Not All Change Is Bad - Intern Success Story: Kelly Hanson

By Kelly Hanson, Process Improvement Intern

Often when we look at the end of an accomplishment, we tend to start back at those early days. What were we thinking/doing then? Last summer as it became more and more apparent our lives weren’t returning to normal in the foreseeable future, I was faced with a difficult decision. Do I attend graduate school in the fall or re-apply the following year? At this point, I had spent two years making a career change from engineering to organizational psychology. But, as travel became difficult and classes moved fully remote, I decided to re-apply to graduate school as I wanted to get the most out of the experience as I could. This left me with a new predicament, what do I do now during this open time?

As I began to look into what to do with my gap year, I came across the job posting for this position. After reading the job description, I knew I had to apply. I couldn’t pass up on an opportunity to get experience in process improvement and change management. Especially since my career goal and passion is to help organizations find ways to improve and this would give me the experience to move forward in this industry. 

Fast forward two months and I am starting my internship at the Office of Process Improvement (OPI).  From day one, I was tasked with learning something new, how to navigate working fully remote. Luckily for me, OPI has been leading the way in working remotely for a few years, so this transition was swift. By working remotely, I quickly learned the importance of having exceptional self-organizational skills. I also learned how to adapt my communication skills to fit a fully virtual environment. Little did I know that learning, adapting, and changing would become common themes of my internship. 

With Prosci's 3-day Change Practitioner course and Gary and Michelle's guidance, I learned how to properly and effectively manage change. Change management would become an extremely beneficial skill for this internship especially by helping with organization-wide change efforts, such as Concept to Project (C2P). It will be a helpful skill that I will use in the years to come. I have also developed lean, continuous improvement, and process improvement skills through having the opportunity to work with the award-winning Lean Every Ideas (LEI) program and the Operation Good Neighbor program. 

My first project was leading the Intern Involvement Program here at the Colorado Departmtne of Transportation (CDOT), which put my newly acquired change management skills to the test. First, I had to figure out how to move the program to a fully virtual format, as well as how to build awareness and desire for the program. With newsletters, lunch and learns, and trivia, the program was able to successfully get interns engaged from all across the state. 

The other effort I led was increasing engagement in LEI. This effort involved organizing, planning, and promoting multiple video series. But first, it entailed learning how to develop and edit videos, a skill I did not have any background in. However, by being open to learning and new experiences, I soon found out that I enjoyed editing and producing videos.The first series focused on spreading engineering and construction innovations throughout CDOT. With being the lead interviewer for multiple videos, I had the pleasure of seeing firsthand the strong culture of innovation here at CDOT. I am excited to have the second series launch in a few weeks that highlights all the great services at OPI and how to utilize them. 

As my internship comes to an end, I am confident that the experience, knowledge, and skills I gained over the past year will be invaluable to my future endeavors. Although having a gap year before graduate school is not what I had initially planned, I am now attending the London School of Economics this fall for my master’s in Organizational Social Psychology with work experience directly related to my field of study. I would like to thank the wonderful OPI staff for this great opportunity and experience.