Embracing the tides of change at Port of Melbourne

As part of its ongoing technology upgrade strategy, Port of Melbourne engaged Fusion5 to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) to capture a broad range of stakeholder engagement, and to provide Organisational Change Management (OCM) and training services to ensure they realised the full potential and value of the new system.

Port of Melbourne’s Executive Senior Leadership Team (ELT) knew OCM needed to be an integral part of the project. The new solution was a significant change to the Port’s previous approach to managing stakeholder information, so user uptake was critical. After going through a number of implementations over the years, and experiencing varying degrees of user adoption, the Port’s ELT knew from the beginning the value of OCM and training and accepted the business case for its inclusion in the project.

Fusion5’s structured and proven approach to successfully managing change with other Australian organisations – and delivering an ROI - was a critical factor.

To discover what degree of support was needed to make the project successful, the Fusion5 OCM team first ran a discovery session to establish a baseline, followed by a series of around twenty 45-minute interviews with impacted stakeholders across the organisation. Fusion5 crafted a discovery ‘playback’ to present to the key project sponsors to ensure top-down engagement.

“It wasn't until later in the piece, once we had scoped the project and fully understood the degree and scale of change involved, that we realised we’d need to adjust our OCM programme and training to make it more appropriate to our needs. While we all had a baseline understanding of what was required, it’s typically not until you are more immersed in the project that you appreciate what else is needed.”

Jack Campbell | Organisational Development and Change Program Manager, Port of Melbourne

While the Port knew OCM and training was a critical part of the implementation, Jack Campbell, Organisational Development and Change Program Manager for Port of Melbourne, says they had to rethink its delivery after the project scoping was complete.

The scope changed further says Jessica Kirkley, SRM Coordinator/Team Assistant - Corporate Relations for Port of Melbourne, when it was realised they had more users than first anticipated.

“When we initially started the project, we thought we’d only have twenty-five users, but that quickly grew to ninety-five. That really impacted the change plan – but it was essential to genuinely embed the new system.”

Jessica Kirkley | SRM Coordinator/Team Assistant - Corporate Relations, Port of Melbourne

Fusion5 sent out surveys to establish what other technologies the Port had introduced previously, and what had worked well – and not so well - so they could identify the success factors to replicate going forward. The survey feedback established training and communications preferences and uncovered existing engagement mechanisms that could be repeated to good effect.

The information gathered provided the Fusion5 OCM team and Campbell with the data and insights to identify potential challenges, and strategies to overcome them. In response, they developed three consolidated ‘personas’ to which they progressively allocated activities, change initiatives and activities as the project progressed. Fusion5 and Campbell applied ongoing feedback from stakeholders to the personas - capturing how they were feeling about the implementation and the training, what was making them nervous, concerned – or happy – and reporting on the personas to the senior leadership team.

And of course, establishing and measuring what implementation success looked like for Port of Melbourne was an essential part of the ‘case’ for OCM.

One of the key critical successes for change management projects is transparency. To achieve this, Fusion5’s OCM team collaborated with the technical consultants to ensure they understood what was going on and where the project was up to. They shared their findings with Campbell and, through conversations with stakeholders, gained an accurate and up-to-date understanding of the project’s progress and functionality. This close alignment with the consultants throughout the implementation provided a deep insight into the potential impact on Port stakeholders. This made it easier to address concerns or issues with full knowledge and visibility of everything that was happening – as it happened.

Once Fusion5 and Campbell created the change plan, Campbell presented it to the ELT, who gave it the green light.

Throughout the project Fusion5 and Campbell had quick weekly catchups to review findings and update the plan if there was a need to focus more closely on any of the key change activities. Fusion5 additionally facilitated workshops aimed at establishing a gap analysis to determine what the training needed to address, who needed it, and why.

“While some of our team had used a CRM at previous jobs, we’d never had one at Port of Melbourne. So, it was a significant jump moving from independently maintained spreadsheets to a modern system for many of our people. Given that we customised our new system, even those who had used a standard CRM in the past would have gone through quite a learning curve to get to grips with it.”

Jessica Kirkley | SRM Coordinator/Team Assistant - Corporate Relations, Port of Melbourne

Power training

Fusion5’s training plan and training materials were customised and designed to align with the Port’s change plan. Fusion5 designed the training to keep people engaged with the system and actively using the functionality that would make their jobs easier, both before and after go-live.

Before go-live, Fusion5 ran 22 face-to-face sessions, attended by 95 Port of Melbourne employees, over the course of three weeks. Everyone attended the initial ‘fundamentals’ training, from individual contributors to executives. This was followed by specialised hands-on training for those who would be using the system’s case management, marketing, and event management functions.

The final ‘apply your learning’ course, built on the knowledge attendees gained from previous sessions, provided learners an opportunity to practice and develop their new skills.

Post go-live, Fusion5 delivered several more training sessions via Teams, before handing over training to Kirkley. As the system owner and administrator within the Port, Kirkley attended all the facilitated training and had access to both recordings and supporting documentation such as user guides.

“The quality of the user guides and other training material developed by Fusion5 are really great – and very helpful,”

Jessica Kirkley | SRM Coordinator/Team Assistant - Corporate Relations, Port of Melbourne

The Port of Melbourne attendees embraced the opportunity to learn and rated their training highly. Based on overall satisfaction, the pace of the session, confidence gained, and understanding of how to use the CRM system, they gave an average of almost 4.5 out of 5.

Based on his experience, Campbell says that’s an impressive rating.

Throughout the change process Port of Melbourne assessed employees’ level of readiness to use the system. A process of ongoing user assessments established their desire for change, knowledge and skills, and their ability to respond to change, and continued right through to post-go-live training sessions.

And the outcome? “Despite an uneven playing field at the beginning, all our people were confident in their ability to use the CRM by the end. They appreciated its value, understood how it worked and felt capable of using it,” says Kirkley.

Both Campbell and Kirkley enjoyed working with Fusion5 and were appreciative of the skills and professionalism they brought to the change management table.

“They were very flexible and accommodating in their approach,” says Campbell, “despite the evolving scope of the project. They helped us to understand how any developments would impact us and knew how to support us as we went through the process of adapting.”

Kirkley was especially impressed by their Fusion5 trainer. “Our trainer did an excellent job of understanding the Port of Melbourne requirements and the way that we operate. She tailored the training sessions for each team and division, took on board the background information, and asked the right questions to understand her audience.”

“Change isn’t always easy, especially when it’s constant due to the nature of your industry,” says Campbell. “But with Fusion5’s help, this project went better than we’d ever expected.”