CSIF 06 Alicante sawecs'soton'ac'uk

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Critical Success Factors for Institutional Change

• Su WhiteUniversity of Southampton

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The old problem of change

• There is nothing more difficult to plan, more
  doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage
  than the creation of a new system. For the
  initiator has the enmity of all who would profit
  by the preservation of the old system, and merely
  lukewarm defenders in those who should gain by
  the new one .
• Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)

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The long march of progress
Invention-gtmainframes-gtminis-gtmicros-gtmobile

• Once upon a time someone invented computers
• There was a war on and lots happened
• After the war the military and business used
  computers
• Later academics got excited about technology
  futures

• Computers got cheaper -gt we used them more
• Some more people were excited about technology
  futures
• Other people were a bit frustrated, so we
  provided some training
• The web, simpler programmes cheaper computers
• At the end of all this we were still
  frustrated.. but if you count ..more computers,
  more programmes.

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My background

• let a thousand flowers bloom
• a campus wide structure from multimedia
  learning
• shift the culture of the university
• 42 milliona small amount of strategic money
• higher education and learning technologies an
  organisational perspective

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Attitudes to change
After Geoghegan, 1994
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Different places, different faces
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Information Sources
Six institutions
Experiences and Understandings
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Perspectives
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How do we change?

• I
• Cant
• Do
• That
• Here

• Identity Mission
• Belief Motivation
• Capability Strategy
• Behaviour Activity
• Environment Context
• after Dilts (1990)

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Flogging a dead horse

• Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover
  you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is
  to dismount.However, we often try other
  strategies with dead horses

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Thinking about change

• Organisation
• harness existing organisational objectives to
  achieve change
• Structure
• Use the organisational structure to nurture
  change
• Culture
• select changes which are compatible with the
  existing organisational culture
• Climate
• find ways to capitalise on the local climate to
  enable change?

• Think
• Vertical always come back to the whole
  institution
• Everyone is busy and has local and personal
  agendas
• Acknowledge individuals local and specialist
  perspectives and experience
• Understand the likely nature of resistance and
  use it
• Share good (and bad) practice! Make as much as
  possible visible, collaborate

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(some of the) references

• Becher, T., Trowler, P., Society for Research
  into Higher Education. Academic tribes and
  territories intellectual enquiry and the
  cultures of disciplines. Open University Press in
  association with The Society for Research into
  Higher Education., Buckingham (2001)
• Geoghegan, W.H., Whatever Happened to
  Instructional Technology? In Bapna, S., Emdad,
  A., Zaveri, J. (eds.) 22nd Annual Conference of
  the International Business Schools Computing
  Association (IBSCA). IBM, Baltimore, Maryland
  (1994) 438-447
• McNay, I. From Collegial Academy to the
  Corporate Enterprise The Changing Cultures of
  Universities. In Schuller, T. (ed.) The
  Changing University? Open University/SRHE,
  Buckingham (1995)
• Moore, G. Crossing the Chasm Marketing and
  Selling Technology Products to Mainstream
  Customers. Harper Business, New York (1991)
• White, S., Learning Technologies in Higher
  Education an organisational perspective (2006)