AIMS Project

Audit and Integration of Management Systems
     
 
 

Communications

Objectives

The AIMS Communications workstream was established to support the AIMS project as a whole, as well as its individual workstreams. It had to ensure that AIMS was identifiable, understandable and impactful for all UCT staff. It was well understood from the beginning of AIMS that it would be essential to communicate effectively with members of the University community, in order to facilitate their understanding, buy-in and participation in the project.

The objectives of the AIMS Communications stream were:

  • To support and integrate AIMS with effective communications throughout the life of the project
  • To establish a communications process that would take account of key UCT stakeholders' needs
  • To encourage a shared understanding of AIMS among key stakeholders
  • To integrate AIMS communications with such consultative and procedural processes as might be necessary during the course of the project
  • To promote well-functioning feedback and evaluation in the AIMS project, balancing "top down" with interactive communication
  • To ensure timeous, consistent and high-quality communications across all workstreams.

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Challenges & Implications

Challenges

The Communications workstream recognised implicit challenges in its task. As AIMS began, UCT was not itself providing a best-practice model of how to communicate change to employees. Staff members expressed this in various ways when asked how they felt about change and communication in April 2000. They said they were:

  • Tired of top-down communication about change (this pre-dated AIMS by many months)
  • Sensitive to their concerns and issues around change (including AIMS) being trivialised
  • Sometimes angry about the way in which change was being driven at UCT, but with no outlet for their views
  • Suspicious about AIMS (and some of the people associated with it, especially external consultants).

AIMS had therefore to strive for a best-practice example of how to communicate, laying a basis for how UCT might communicate in future, while seeking to engage stakeholders who were potentially hostile or inert, and highly critical under any circumstances. It was apparent that the door to participative communication was only half-way open.

AIMS wished to be creative, modelling new approaches and not constraining itself to existing communications mechanisms, but it could not ignore long-established media in the institution (e.g. the Monday Paper). It further ran the risk of alienating the audience if it attempted media that could be viewed as gimmicky, or inappropriate to the academic environment .

The AIMS project approach required investigation, presentation of findings and decisions by the AIMS Steering Structure, before implementation could begin in any workstream. Add to this the need for consultation with potentially affected staff, and thus confidentiality, in some instances. This meant that there was a communication lag at the beginning of the project (or of a workstream), which could be construed as a communication vacuum by the University community.

Finally, AIMS' R21m-budget had to stretch a long way, and the communications portion of that budget was limited.

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Implications

The conclusions the Communications team reached and implemented were that AIMS communications to the University at large should be clear, concise and as far as possible jargon-free. (Users of this web site will already be aware of the "AIMS language" that sprang into life around the project.) They should be frequent, but not occupy an undue place in media meant to reflect many other critical aspects of University life.

University-level communications would be complemented firstly by workstream-level communications targeting the individuals most directly affected by the project. These would include more detailed and specific information, be as frequent as the pace of the workstream required, and where necessary be consultative in nature.

Also complementing more generic communications to the University at large, would be briefings tailored to specific groups - e.g. staff body, Faculty and departmental meetings addressed by AIMS on invitation or request.

Wherever possible and appropriate, AIMS communication would dovetail with accepted channels of communication in the University. Independently-produced communications material would be of good quality, but not extravagant. Every effort would be made to maximise face-to-face communication with members of the University community.

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Approach

The workstream decided to structure communication into four principal areas:

  • Communications maintenance - ongoing communications following AIMS launch to the end of the project
  • Feedback and evaluation - mechanisms introduced to facilitate comment from the UCT community, and to evaluate University response to AIMS and its communications
  • Communications integration - support by the Communications stream to the communications plans and efforts of individual workstreams
  • Procedural communications - involvement of the Communications stream in the design of an approach to take account of the need for consultative communication, and thereafter involvement in procedural communications as required, in cooperation with the Human Resources/Employee Relations stream, individual workstreams and AIMS Project Management.

The Communications approach is illustrated in Figure 12A.

Fig. 12A

The Communications team also had some "internal" responsibilities:

  • Designing and managing an AIMS events calendar to coordinate communications activities
  • Establishing and maintaining an archive and database of AIMS communications (including procedural ones)
  • Coordinating occasional AIMS social events (the UCT communications stream lead was affectionately known as the "Minister of Fun").

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Activities

Communications Maintenance

Launch of the AIMS project was communicated to the University community in November 1999 by means of a letter from the Vice-Chancellor to all staff, as well as a Monday Paper article. Thereafter the communications stream implemented a range of media, and messages as appropriate, in order to maintain the flow of AIMS communications. Interventions included:

