Brief

This assignment saw Blue Seed Consulting working within the energy industry on a multi-million dollar technology implementation of a new energy trading platform. This new system would enable the organisation significant revenue opportunities due to the provision of a more functionally rich and highly configurable environment, thus affording the business the opportunity to respond to market needs with greater speed, agility and accuracy.

After the dissolution of the in-house business change management function, Blue Seed Consulting were brought in to lead and deliver all change management components for the project.

Solution

Blue Seed consultants used their expertise to design, build and implement fit-for-purpose change interventions, within an environment of significant organisational wide change (and re-structuring).

We had to overcome the following challenges:

• The utilisation of a third party solution integrator
• The strained relationship between IT and business
• The introduction of an end to end operating model (from a previously business segmented model).

By rapidly, but deeply, understanding the people impacts we determined the appropriate approaches to managing the change. We quickly identified the value of a localised change agent aka ‘change maker’ engagement model to address the complexities of the new technology and the diverse needs of the impacted teams. We managed and supported each of these change agents on a one to one basis. This two-way relationship was mutually beneficial as it enabled us to really understand the change needs of the teams and so we were able to create tailored and relevant engagement activities, communications and training. These efforts combined with high-quality tools ensured each change agent was well placed to lead their teams through the change.

Results

Blue Seed Consulting’s role in the people related aspects of this project contributed significantly to the smooth technical implementation of a highly complicated technology platform (one leveraged by multiple business teams). This was reflected in ratings of ‘effective change management’ as identified in all Third Party Quality Assurance Reviews conducted throughout the project and an external PwC audit.

The provision of unique change management tools (including Stakeholder Engagement Dashboard, Benefits Realisation Tracking, User Adoption Strategies) that the business has been able to re-purpose and leverage for successive change initiatives.

Furthermore, as a result of this engagement, Blue Seed Consulting succeeded in shifting previous opinions about change management, generating a positive perception its value and has established an ongoing relationship with this organisation – we have provided additional resources for subsequent work.