Meet the IRP Student Team – Transformation & Change Management

Meet the IRP Student Team – Transformation & Change Management

January 28, 2022

The Integrated Renewal Program – Student (IRP Student) refers to the renewal of the UBC Student Information System (SIS) that the University is undertaking. The renewed system will support UBC students in achieving their academic goals and create a better experience for all users through a new set of tools and new ways of working. 

IRP Student has eight core teams – Student Solution, Ecosystem Delivery, Transformation & Change Management, Security, Access, Data and Reporting, Technical Delivery, Solution Architecture, Quality Assurance, and Program Management Office. This series aims to explain each team, their objectives, and their role within the IRP Student program in terms you, our UBC community, will understand. 

The Transformation and Change Management (TCM) team’s ultimate objective is to guide UBC’s transition to a new student information ecosystem by providing students, staff, and faculty the required information, training, tools, and support. Engaging with the UBC community throughout the development of the new student information ecosystem will help the community adapt to the change. 

Avenues for communication between IRP Student and the broader UBC community are a priority for TCM. We are dedicated to engaging frequently, address concerns, and giving our community opportunities for feedback during this process.

- Jodie Thom, Director - TCM

The TCM team utilizes numerous strategies to prepare University leaders to promote, support, and drive change at unit, faculty, and university-wide levels, while also supporting students, faculty, and staff in their ability to work successfully with the new student information ecosystem. These strategies are identified below:

  • Leadership & Sponsorship – Organizing and leveraging sponsors and leaders, to promote, support, and drive the transformation to the new student ecosystem, actively and visibly. 
  • Engagement & Communication – Identifying, engaging, and communicating with students, faculty, and staff in a purposeful way to build awareness, and provide opportunities for feedback, contributing to a successful transition to the new system.
  • Transformation & Transition – Working in collaboration with the community and supporting academic transformation, to enable new processes, policies, and technical solutions emerging through the program.
  • Training & Knowledge Transfer – Building knowledge and developing skills and competencies to ensure students, faculty, and staff have the necessary capabilities, knowledge, and tools to successfully employ the functions of the renewed student ecosystem.
  • Adoption & Sustainment – Defining the approach to foster ongoing ownership, adoption, and continuous improvement of program outcomes.

 

Preparing for the change

The ways in which UBC users will be affected by the change to a new student information ecosystem can be summarized into four categories:

  • Processes – This change will, for the most part, transition UBC from paper-based/manual processes to more user-friendly, streamlined, and automatic processes.
  • Systems/technology – Currently there are many individual systems being used, whereas IRP Student will reduce and streamline these systems.
  • Job roles – Users of the new system may require new skills to perform duties in Workday Student that were not previously required. Training is therefore in scope for IRP Student.
  • Cultural, Behavioral Changes & Attitudes – Users will be required to learn Workday Student language and adapt to a new schedule to update the system - every 6 months - to allow for continuous improvements and enhanced functionality.

Thom emphasizes, “we are committed to ensuring the UBC community feels involved, supported, and ready for this change. We want the new system to meet UBC’s needs and will provide as many opportunities as possible for community members to be involved in the design of our future solution. We will support the transformation at the unit level and, through training and knowledge transfer, ensure the community is ready to shift to the new solution when it comes online.” 

For more information about IRP Student teams, read the other entries in this content series on the IRP Student website. 

*Reflecting on our experience so far in working with Workday and seeing how our design is shaping up, we realize that we have to embrace change and be confident in our ability to adapt. Workday Student, along with IRP Student’s functional requirements, are evolving quickly and this could mean that we may have to adapt our approach throughout the project timeline.