For a Districtwide Google Workspace Deployment, Change Management Secures User Adoption

About a year into its Workspace transformation, Denver Public Schools (DPS) enlisted Resultant to support users through Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts adoption. Our three-month engagement capitalized on a readiness assessment, Prosci and Resultant change management methodologies, and tech-savvy users within the school corporation to create a consistent environment while minimizing disruption.

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Our approach to organizational change management is customizable.

For DPS it included:

  • Change-readiness assessment to guide planning
  • Transition plan that leveraged sponsor engagement
  • Communication and engagement plan that created feedback loops, offered risk and resistance mitigation strategies, and included reinforcement plans

Goals Achieved

  • Migrated 100% of DPS users from Microsoft Exchange to Gmail by December 2021.
  • Supported all users through data migration and with training needs post-go-live.
  • Leveraged a super-user group to sustain internal support for the district.

About the client

DPS is focused on building a system that’s designed to help every student thrive. They're re-focusing their efforts where they matter most: on creating classrooms that are vibrant centers of learning, where caring teachers are engaging their students in rigorous, culturally responsive experiences in order to lift all students toward a bright horizon.

In the last ten years, DPS has experienced unprecedented growth and an expansion of programs.

Building on the strong progress they've made, they want to continue transforming DPS into a school district grounded in equity. This districtwide focus on equity is embedded in everything they do so that they can help break historical patterns and become a school district that is designed to inspire every student to dream big and make their own future.

Timeline

A three-phase implementation made champions of tech-savvy internal users.

Phase 1: Establish Goals

  • Migrate 100% of DPS users from Microsoft Exchange to Gmail by December 2021.
  • Support all users through data migration and with training needs post go-live.
  • Build upon a super-user group to sustain internal support for the district.

Phase 2: DPS Department of Tech Services (DoTS)

Enlisted the most tech-savvy users to beta test, advise as we created resources and internal comms, and serve as internal change agents.

Phase 3: District Go-Live

The remaining 2,000+ users received the greatest change management support, with DoTS change agents helping facilitate training sessions to introduce these resistant users to Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts and to the extensive online training modules.

The Process

Strong training and communication materials smoothed the process.

  • Our team worked with DPS to document communication channels, define a communication schedule, and craft messaging throughout the engagement.
  • DPS relies on weekly newsletters for communication, and transition messaging was limited to 200 characters, which required creative solutions.
  • Resultant worked with DPS to utilize an internal website to support the transformation. Newsletters included links to more robust communications.
  • Videos, training modules, and chat on the internal site gave users necessary resources and our team the ability to adjust as feedback came through the site.
  • Communications included proactive resistance management tailored to pockets of change-averse users.
  • Our team provided a reinforcement plan that outlined ways to continue engaging users and driving process improvement.

Support through go-live reflected success.

  • To ensure DPS users had everything they needed in the final phase of transition, our team provided helpdesk support and live, on-site support at schools.
  • DPS had contracted us for three days of heavy go-live support but found that questions from users were minimal.
  • Comprehensive training materials and support as implementation approached had equipped users for go-live.

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