Change Management Lead

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Job Profile

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Department

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Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

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At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary

The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) at the University is seeking a Change Management Lead to oversee critical IT-enabled projects. This position will primarily focus on critical technology projects driven by UBC IT. The role spearheads change management efforts, assesses the impact of proposed changes involving information technology architecture, processes, tools, metrics, documentation, IT services area, and information systems configuration area at both UBCV and UBCO campuses, and provides strategic leadership for the implementation of new SaaS-based systems. The successful candidate will partner with the Project Manager or Service Owner to ensure smooth adoption and effective risk mitigation throughout multi-year projects. These new platforms will consolidate existing applications into a unified system, significantly transforming business processes and user experience across the UBC community. We are looking for a candidate with a strong track record in managing complex projectsto lead these initiatives.

The Change Management Lead is responsible for orchestrating all aspects of change management and communication for the UBC IT led initiative, from project inception through to full implementation. This strategic role combines expertise in people, processes, and technology to facilitate technology adoption linked to business process improvements and digital transformations. This role is designed to be both strategic and practical, providing leadership at every stage of the project to ensure successful change outcomes and effective technology adoption.

• Leading strategic engagements with campus wide (faculty, students, staff) stakeholders to organize change management and technology adoption, which includes hands-on delivery of change strategy, change management plans, stakeholder assessments, community engagement strategy, risk response strategy, training development strategy, and the design and delivery of training programs.
• Developing a comprehensive change strategy that integrates both business process and technology changes. This strategy aims to drive transformational change, crafting targeted communications to support adoption across academic and administrative units.
• Leading change by collaborating with senior business stakeholders, including the Faculties and Administrative unit heads, Directors, and Associate Directors , as well as Senior Management of ecosystem applications including the Senior Project Manager or Service Owner. This partnership is vital to advising, strategizing, and managing the end-to-end change for this implementation.
• Establishing a robust plan for change management, which includes building a trustful relationship and maintaining a strong two-way communication mechanism with UBC IT delivery teams and business leads.
• Engaging vendor stakeholders from the RFP stage to negotiate change deliverables, ensuring the maximization of vendor investment, particularly in training and business process mapping.
• Coordinating closely with internal and external communication teams to draft and edit materials supporting initiatives that upgrade UBC's digital assets.
  

Organizational Status
Reporting to the Director, Communications, UBCIT and Senior PMO Delivery Manager, Program Delivery, Office of the CIO, the Change Management Lead works with other Senior Project Managers UBCIT projects to ensure integration of Change Management and Communications activities across analysis, design, and development; deployment and post launch phases. The Change Management Lead plans and develops strategy, tactics and communications related to areas of academic/business transformation across the university. Works closely with a broad range of stakeholders, including UBC IT, IT professionals across the UBC community, senior academic and administrative partners from academic units, and external entities including vendors, regulatory agencies, and partner institutions.

Work Performed

Work performed

Change Management deliverables for various projects will be spread over 5 main focus areas:

Communicate

Engage

Train

Support

Sustain

• Work with the Sr Business Analysts, Business SMEs and Technical Solution Architects to assess the impact that stakeholders will experience as a result of the technology transformation. Work with technical teams to explore how to leverage available technology to address business challenges.
• Work with Executive Sponsors, Project Sponsors, Business stakeholders and Client Services Managers to identify all the stakeholders and analyze the support each group will require. Identify how IT supports team can better support the end users through knowledge articles, technical support manuals, troubleshooting scripts and escalation paths.
• Works with Technical Teams and Service Owners to mobilize an engagement network including Faculty IT helpdesk staff, LT Hub, Client Services Managers and other department SMEs to be able to deliver a Service offering catalogue and SLA that is accessible to the user community.
• Project Alignment​: Work with Sr Project Manager and Sr Business Analyst to gather change requirements raised from IT hardware, system software, application software and procedures, end-to end-to change management plans and change impacts and requirements to ensure the overall project deliverables and change deliverables are aligned for stakeholders, timelines and scope.
• Lead the development of a Change Management Strategy, including articulating the structured approach to moving stakeholders along the adoption and commitment curve; addresses anticipated impacts, degree of change, and risks to implementation and sustainment. Report and monitor commitment levels progression throughout the lifecycle of the project.
• Lead the development of Communication & Engagement Strategy & Plan: Fosters stakeholder commitment via tailored communications and engagement activities leveraging different channels. Work with Program Manager to bring forth a change governance and decision-making structure that will involve executive sponsors, project sponsors, client service managers, and workgroups to help strategize change approach and create a champion and support network. Lead the network to co-create engagement, comms and training materials and strategize effective ways of disseminating information to move people along the adoption/commitment curve.
• Develops training strategy & training plan: Outlines the training design, development, and delivery approach, involving utilization of various technologies and tools such as new AI design or video editing tools. The development includes the training material for both end user training materials in short video, Service Now knowledge base or website FAQ format and the highly technical job aids for ITSC/Desktop Services, technical staff and various IT helpdesks across campus for technical troubleshooting to ensure technical staff can further support end users.
• Lead high-impact change management activities using a structured approach within a complex, enterprise IT environment, aligning change with strategic communications and project management.
• Design holistic change management strategies that encompass all stages of the change lifecycle, ensuring these plans are integrated seamlessly into broader business strategies.
• Conduct thorough analyses to assess the impacts and readiness for change, identifying critical stakeholders and ensuring strategic communication of plans.
• Strategically assess user readiness, proactively identifying and managing risks related to engagement and readiness, and implementing strategic interventions as necessary.
• Strategize and execute community engagement plans to ensure deep stakeholder involvement and high visibility in the solution design process, fostering strong relationships and buy-in.
• Lead the strategic design, development, delivery, and management of communications that are critical to the success of change initiatives, ensuring alignment with overall project goals.
• Oversee the development and delivery of training programs, documenting requirements and leading initiatives that build capacity and support organizational change objectives.
• Utilize advanced data analysis to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of change initiatives, leveraging insights to strategize improvements and reinforce successful outcomes through well-planned celebration mechanisms.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

