Case Studies » Major National Credit Union

Organizational change management playbook

Improving change management planning, capability building and program maturity

If you want to create a playbook for change, we’ve got a scalable process for that.

A large credit union had an internal organizational change management (OCM) department that supported one of its largest internal groups with over 1,000 employees. Part of that OCM department included a local team whose role is not well known or understood because they had only engaged on an ad hoc basis on a handful of projects. Until now, they had been largely reactive with no formal intake or prioritization process.

The local team had been asked to support a massive and highly visible financial systems implementation. With the increasing speed of change in financial institutions due to the need for digital maturity and speed of customer innovation, the demand for OCM support was expected to increase moving forward. As a result, the team needed a way to increase visibility into the demand for its services and a process to manage their change management planning.

In response, the credit union asked Celerity to lead the development of the local team’s organizational change management playbook to communicate and promote their OCM capabilities, summarize expected benefits, detail the team’s strategic view and establish visibility into needs. With the playbook, the team was better able to use their time, prioritize their needs, plan for the resources they need and improve their implementation timelines and effectiveness.

If you want to create a playbook for change, we’ve got a scalable process for that.

A large credit union had an internal organizational change management (OCM) department that supported one of its largest internal groups with over 1,000 employees. Part of that OCM department included a local team whose role is not well known or understood because they had only engaged on an ad hoc basis on a handful of projects. Until now, they had been largely reactive with no formal intake or prioritization process.

The local team had been asked to support a massive and highly visible financial systems implementation. With the increasing speed of change in financial institutions due to the need for digital maturity and speed of customer innovation, the demand for OCM support was expected to increase moving forward. As a result, the team needed a way to increase visibility into the demand for its services and a process to manage their change management planning.

In response, the credit union asked Celerity to lead the development of the local team’s organizational change management playbook to communicate and promote their OCM capabilities, summarize expected benefits, detail the team’s strategic view and establish visibility into needs. With the playbook, the team was better able to use their time, prioritize their needs, plan for the resources theyneed and improve their implementation timelines and effectiveness.

Anchoring the change management process with an organizational change management playbook

Using best practices and stakeholder input sessions as a guide, Celerity began the process of crafting the organizational change management playbook. First, the group outlined three key capability areas provided by the OCM team: change management knowledge and governance, communications plan and delivery, and learning plan and delivery. Next, the team focused on the intake process for these areas, designing an assessment tool that could drive conversations to provide the necessary details and insights to determine the resource needs per project. This intake process was then tested against 10 management-defined projects to ensure its effectiveness.

Through these conversations, stakeholders also gained a better understanding of the different types of expertise and support the OCM team could provide so they could better assess future needs, as well as communicate their value proposition to others through the playbook.

The playbook itself includes the following key information:

What we do

Through the playbook, the team promoted their key capabilities and demonstrated how they increase productivity and efficiencies before, during, and after project implementation. The OCM team worked with project teams to define how best to address change management planning to achieve desired outcomes.

How we work with you

The OCM team now had a structured and scalable process for intake that provided context, transparency, and visibility. First, project teams completed the intake form, providing context and visibility into the support needs. Next, the OCM team determined the change needs and made a go/no go/postpone decision. Finally, the team created a change charter for the project including information related to the objectives, success measures, roles and accountabilities, and more to define the key elements of a successful partnership for implementation.

How we measure our impact

The team established checkpoints throughout the change project to define actions to increase readiness. At a minimum, checkpoints were at the beginning of the change team support, after 3 months, and after 6 months. The team also committed to six key measures (KPIs) to demonstrate progress and impact. These measures were leading indicators for future project performance.

Reaching a new level of program maturity and capability building

The development of the organizational change management playbook enabled the team to assess their capabilities and offerings and hone their service model into something stakeholders understood and appreciated. Now the team had a formalized and aligned deliverable and process that communicated its capabilities, key areas of impact, and how best to work with stakeholders to meet the desired outcomes.

The playbook and its new intake process also brought additional transparency to the valuable expertise that the OCM team provided to important and complex projects. By capturing this information, the team’s change management planning capabilities were transformed and the pipeline is now open for projects to flow through smoothly.

Before Celerity

Organizational change management playbookUndefined and uncommunicated capabilities

Organizational change management playbookAd hoc process for resource management

scalable processPoor visibility and awareness across the organization

capability buildingLimited organizational readiness post launch

With Celerity

Organizational change management playbookOrganizational change management playbook reflecting capabilities

Organizational change management playbookRefined intake process tested with 10 key projects with resource plan for 2021 and 2022

Organizational change management playbookAdded visibility for team’s impact across multiple support areas

Organizational change management playbookIncreased organizational readiness and reduced impact post launch