- Change strategy
- Change plan
- Change impact analysis
- Change readiness assessment
- Communications
Managing change
Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of every organisation, so building agility and a willingness to embrace change in your people is imperative.
50+
Consultants
18
Years Experience
100+
Clients
Components of successful change
At First Friday, we do organisational change management in a BOLD© way. Led by your business owners but expertly facilitated by our team, we build all the components needed for success:
- Strong coalition of leaders
- Alignment of personal and company goals
- Preparation at all stages of the journey to bring together people, process and systems
- Focus on agreed outcomes
- Staying true to company values
…and having fun along the way!
Our USP in change management
Our change managers are unusual in that they possess skills covering functional expertise deriving from their previous commercial careers and experience in numerous large systems transformations as well as being versed in change management.
Skilled in all aspects of business change
It is this unique combination of skills enables us to manage both the ‘hard’ aspects of change such as defining operational end-to-end processes and business cutover activities, as well as the ‘soft’ aspects of change management that result in winning the hearts and minds of those involved through effective communication, involvement and collaboration.
This becomes particularly important in environments where systems integrators (SIs) are not accustomed to leading best practice processes, where end-to-end connectivity is not clearly understood, and where subject-matter experts (SMEs) from the business lack external experience.
Subject matter experts
- Business process definition
- Business cutover planning
- End-to-end ways of working
- User acceptance testing (UAT)
- Design workshops
Helping with projects that are struggling
There is often resistance from those impacted by change, with colleagues who are facilitating change having a lack of experience, and those leading it having to juggle numerous priorities and not being close enough to what’s happening on the ground.
Or maybe a significant investment has been made on new systems and organisational change management, but user adoption is a problem and people are regressing to previous ways of working.
We can help. We’re often asked to carry out an assessment of what is going wrong and augment the internal team to put things right.
Change management expertise
- Training
- Leadership & organisation alignment
- Stakeholder engagement
- Resistance management
- Developing values driven culture
Developing and supporting internal change and project management capability
Project management and change management, whilst independent entities, have a symbiotic relationship. Project management can be viewed as planning and doing; whereas change management is about winning hearts and minds.
- Project Management focuses on the processes and activities needed to plan, manage and complete projects
- Change Management focuses on the people and processes affected by those projects
A strong project plan should have the principles of change management running throughout it, with the connections between behaviours, training, and development all appropriately planned and managed.
Our Project & Change Management courses blend all of these principles and come with a business-ready toolkit to help you hit the ground running.
Coaching for senior managers
Our consultants can also offer a coaching service for senior managers and leaders to ensure they maximise the benefits from business change initiatives. Get in touch to find out more.
Change Management courses
- A practical approach to change management
- Working within a change management team
- Your role as a leader
Project Management courses
- A practical approach to managing projects
- Working in a project team
- Your role as a leader
Change management the First Friday way…
At First Friday, with our retail heritage and real-life experience, we have developed an approach to change management that is practical, relevant and adds real value to all phases of a project.
Inspire
Working collaboratively and flexibly we ensure everyone is striving for the same goals. We take the business on a journey, building awareness and the desire for change.
Plan
We plan not just for the end state, but for all the transition states in a multi-phased programme.
Define
We plug the gaps your system integrator can't, by supporting the development of operational end-to-end business processes which make sense for your business.
Design
We guide the business to think through pragmatic solutions to deliver the benefits case in a viable way.
Develop
We engage with stakeholders to ensure business activities necessary for successful implementation are understood and being delivered.
Deliver
We develop and deliver communications and training using retail scenarios that the business can relate to and which are interactive and fun.
Embed
We support the business in adopting new ways of working and then transfer knowledge to help you build lasting internal capability.
Change Management projects
Putting people at the heart of change
The First Friday team are all from a retail or commercial background. We understand your business – the operational processes, the job roles, the systems and the business language that you use – and have empathy with your teams as have performed similar roles ourselves.
Meet some of our expert change management consultants
A consultant with over 20 years’ experience, Victoria had a long career in merchandising for blue-chip retailers before joining First Friday where she now supports and guides businesses through transformation programmes, enabling them to deliver sustainable change in her role as a strategic transformation consultant.
More about Victoria »
Lorna has extensive experience on numerous projects across multiple regions – UK, Europe, Americas. Her understanding of end-to-end business solutions that encompass process, systems and people is invaluable to delivering a solution that delivers in practice.
More about Lorna »
Viv is a Transformation and Business Change consultant with over 20 years’ experience at a senior level in in merchandising, supply chain, and business change & transformation. She has advised on several large transformation programmes for leading retailers and is APMG accredited in Change.
More about Viv »
Related resources & insights
Here are some of our most popular change management resources.
Transformation & Change,
Delivering successful, sustainable business change: Part 1 – Foundations for success
Transformation & Change,
Delivering successful, sustainable business change: Part 3 – Engaging communication