  • Regular Monday Paper articles were published throughout the life of the project, to communicate both general AIMS news, as well as workstream-specific news.
  • A dedicated AIMS project web site was launched in February 2000 and was in place until the end of the project. The site contained a wide range of AIMS information: e.g project introduction overview, workstream charters and general information, frequently asked questions, AIMS news and events updates, etc. (The current web site has now replaced the site in use during the project.)
  • Brown Paper (Information) Fairs were held at regular intervals from March 2000 onwards, on both upper and lower campus, once at the Medical School, and on occasion within specific departments. These were events at which the AIMS workstreams set up visual displays of aspects of their work for information-sharing and in order to gather comment from members of the UCT community. For example, Business Process Reengineering workstreams showed both As-Is analyses and To-Be proposals for processes under review. Brown Paper Fairs were advertised widely - in the Monday Paper, on posters mailed to departments to display on notice boards, and using targeted e-mail lists - and were held over several hours, to facilitate attendance when convenient for staff. Attendance was variable, but positive comments by participants, as to the value of attending, were generally forthcoming.
  • A dedicated AIMS newsletter, AIMS Upfront, was launched in June 2000. This publication was distributed as an insert in the Monday Paper, in order to reach the University community at large, at minimum expense. The newsletter gave periodic updates on workstream progress, and incorporated a column by the Chair of the AIMS Core Committee. Particular efforts were made to present potentially dense and complex information in an accessible and palatable format. Five AIMS Upfront issues were published in all and appeared to be well received.
  • In June 2000, AIMS began a series of "All About AIMS" briefings. These were monthly forums, open to any interested member of staff, at which AIMS provided a brief project update and answered questions from the floor. All About AIMS visited all campuses over time, and where possible was scheduled in the Thursday morning training slot to encourage staff attendance. Attendance of the All About AIMS sessions was generally small, but valuable feedback for the project was obtained, and some interesting issues explored. An internal report of the sessions was produced by the Communications stream for the information of all AIMS team members, and workstream representatives were asked to follow up on particular issues where required.
  • From the beginning of AIMS, efforts were made to brief the departments, Faculties, staff groupings (e.g. the Scientific & Technical Officers' Association), and the Students' Representative Council, wherever appropriate. In general, AIMS offered a briefing if desired, and then responded to a specific invitation. For example, AIMS contacted all heads of department (academic and support), offering to brief members of that department at a convenient time. Departments who took up this offer included the Department of Primary Health Care, the Department of Research Development, the Department of Criminal Justice, the Departments of Political Studies and Sociology, the Department of Allied Health Sciences and the International Academic Programme Office (IAPO). AIMS routinely offered to brief Faculty Board meetings, and in general was afforded a brief opportunity to do so where the agenda permitted.

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Feedback & Evaluation

Wherever possible, the AIMS communications maintenance interventions included an interactive aspect, or at least an opportunity for feedback - e.g. briefings and Brown Paper Fairs enabled face-to-face contact, articles and publications always included contact addresses and welcomed comment. Additional feedback and evaluation interventions addressed in this sub-steam were:

  • AIMS e-mail hotline - an e-mail hotline was established in November 1999, to enable members of the University to address questions and comments about the project to AIMS. The address (aims@ucthpx.uct.ac.za) was widely advertised - eg, in the Monday Paper, on the AIMS web site, at Brown Paper Fairs and on posters. Questions and comments addressed to the Hotline received a response within 24 hours from the Communications stream and/or from AIMS Project Management, or from another member of the AIMS team if this was felt to be more appropriate. The Hotline remained in place throughout the life of AIMS, but was used only infrequently by UCT staff and students, with fewer than 50 hotline contacts. It attracted several queries from higher education institutions abroad, interested to share experiences.
  • AIMS Climate Survey - In April 2000, AIMS sent a questionnaire to a representative sample of UCT staff (about 10%). The questionnaire was an attempt to gauge perceptions about the AIMS project in general, as well as specific aspects of its work. Regrettably, the questionnaire attracted too few responses for the results to be meaningful. The communications stream recogised that at a workstream level, AIMS was likely to impose fairly regularly on staff members for information and opinions - e. g. in Februrary 2000, the Planning & Budgeting stream of AIMS sent out a "temperature check" questionnaire around the planning and budgeting process. Given the poor response to this first AIMS-level climate survey, and the danger of overloading people with information and/or feedback requests, it was decided not to invest further effort in the climate survey approach.

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Communications Integration

Initially, it was envisaged that the Communications workstream would be responsible for workstream-level communications, as well as project-level communications. Early on, it became apparent that the Communications team resources were too limited, and the communications needs of the workstreams too great, for this to be an effective approach. Instead, the Communications workstream played a supportive role in workstream-level communications, assisting in the development of communications plans, making proactive communications suggestions, and supporting communications implementation (e.g. editorial support, Brown Paper Fair coordination).

The commonest kinds of workstream-level communications were functional area briefings (e.g. to departments affected by business process reengineering inteventions, or functional strategic overviews) - usually using existing forums; brown paper viewings; and workstream contributions to the Monday Paper and the AIMS Upfront. Where necessary, workstreams were also involved in the development of the workstream's specific procedural communications approach - as described below.

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Procedural Communications

AIMS recognised that in instances where the project had the potential to affect individual staff members, project communications had to embrace a consultative dimension. At all times, a sensitive linkage had to be maintained between procedural communications and more general project communications.

The Communications workstream worked with the Human Resources/Employee Relations stream, and with Project Management, in order to develop an overall procedural communications approach for the AIMS project. Details about the "Employee Relations milestones" approach that was developed, are given on the Human Resources/Employee Relations page.

Thereafter the Communications team worked as needed with affected workstreams, Human Resources/Employee Relations and Project Management, to ensure the procedural communications plan was well implemented.

General briefings to staff bodies were conducted from time to time, as needed or upon request - eg, to the Academics Assocation Executive and the Staff Association (later the Employees Union) Executive. Obviously, staff bodies were also consulted as required in terms of potential project or workstream impacts on individual staff members.

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Team

Champion: Paddy Attwell (Nov-Dec 00)
Gerda Kruger (from Dec 00)
Team Members: Ceri Oliver-Evans (to Apr 00)
Toni van Eyssen
Kath Webb (to Jun 00)
Consultant: Ashley Symes (to Jun 00)

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Links to Additional Material

To navigate from this page to additional pages on the AIMS website please
make use of the buttons in the navigation sidebar near the top of this
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Last updated: 2001-08-16