Working through change

A leading UK blue chip utilities provider was undertaking a major IS transformation programme. The project was to take place over a period of 3 years, entailed a significant investment and would impact all divisions of the business. At the engagement of the project, the project team was in place and the technological requirements of the project clearly identified. The focus of the project had been on ensuring that the technology and resources were in place to make this happen. However, the communications programme had yet to be defined. 

Given the scope and potential impact of the project, there was a need to ensure that all stakeholders were involved, their requirements had been understood and they were informed of the changes about to take place. The main priority was to ensure that the technology changes were translated into language that made sense to employees and that the impact of those changes was fully explained, understood and accepted.

Problem

The project was over a prolonged period

The multiple business units all had varied business requirements

The business units were widely dispersed

There was a perceived resistance to any technology change which would affect the smooth operation

The project was being deployed at different stages across the group

Key to the success of the programme was to understand how the different business units communicated with their employees. 

Solution

o kick off the project, we followed a standard stakeholder process: Identify who the stakeholders are, understand what their level of power, influence and interest is. The final step involved obtaining a good understanding of the most important stakeholders and gauging what their likely response is in order that we could identify the best way to win their support. This was recorded on a stakeholder map.

Face-to-face interviews with senior directors of all business units were conducted. This helped the project team understand what issues and concerns the business units had. It also helped to highlight the issues of which the project team should be aware. Failure to engage these stakeholders would have jeopardized the acceptance of the project.

The communications were designed to ensure that most time was spent on the stakeholders from whom most support was required, there was a clear focus on what the desired outcomes from each stakeholder were, the key messages were identified and clear actions and communications programmes were outlined.

The project communications programme, adopted an approach of providing centralized messaging from within the project team to ensure consistency of message but allowing the communications teams to deploy the message utilizing the existing methods.