PWP developed a delivery strategy which met the company’s strategy, provided business value to the executive leadership team, offered efficiencies and innovation to each impacted department, and could reasonably be achieved by the project team.
Due to the several unknowns, we took a staged approach and delivered to one department at a time. The chosen department was selected from a matrix of risk level rating vs business benefit rating.
We ran 4 workshops over 6 weeks to understand how the department operated, their problem statements to the existing reporting needs, improvements they required and their preferred way to engage. We also used these workshops to reflect ‘what was in it for them’ through improvements the project anticipated. The workshops were an initial opportunity to connect and build rapport with impacted users by understanding first-hand their concerns and assist to bring down barriers.
There were 3 unique change management strategies adopted to suit the core business reporting needs, system knowledge, and resistance or apprehension levels to the change. The first was aimed at Head Office operations where users had a high-level of system knowledge and interaction. The second was specific to the track ‘Control Room’. This was a dynamic environment monitoring and triaging rail safety, security, incident and live repair. These users needed to be equipped with fast and responsive information and knowledge to triage and support emergency services in high risk situations. It was known that this group of users would only ever accept change if they felt completely comfortable and confident in the reasons for it, how to use it and its reliability. The third was a rollout to depot staff in the field. Their role was to directly engage with train drivers and technical staff to report on the performance of infrastructure and service health.
The level of apprehension initially anticipated were largely removed and instead replaced with new champion members for the change, new up-skilling opportunities, and improved processes, procedures and user adoption.