Inside AIMS
AIMS Paints a Picture of Change Management
Hellen Keller once said “A bend in the road is not the end of the road… Unless you fail to make the turn.” That’s why the Administrative Information Management System (AIMS) project has a team dedicated to Organizational Change Management (OCM), which is an area of specialization that looks at the people side of change management particularly as it relates to new business processes.
AIMS Paints a Picture of Change Management
Change Canvas Sessions
The OCM team has held “change canvas sessions” with each of the work stream areas including Supply Chain, Human Resources and Finance. It doesn’t involve paint, it doesn’t even involve a canvas, so what exactly is a change canvas session?
“With the implementation of AIMS, there may be changes to processes we’ve come to know or new information that we will need to learn. As such, the change canvas session is basically a conversation to identify what the change is, why it’s being done and who will be affected by the change,” noted OCM Lead, Colleen Stewart. “It helps us to develop a plan that will support individuals as they experience change related to familiar procedures.”
First Step
The change canvas session is a first step in developing a high level plan, as it’s a way for all those involved to visualize complex change and to understand the impact of change. “The process provides a way in which to capture and display information about potential change, and is useful for communication and engagement planning,” Stewart said. “When everyone is on the same page in terms of understanding the implications of change, we can then move forward and manage that change in a way that provides assurance and support to those involved.”
The sessions broadly identify those who will be affected and what will be different about what they do. This can then lead to a further understanding of how information is transferred between individuals with similar duties. “People will learn in different ways, so we conduct the change canvas sessions to better understand the support networks we need to create,” Stewart concluded.
No paint, no canvas, but a picture is created nonetheless.
