Project Example Project & Portfolio Management
The Objective
The objective of the project was to manage the cultural integration for a very large target group (> 30,000 employees in Europe, APAC, USA and LATAM) after a company merger.
The Challenge
A central project management system had to be set up. On a global level, contact persons were needed for the implementation of the centrally developed concepts. Another challenge was to keep the interest of the top management as project sponsors constantly high over the entire course of the project, which lasted about three years.
Furthermore, the different country cultures had to be taken into account when defining and implementing measures.
In addition, the target group was extremely heterogeneous: Our measures had to be either general enough to address a large part or specifically adapted per target group.
The
Approach
Sett up of a central project management at the head office with direct access to the project lead and other members of the internal project team.
Defining a common culture with a “best of both” approach to give all employees and managers clear guidance on how they should interact with each other with regard to certain behaviours.
Establishment of a worldwide network of multipliers (~200 change promoters) to have direct contact persons in each country.
Approach in two major waves:
1. Roll-out of more than 2,000 global culture workshops for all managers and major events for all employees with the aim of ensuring that all employees in the company have the same understanding of the topic, regardless of location (central control from the project team)
2. Development of a toolbox with more than 50 different modules, which could be implemented as needed in the respective country (development partly by the central project team and also by the change promoters). Tracking of the project success by evaluating the results of employee and customer surveys and control of the measures via the network of multipliers, which submitted regular status reports to the central project office.
The Success Factors
Close coordination of the central project team with the top management in order to keep the topic on the agenda and thus maintain momentum
Translation of the communication and all documents (workshop designs, modules from the toolbox) into the respective national language as well as implementation of all workshops, trainings and events by native speakers
Piloting of the program to make adjustments or even complete changes if the formats were not well received at first
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