The Change Partner started on a large national programme, in a week when I had more documents than I could read.
I began with two days of training. I came out with twenty-odd PowerPoint decks of vendor training, a business case and a business requirements document. I had to analyse all of it quickly, and it was overwhelming.
I started with one page I could understand
The first thing I made was a solution design. It described what the system does in plain words, on a page I could come back to.
From there I started thinking about a learning plan. Once you know what the solution does, you can start asking who needs to learn what.
The documents kept coming
The process specialist kept sending me process flows that I just couldn’t understand. As the weeks went on I kept them in folders and asked Claude to read them and explain them to me.
That became a habit. Every new document went into a folder, and the folders became the place I went for answers.
I started recording the meetings
Recording meetings turned out to be one of the most important parts. As a change manager I need to stay present in the conversation, and I can’t do that while I am taking notes.
So I recorded the meeting and listened. Afterwards the meeting transcript went in with everything else, and hey presto, a new bunch of answers and follow-ups.
Then the questions started
The project sponsor wanted to know the status of this or that, and I became the go-to person for the reporting. Over the following weeks that meant:
- A dashboard, and then sending dashboards out on two different projects.
- A policy update.
- A SharePoint review.
- A list of UAT names that had to be mapped to the stakeholders.
- Working out who to email for approval.
- A user list, and from there working out what to do for each group.
If you have worked on a system rollout you will recognise most of these. They all draw on the same facts about the project, and each one has to be right on the day somebody asks for it.
The people I was working with were super impressed. They kept coming back with the next question, and that got me thinking about whether this could work on other projects too.
Turning it into something anyone can use
I went back through the PowerPoints and spreadsheets I had built over the previous years and looked for the ones I ended up making every time. That gave me a set of artefacts that work for anyone running a system change, and a method for keeping them in step with each other.
That is The Change Partner. Every meeting, email and document goes in. Every plan, register and schedule updates to match, so the people running the change always work from the same facts.
See it on a demo project
You can see it working on Project Compass at Hampton Bank. Hampton Bank is a fictional company and everything in the demo is invented. The bank is replacing its old CRM with Salesforce and adding an AI assistant for about 1,250 people, in two waves.
Here is where I would start:
- The loop, which shows new inputs going in and the outputs updating.
- Change on a page, the change plan on one A4 sheet.
- The detailed change plan, built on my five step change methodology.
- All 22 outputs in one view.
If you would like to use it
The Change Partner comes with me on a Change Starter Pack and on fractional change management. If you would like to use it on a project your own team is running, book a call and we can talk it through.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to message me on LinkedIn.
Frequently asked questions
What is The Change Partner?
The Change Partner is Sheena Karim’s own AI-powered toolkit for keeping change management in sync on a technology project. Every meeting, email and document goes in, and every plan, register and schedule updates to match, so the people running the change work from the same facts.
Where did The Change Partner come from?
It came out of Sheena’s work on a large national programme. She started with a solution design to make sense of the vendor training, the business case and the requirements, then built the learning plan, the dashboards and the other outputs as the project asked for them. She then went back through the PowerPoints and spreadsheets from her previous years of projects to settle on a set of artefacts that work for any system change.
What does The Change Partner produce?
The demo shows 22 outputs, including a change on a page, a detailed change plan, an as-is, to-be and impact analysis, a stakeholder list, a comms plan, a learning plan, a training schedule, a risk register and a weekly status report.
Is Hampton Bank a real company?
No. Hampton Bank is a fictional company and Project Compass is a fictional project. Everything in the demo is invented to show how The Change Partner works.
Can I use The Change Partner on my own project?
The Change Partner comes with Sheena on a Change Starter Pack and on a fractional change management engagement. If you would like to use it on a project your own team is running, book a call to talk it through.
