MS Dynamics 365 CRM Change Management and Training for a Large UK Housing Association

The challenge(s) they faced

The Group was built with the acquisition of 9 different housing systems working in disparate ways on disparate systems.

The association wanted to support colleagues as they experienced significant change to their processes and systems.

They were operating within a highly complex change environment:

• Two businesses merging
• Extensive organisational redesign – over 160 job roles impacted; ~2000 users
• Teething problems with systems implemented in some locations
• Some bright and enthusiastic colleagues in the business readiness work stream, but lacked an effective internal change management capability to manage this type of environment

What we did for them

We produced a change management strategy and approach for the transformation and provided change management and training support to implement the strategy.

This meant we provided a Change Manager, a Communications Manager and a Training Manager to produce and execute a comprehensive change management and training plan, and to manage the internal team.

Strategic alignment & Comms

Our team worked with the internal leadership team to align around developing and delivering key messaging that conveyed why the Microsoft Dynamics implementation was crucial in delivering the company’s strategy, and which demonstrated their commitment to the programme.

Communications and engagement was carried out using several channels including a dedicated intranet space, face-to-face, videos, etc.

Change impact assessments were developed – by job role – for over 160 roles so that meaningful discussions could be had with people about:

• why and how their jobs were changing
• what new behaviours and attitudes would be required
• how they would be supported with a comprehensive job role training programme and comms and engagement to get them prepared for go-live

We also prepared briefing packs for executives and managers so that they could engage with their teams directly.

Training Programme

We developed a comprehensive job-role-focused training programme for around 2000 users across 9 business areas which included:

• Development of end-to-end eLearning on business processes which became mandatory for all staff
• Development of a cross-functional business team to take ownership of all business-related activities for the programme (including user acceptance testing (UAT), business cutover planning, data migration, training and early life support with reporting) to keep all activities on track and to facilitate all meetings
• Regular business readiness surveys to ensure people were moving along the Change Curve, and added specific interventions at location- and function-level where required
• Contribution to an Early Life Support Plan with identification of leading KPIs which would identify problems quickly
• Set up support hubs throughout the country to ensure that business adoption was good and that there was an effective triage system in place to rectify problems

This used internal resources for development and delivery where possible, with backfilling by First Friday where necessary. We also trained internal resource on how to develop and deliver effective training, and our training lead mentored the internal team with a view to leaving a lasting training capability in-house.

We tracked the results of the training sessions and added additional mop-up sessions where required. Practice for all hands-on users was built into the delivery schedule.

The results (so far)

Early indications from the business are that the new systems have been adopted successfully and smoothly – with the Contact Centres able to cope with normal business volume almost immediately.