Information Technology, and Program Delivery specifically, plays a key role in enabling the University to achieve its goal of becoming one of the world's leading universities. Decisions and actions taken by the Change Management Lead will have a direct impact on how efficiently and effectively new business processes and systems are adopted by the user community.

Errors in judgment, poor analysis, or failure to act decisively could negatively impact the project delivery and have a detrimental effect and adversely impact the university community, affecting up to tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff, and could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost productivity, funding, and revenue.

Supervision Received
Reports to the Director, Communications and Senior PMO Delivery Manager, Program Delivery: Office of the CIO. Must be able to work independently as well as contribute actively and collaborate openly as a team member.

Supervision Given
Provides mentoring and coaching to managers and staff on how to manage change, as well as provides leadership and education on demonstrated areas of expertise. May supervise, advise, mentor or coach on change-related work of other team members staff on a project.

Minimum Qualifications

Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of eight years of related change management experience including at least two years of managerial experience. In-depth knowledge of both technology solutions and business operations. Hands-on working knowledge of the various Cloud platforms, OS systems, and device level hardware variations. Experience in managing change in complex environments and juggling multiple projects. Experience and knowledge of change management principles and methodologies.

Skills

• Extensive experience in change management and strategic communications, demonstrating a proven ability to lead large-scale organizational transformations.
• Deep understanding of the psychological and operational aspects of how individuals and organizations experience change.
• Familiarity with IT Service Management and structured change management methodologies, such as Prosci or an equivalent framework, is highly beneficial.
• Experience with change management strategies in complex IT environments, including implementation of large SaaS platforms replacing multiple enterprise aging applications and migrating from on-prem to cloud environments.
• Exceptional active listening skills, with the ability to engage effectively with various stakeholders and discern underlying issues in complex situations.
• Strong communication skills, capable of clearly articulating strategic messages to diverse audiences and explaining the context of interrelated circumstances.
• Proven ability to work effectively at all organizational levels, influencing others towards a common vision or goal.
• Demonstrated capability to operate as a team player, leveraging the strengths of team members to achieve optimal results and drive change adoption.
• Respect for diversity and differences, with the skill to manage disagreements professionally without personalizing issues.
• Analytical skills to collate, report, and interpret data, identifying relationships, linkages, potential causes, and effects to inform decision-making and strategic planning.

Competencies

Collaboration - Actively solicits ideas and opinions from others to efficiently and effectively accomplish specific objectives targeted at defined business outcomes. Openly encourages other team members to voice their ideas and concerns. Shows respect for differences and diversity and disagrees without personalizing issues. Utilizes strengths of team members to achieve optimal performance.

Communication for Results - Conducts discussions with and writes memoranda to all levels of colleagues and peer groups in ways that support troubleshooting and problem solving. Seeks and shares relevant information, opinions, and judgments. Handles conflict empathetically. Explains the context of interrelated situations, asks probing questions, and solicits multiple sources of advice prior to acting when appropriate.

Problem Solving - Investigates defined issues with uncertain cause. Solicits input in gathering data that help identify and differentiate the symptoms and root causes of defined problems. Suggests alternative approaches that meet the needs of the organization, the situation, and those involved. Resolves problems and escalates issues with suggestions for further investigation and options for consideration as required.

Initiatives - Volunteers to undertake tasks that stretch his or her capability. Identifies who can provide support and procures their input. Identifies problems and acts to prevent and solve them.

Analytical Thinking - Collates and reports information. Identifies trends and exceptions. Investigates to define problems more accurately. Sorts information in order of importance. Identifies relationships and linkages between components. Identifies variable potential causes and effects. Solicits guidance to define criteria and assign values of importance and urgency. Escalates issues of an exceptional nature.

Business Enterprise Knowledge - Keeps informed on business operations data. Gains consensus for suggestions from supervisors and project teams. Implements solutions for technological improvements that align with day-to-day business needs. Provides a business-based rationale for determining the necessity of incremental technological improvements and communicates viewpoint using the customers' own terminology.