Key Statistics: Competition from large, home improvement retailers have threatened the independent, paint retailing specialty store. With these changes, Benjamin Moore has focused tremendous energies and resources on redesigning and reinvigorating its retail channel. While initial results have been positive, the amount of IT support required is significant; therefore, IT leadership recognized the need to redesign how its resources and assets are deployed to better support the company’s objectives.

Approach Overview: IT senior leadership worked with Aligna Solutions to determine the strategic impact of the various IT work activities. Based on this categorization, the IT organization was redesigned. The redesign created two new departments and helped focus resources on the key activities that will lead to IT and overall Benjamin Moore success in the marketplace.

1. Work Categorization and Redesign—Using the Impact of Work tool, senior IT leadership assessed the strategic impact of all IT activities. Work was categorized into one of four categories—competitive work, competitive enabling work, business essential work, and compliance work. Additionally, the value proposition for IT was articulated with leadership. With clarity around the value proposition, additional design decisions could be made.
    
2. Change & Transition Planning—After the initial redesign was completed, a larger group of IT leaders were engaged to work through the details of the new organization—how it would work, who would move from one place/position to another, etc. Additionally, the group began careful communication, change, and transition management planning. This entailed exercises to clarify roles and responsibilities, assess impact to specific individuals, and identification of work processes that needed to be redesigned. Announcements regarding the reorganization, were coordinated to ensure that all affected individuals were provided one-on-one communication prior to public announcements.
    
3. Work Group Set-up—After the announcements were completed, each new department participated in a series of work sessions designed to reengage the employees in the work of their new roles and departments. The work sessions focused on stakeholder requirements gathering, process mapping, role clarification, and expectations setting. One of the key outputs of the Work Group Set-up activities was the identification of linkages—places where one person or department was dependent on another person or department. Where needed the linkage was designed to ensure smooth operating within and across the IT organization despite the changing reporting relationships, shifting roles, and enhanced work/performance expectations.

Project Outcomes: Benjamin Moore IT has successfully transitioned from its previous organization to the new model. Employees were engaged in a way that productivity losses were minimized, voluntary turnover was limited, and the enhanced performance expectations of the business were met. Specific IT resources are now dedicated to retail initiatives, data warehouse build-out, and user systems support (point applications)—all strategic enablers for the companies larger strategic agenda.
 

Key Statistics: To bring about dramatic changes in the state of adolescent literacy, significant changes are required in (a) how secondary teachers see their role in teaching literacy, and (b) how basic literacy skills should be considered as an integral part of the secondary school curriculum. Because of the broad array of student needs and the complexity of the problems presented by adolescents with poor literacy skills, no single program or approach can meet the needs of all. Thus, the best adolescent literacy programs are ones that consider both the unique needs of students with literacy problems and the realities of secondary schools. Some students will need more individualized, explicit, intensive instruction of basic literacy skills, while other students will need opportunities to practice fluency and comprehension skills within the context of their regular classes. To implement these complex reforms, districts and schools must manage a high degree of change at all levels. Due to the intensity of the interventions required, the CRL needs to assess the readiness of each school/district for the change required.

Approach Overview: The CRL partnered with AlignOrg Solutions to develop a change readiness assessment and pilot its use with two school districts.

AlignOrg Solutions has developed through its work with companies a change readiness assessment that address the following elements of change—compelling need, understanding, leadership commitment, individual and organization capabilities, stakeholder response, and resources and competing events. Using this foundation, a tailored assessment was created for use with educational institutions—schools and districts.

Using the tailored readiness assessment, CRL project teams used the assessment in two urban school districts in major metropolitan areas to assess the districts’ target school’s readiness for the implementation of the Content Literacy Continuum. The feedback from the pilots was used to develop action plans for helping the target schools prepare for CLC implementation.

Project Outcomes: CRL continues to use the readiness assessments with its target schools and districts to prepare them for CLC implementation. Additionally, the CRL is looking to automate the assessment to facilitate administration of the assessment for an increasing group of schools and districts across the country.