Case studies
In each of these, there's a gap between the assignment I was given and the work that followed from discovery. That gap is important. The structure of a problem is often barely hinted at by the symptoms that people notice.
Intranet Overhaul on Synthesis
Assignment
Overhaul the firm's intranet content during a migration to a new version of Synthesis
Findings
A decade of stale content, but that was the symptom. Nobody in the firm treated the intranet as authoritative, and the people who held the knowledge had never been asked for it in a way they could say yes to. Content owners needed to see what was possible and get answers to their questions: what's the standard, who maintains this after I write it, and what happens if someone changes it? HR's qualms were the sharpest: Put the employee handbook online and anyone could edit it, right?
The Work
The version migration was the occasion, not the project. I coached the team to treat content owners as clients rather than obstacles, and to meet each one wherever they were willing to start. Some wanted to write their own pages. Some wanted to talk for an hour and have us draft it. For HR, the answer was showing them that editing rights on their content could be locked to a named few, themselves included. It was a fair thing to worry about. Nobody had respected it before.
Outcomes
The intranet is now where people go for the current answer, and they trust what they find. Nothing gets published half-finished; if it's there, it's right. HR started out the most reluctant content owner and is now the most diligent about keeping their pages current. Colleagues now start with the intranet when they need something documented, and new hires bring it up on their own as one of the things that works.
Onboarding As If People Mattered
Assignment
Evaluate & improve an existing onboarding program
Findings
Retrospectives surfaced a splintered program missing an organizing principle, clear boundaries and ownership, and grounding in how people learn. New hires reported being stressed and overwhelmed. Meanwhile, project teams were underwhelmed by the results. Nobody agreed what "onboarding" meant or included, and the program omitted critical content beyond software skills. What new hires valued most wasn't even content; it was feeling like part of a team.
The Work
What started as a tuneup became an overhaul to spread learning across more time and more people, sequencing content to when it was actually needed and drawing project teams and a dormant peer coach program into the work of welcoming someone. Grounded in adult learning principles, and built with a feedback loop so the firm can keep adjusting it without me, this program is a chassis that can flex to support whatever learning content the firm chooses to include.
Outcomes
Every new hire reported feeling welcomed and comfortable asking questions — the program's primary goal. Time to first billable hour dropped by 70%, and reported overwhelm nearly vanished. Three years on, the program is embraced by firm leadership and project teams, with frequent engagement on how to extend and improve it further.
The Expert Bottleneck
Assignment
Make the medical planning group's tools usable by the rest of the firm
Findings
Seven good tools existed and few knew how to use them. Documenting them was the obvious fix, but the documentation gap wasn't the real problem. One person led medical planning. She's exceptionally good at it and a vacuum had formed around her. Anyone with a question called her. Nobody else was positioned to take the overflow, which kept her frantic, slowed everyone else down, and meant a single departure would have taken a critical capability out the door with it.
The Work
Ostensibly, one video per tool. One rule: the expert could not appear in any of them. The videos went to planners working in her shadow: people who were sharp and capable and whom nobody thought to call. To put her level of knowledge into a video, they had to go ask her, which is the exchange that wasn't happening. The expert's role shifted to advising and then posting the finished video to the intranet with an endorsement, lending her credibility to the person who made it. The firm learned who else to ask. The videos aren't the product here. The knowledge moving from one head to another is the product, and the videos are how the firm finds out it happened.
Outcomes
Two videos in, both authors report fielding more questions about their tools. That's the bottleneck widening, one person at a time. Both are proud of what they made. The firm's president has noticed that the program is becoming a way for planners to raise their profile, which turned out to be the argument that brought a reluctant third author on board.
Building a Culture of Project Management
Assignment
Assess the state of project management across the firm, develop improvements
Findings
Plenty was going well, but the firm had no real culture of project management. People arrived in the PM role by improvisation, with no consistent path or support. Success was invisible; only failures got discussed. PM work was undervalued to the point that PMs weren't sure they could bill for it. And with workflows ad-hoc, there was nothing consistent enough to standardize. Under all of it, PMs were working alone — each solving the same problems privately, under real pressure, with no idea that someone in another office had already worked it out.
The Work
Isolation was the place to start, because a community touches every one of the other findings over time. People find their footing in a new role by watching how others do it. Good practice becomes visible when there's somewhere to talk about it, and visible practice is what eventually becomes standard. So: a community of practice, kept deliberately low-key: A monthly get-together and a Teams channel, both on the calendar and easy to find. No gatekeeping. Each session focuses on a pressing topic to deliver something useful every time. The core of the get-together is small-group discussion to get PMs sharing. If they talk about the topic, good. If they end up talking about their kid who started school that morning, better. The point is that PMs know each other and build trust. A whole-group conversation surfaces the ah-ha's for the benefit of all. Keeping the CoP alive takes more work than starting it. And a gentle touch. Add a charter, commitment tracking, or anything else that makes attendance a burden and it's over. Utilization anxiety is the standing headwind, and it's a fair concern. It's also premature. This will need to earn its place, but not in year one.
Outcomes
Early days. Attendance is holding, which is not nothing when the ask is unbilled time from people under utilization pressure. The first session produced a proof of the concept: five minutes in, someone mentioned a Miro tool that makes project schedules quickly. The room was full of Miro power users; none of them knew.
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