Managing Change When The Change Keeps Changing (Or What Makes Agile Projects Interesting)
THE BURNING ISSUE
A multinational company was planning a major, multi-year transformation to its online presence. And it was big: the re-launch of its corporate flagship website, plus a major upgrade to more than 100 local affiliate websites – a digital footprint spanning more than 75 countries and 30 languages. It was a major financial investment on aggressive timelines. The change involved new technology, a robust content strategy and the introduction of global quality standards that until then hadn’t existed.
For such a deep change, hundreds of stakeholders across the organization would be impacted. Job descriptions would change, new skills would be needed, and independent, geographically-dispersed teams would have to start working together towards a common purpose in ways they were not accustomed to.
And for a bit of extra complexity, have we mentioned that it was as an agile program? That means that the core team would develop, test and re-design multiple prototypes. What the end product would look like, when it would be ready and how exactly it would work were all moving targets.
One thing was clear. For the program to be successful, a robust change management and integrated communications plan would need to be developed and executed, and most importantly one that was adapted to a fast-moving team using agile project methodology.
HOW WE WORKED TOGETHER
The client involved North Tangent early, during the program design phase, and together we integrated change communications as a core program workstream.
From there, we analyzed the complex stakeholder landscape, helping the team gain a deep understanding of the diverse ways of working across the organization. The benefits were twofold: getting important insights on pain points and most needed improvements, but also anticipating where new processes might have the potential to create uncertainty, confusion or even resistance. This data and feedback was quickly incorporated into the product and processes, enabling us to head off issues and pushback far in advance.
North Tangent developed the change communications plan in three discrete phases: the socialization and on-boarding phase, the rollout and migration phase, and finally building the sustainability plan to help the new ways of working “stick.”
We connected with over 150 in-house digital experts – in-person and virtually – on behalf of our client to introduce the program’s goals and KPIs, make clear the benefits of the change, and build excitement and readiness for what was on the horizon. Our consultancy included running individual briefings, running webcasts, doing live product demos, and creating training and support materials. We also worked closely with senior management to ensure active and visible sponsorship.
Once the full migration was underway, we brought our end-user communications plan to life, with new internal communications channels to keep information flowing to our digital managers. We developed support materials and documentation covering new tools and technology, updated internal processes, standards, governance and training and support. All of this work was key to sustaining the change and ensuring that the organization’s digital managers were set up for success in the years ahead.
THE OUTCOME
A strong partnership with our client and being embedded in the core team through this multi-year program helped the company reap the benefits of their significant investment. Our work built excitement and readiness, activated stakeholders and armed them with the tools and knowledge to work in an entirely new way. The end result was a transformed external web presence thanks to the efforts of a newly-formed community of practice. It was hailed as one of the most successful change programs in recent company history.