The challenge

Following the global pandemic, our client wanted to be better equipped to accelerate change to support their strategic growth plan.

The company already had significant project management expertise in-house. But the CEO recognised the need to improve change management capability – focusing on the people side of change – to drive more success.

In addition, the Technology team were moving to Agile software development as a core methodology and wanted help embedding key principles and approaches with the business teams they supported.

They asked Change Associates to help. 

What we did

We met with senior leaders in HR and Technology and agreed a two-stage approach.

The first stage was to develop the change management skills of the People Team together with a robust methodology which could be applied across the business
We worked with the CPO and team to develop a consistent approach to change management supported by a change toolkit designed for senior People Leaders and Change Managers.

The toolkit provided best practice tips and guidance on topics such as how to understand the impact of change and how to improve user adoption. It also included standard templates to use to support the delivery of change.
We launched the toolkit through capability-building sessions with the People team, focusing on the essential nature of their role in change.

The second stage was to roll out to the wider business with a particular focus on the move to Agile.

We worked with the People and Technology teams to design a series of workshops for the global leadership teams, a total of 200 people from across the portfolio of brands.

The workshops were designed to introduce the change toolkit and build capability so that everyone involved in the delivery of change would feel better equipped for success.

We worked with brand teams to develop case studies of successful real-life change programmes they had delivered to allow our client to showcase, inspire and celebrate success.

We discussed Agile as a software development methodology and as a mindset and set of principles to deliver business value, highlighting how change management approaches differ between Agile and Waterfall projects.

The result

• The Change Toolkit improved focus on change management and helped drive more consistency across brands
• The People team was able to use the change toolkit effectively and felt more confident about leading and supporting change
• The brand leadership teams were inspired by the case studies, educated about best practice approaches to Agile and change management, and energised to focus more effort on the delivery of change
• The Technology team embedded the principles of working with Agile and were positioned as knowledgeable partners to support the business in delivering change

Participant feedback

“Excellent content, came at the right time for my role! Useful breakout activities which helped put the learning into practice but also re-energised participants”.

“Enabled group discussions, created a safe environment to discuss and drew out information from participants. Content was well presented, clearly a specialist in change”.

Image (c) Shutterstock | i Delbars