The New IT Landscape

An Austrian real estate development company decides to  implement a new IT system, leading to the overall restructuring of the whole organization. At the beginning, it is not clear what impact the new landscape will have on headcount and organizational structures. The difficult financial situation of the parent company and its unclear future make matters even worse.

Together with the IT partner in charge of developing the IT implementation, and the client, we developed a change architecture to lead the transformation and support senior management on how to lead employees during times of seismic change and uncertain future. To achieve the objectives:

• Support the project team in the decision taking processes and the communication of decisions
• Support the management team and their employees during the transformation
• Involve important key people in the process
• Buy-in from all parties involved
• Act as an intermediary between the different parties
• Evaluate “hot topics”, address them and find joint solutions
• Set up a communication strategy to support the change management process
• Coping with uncertainty and employees’ fears,

our project architecture consisted of the following elements:

Core Team: First we established a core team consisting of the internal project team, the external IT partner, HR and the communication department. Regular, facilitated meetings and workshops were held to discuss and review the process, and, if necessary, adjust the project strategy according to current developments.

Diagnosis of the current situation: In oder to get a holistic view of the current situation, satisfaction with the project, current challgenges and hot topics to be adressed, we conducted interviews with a mix of management, closely involved and less involved employees.

Communication strategy: Based on the results of these interviews a communication strategy was designed consisting of

• the establishment of a communication structure for the project o   milestone events every 3 months involving all stakeholders to shape the project and discuss hot topics and find solutions
• jour fixes to ensure a regular exchange on the project status and results
• definition of communication channels to transfer the main messages of the project to every employee.

Monitoring & evaluation: “Fitness Checks” to ensure constant evaluation of the project and get feedback from employees.

Coaching:

• of  the project team
• of  the leadership team
• and selected departments.