One of the recent projects on our team was the redesign of our transfer credit application system for newly admitted students. As highlighted by Howard (2011), design and redesign are motivated by changes in the context or environment. In our context, the need for an updated application was driven by several factors:

• The recent addition of new assessors and assistant following the retirement of a tenured senior assessor
• A newly implemented team debrief session post admission cycle
• The sharing of knowledge and best practices with other divisions within the university

In particular, the training and onboarding of new assessors uncovered questions and feedback about several areas of improvement:

• The efficiency of the assessment process
• Applicant responsibility to provide completed applications and documentation
• Gaps in knowledge and practices that have resulted in discrepancies across divisions
• The general need to re-evaluate the features offered by available systems and where information should be recorded for institutional and applicant use

Problem
By reviewing the feedback from the last admission cycle, we found three main areas that created challenges in the workflow:

• Assessors were reviewing one transfer credit application in three different systems with distinct and overlapping functions (student information system, application system, and internal folder system)
• Applicants were able to submit their applications without all of the required documents which resulted in many weeks of follow up and delays in the process
• The creation of the assessment letter in the student information system was inefficient, contained content that was subject to each assessor’s understanding, and duplicated some processes that could be more effectively handled and recorded in the application system

Goals
The overall goals during our redesign included:

• Redesigning the application system so that more of the assessment process can be streamlined and housed within the application (rather than being spread out across three systems)
• Providing training to the assessors in regards to the application process as well as aligning cross-divisional assessment practices
• Providing more visibility, functionality, and gatekeeping abilities on the applicant interface during the application submission process

Stakeholders
The stakeholders who benefited the most from this change were the assessors. The streamlined application process allowed the review process to become more efficient and had comparatively less manual administrative work. The application also benefitted the students by providing more visibility, functionality, and system-generated instructions for accurate completion of the application.

Downstream, these benefits impacted the academic advising team and faculty advisors who were able to obtain the transfer credit assessment information more quickly and clearly so they can follow up with the student accordingly after the assessments were complete.

Additionally, the IT team was a key stakeholder who helped implement the new application design. We engaged them early in the planning process to find out what types of changes and degree of system overhaul we could expect and request for prior to deciding on specific design changes.

Project Plan
Although a project plan was not directly communication to the team, the general phases that we observed and/or were involved in included:

• Manager and senior assessor collected feedback from the team during the post-admission cycle debrief meeting.
• Manager and senior assessor engaged in cross-divisional meetings about existing practices, then shared the information with the team for collaborative feedback and comparison.
• The team provided feedback on the ideal assessment process and application system.
• The senior assessor worked with the IT team to redesign the existing application system to include as many of the ideal functions as possible.
• The team received access to the beta site to review and provide feedback for further revisions.
• The application was launched on time and ongoing feedback for additional changes was encouraged.

Barriers
During this process, there was low resistance to change from the team members as we have been advocating for a new process or system that could streamline the process. Knowing that redesigning our assessment process would increase efficiency and productivity, our team had high change valence and motivation to implement the change (Weiner, 2009). The team placed high value in the change effort and was prepared to help implement it.

In contrast, most of our challenges were translating our needs into tangible solutions through the IT team. Since all of the communications with the IT team was facilitated by the senior assessor, the team needed to ensure that the feedback was clearly understood. Unsurprisingly, the senior assessor made most of the decisions regarding the prioritization and implementation of many changes in the way that they felt made the most sense. While most of the design changes were logical and effective, there were some items that were missed.

Predominantly, the changes that were missed during the initial design planning were related to the data and workflow handled by the assistant. After the new application was launched, I found that some of the features and data points that I needed as the assistant were not captured accurately in the system. This was a challenge for me because I had communicated to the senior assessor prior to launch which data and features I needed to retain in the system for my work. This challenge was mainly due to the design changes not reflecting feedback from one of the key stakeholders. Although the assistant workflow was examined and interviewed for feedback, the perspective was not incorporated into the change plan. The resultant feeling of a lack of follow through, a barrier to change highlighted by Biech (2007), could have been avoided or better addressed with more communication or a more in-depth interview of the assistant role.

Based on our initial instructions to address issues in the system as early as possible after launch, I reached out to the senior assessor and the IT technician to inquire about potential changes such as fixing a technical error in the notes section, and capturing the payment date instead of the application creation date. They were easily fixed as the system already had these features prior to the redesign. However, I encountered an unexpected barrier after my second request. The senior assessor informed me that I was not to contact the IT team without their approval as each update or fix was billed and they had a budget to maintain. Understanding that the senior assessor was concerned about potential scope creep impacting the budget (Watt, 2014), perhaps a major challenge that our team was unaware of was the budget allowed for the project. Watt (2014) proposed that the success and quality of a project stems from the balance of three constraints: scope, cost, and schedule. For this project, the team was informed of the scope and schedule, but was not informed of the cost. If the cost or budget was more clearly communicated with the team, we would have collaborated on a strategy like creating a list of changes to be reviewed and approved. Ultimately, this would have promoted involvement and understanding of cost pressures across the team instead of being handled solely by the senior assessor.

Change Methods in Practice
The team has demonstrated that we have high organizational readiness with shared resolve for change commitment and belief in change efficacy (Weiner, 2009). Through the proactive provision of feedback and opinion to our leaders, the team has highlighted that they will readily adopt a facilitative strategy for change implementation (Biech, 2007). This is illustrated by our sense of shared responsibility and eager involvement in the planning and implementation of change.

The team follows the action research and learning model for change as we emphasize the importance of research and fact finding before and after change implementation (Biech, 2007).  As we learned more about our strengths, gaps, and how other divisions have addressed similar issues, we were able to agree on a desired state and work collaboratively to make changes to individual components and elements.

Based on these team behaviours, starting any change endeavor with data reviews and a SWOT analysis would satisfy our goals to be data-informed in our decisions, as well as address and mitigate potential impacts caused by the change on both the team and our students (Biech, 2007). This strategy is advantageous in our setting because our team is highly proactive in providing feedback and many team members have existing experience from other divisions of the institution. Their diverse perspectives allow us to objectively compare our systems and processes to identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as lessons learned at other divisions that we can apply in our planning.

After producing a SWOT analysis, we would spend some time reflecting on what the best-case scenario. In this sense, our team applies some aspects of the appreciative inquiry model (Biech, 2007). These thoughts and ideas would be pooled together in order for the team to collaborate, prioritize, and balance in the change plan.

Overall, the participatory action research (PAR) method described by Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) fits our team culture the most. It is effective because the team members appreciate and want to be actively involved in the change process. We also have a small team with less than 10 members, so every member is a significant actor in the system. The changes are implemented by and impact each member directly, resulting in their feeling responsible for initiating, implementing, and institutionalizing new changes.

References
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2013-0215

Biech, E. (2007). Models for Change. In Thriving Through Change: A Leader’s Practical Guide to Change Mastery. Alexandria, VA: ASTD [Books24x7 database]

Howard, C. (2011). Writing and rewriting the instructional design case: A view from two sides. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 2(1). https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/ijdl/article/view/1104/1315

Watt, A. (2014). Project Management. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4(67). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-67