiding principles of the Sponsor, steering group and change network should be documented in the Change Governance Structure.