How do you make change management agile and interactive?

Frame it as a challenge with a set duration, support it with a playbook that organises the content and links the activities, and design exercises the team wants to do. A creative concept and a distinctive visual identity help make it memorable.

What does a change management playbook include?

It usually covers the purpose of the change, the tools and steps to apply it, exercises or challenges for practice and the link to the other activities in the process. Its job is to make sure employees always know what to do and why.

NatursweetCase study

Natursweet 30 Day Challenge: a playbook for agile, memorable change management

Natursweet needed an agile, interactive and memorable change management process. 30 Day Challenge delivered with a playbook so employees could enjoy the change and connect with the rest of the activities.

ClientNatursweet
FormatChange management

Natursweet — Natursweet: 30 Day Challenge

The challenge

The challenge was to develop an agile, interactive change management process for the company that would also be memorable.

Change processes are usually communicated through a mix of meetings, presentations and emails that the team perceives as an extra burden on top of their usual work. The longer and more rigid the process, the greater the risk it fizzles out. The three adjectives in the brief point precisely at those weaknesses: agile, as opposed to heavy; interactive, as opposed to one-way; and memorable, as opposed to forgettable. The usual challenge in this kind of project is to find a central piece that gives structure to the whole process, that employees want to use and that links the different activities so they are not seen as isolated actions.

The idea

The answer was to create a playbook so employees enjoy change management and can connect with the other activities in the process.

The name, 30 Day Challenge, frames change as a challenge with a finish date, which brings pace and a clear goal. A defined horizon is much easier to take on than an open-ended process. The playbook works as the backbone: it organises the content, prompts interaction and acts as the common thread between activities, so employees know at all times where they are and what comes next. The work covered the creative concept, a master graphic for the visual identity, and the design and building of the book.

What we did

Creative concept 30 Day Challenge
Master graphic for the process’s visual identity
Design and build of a change management playbook
Playbook linked to the other activities in the process

Key takeaways (expert view)

If your change process is dragging on, give it a goal and a date and hand the team a playbook that connects all the pieces.

A challenge with an end date

Change with no horizon feels endless. Framing it as a challenge with a set duration, as its name suggests, brings pace and a goal. It is a simple and very effective device for any internal process, and in the events industry it fits naturally with the countdowns ahead of a convention or a launch.

The playbook as the backbone

When a change process has lots of activities, the risk is that they feel disconnected. The playbook links them all and gives employees a map. Any internal campaign with several pieces needs a central element to organise them; without it, each action competes with the last instead of adding up.

Enjoyment as a communication objective

The brief asked for employees to enjoy change management. Setting enjoyment as an objective changes the design decisions, from tone to exercises. Many companies dismiss the idea as not serious enough, but a team that enjoys a process sees it through to the end, and that is what really counts.

Services involved

→Communications agency for the events industry →Live campaigns →All services