Challenge

Improving the operational success of an organization starts with making changes. With change comes the need to learn and adapt, and because data affects all aspects of a business, change can create a difficult journey on both organizational and individual levels. This need for support throughout the entire lifecycle of change is why Onebridge offers clients Enablement Services to aid in the adaptation to new systems and processes.

Enablement is a business service to help your team understand and integrate new data strategies. This may include guiding the adoption, accessibility, and education of your data strategy throughout your team. At the heart of enablement is Organizational Change Management (OCM). OCM includes guiding the adoption, accessibility, and education of your data strategy throughout your team. Our team helps our clients accelerate this process by providing support, training, education, and user adoption, ensuring the people within your organization are prepared, supported, and equipped for new changes.

This case study highlights how our client, a not-for-profit, member-based organization managing high velocity electricity over 15 US States and Canada engaged Onebridge as a partner to provide Enablement Services in the form of OCM to fulfill their need for support throughout the entire lifecycle of change.  

The client was already an active user of Tableau, but unless an employee was working in the data and engineering departments, they probably were unaware the platform was even available. With over 1,000 employees across departments but only around 10% of the organization utilizing the platform, the client was limiting their organization’s ability to communicate effectively between departments. The goal was clear; each department should be self-sufficient in creating cohesive data reports, but integrating Tableau into each department is where the challenge presented itself.

Solution

Phase 1: Business Analysis

To fully integrate the platform within departments, the team had to start by identifying the specific needs and solutions for the client. This required an understanding of how Tableau was configured within the organization. Because the client was using an on-premises server, as opposed to using Tableau Cloud, the team conducted an analysis of the server to have a complete understanding of the server’s current configuration and load to determine whether or not modifications would be needed.

Once this understanding was established, the team switched their focus to establishing a plan of action that would allow them to enable the organization in the most effective and efficient way. Collaborating with a group comprised of several department leads including Finance, R&D, HR and Legal, the team evaluated the current data reporting processes and knowledge of each department, to gain insight on how to prioritize their course of action.

This step in the process presented a new challenge when the team was faced with a department who was happy using their current method of reporting and had no interest in a change. To overcome this obstacle, Onebridge team members looked at how the department was generating reports and showed them examples of how they can use Tableau to accomplish the same goal with fewer steps and less repetition. Once the department members had a better appreciation of the tool and were open to the idea of change, the team was now able to move the client onto the next phase of Enablement.

Due to the size of the organization and quantity of data generated by all sources, this initial phase of understanding the departments and their data took the team about a month to complete.

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Phase 2: Training

The next phase of Enablement was for Onebridge to provide each department with proper training to use the platform.  This is done by conducting classroom like training with 2-3 individuals in each department who can then train the rest of their team on how to use the tool.  This structure is used for a variety of reasons. One of the most prominent being cost-effectiveness. Because of the size of the organization, having a small group of individuals who can create data sources using the desktop version of Tableau, where other employees can view and edit reports using the Tableau Web Editor.  This allows the client to lower total cost of ownership (TCO.)

While the team had introduced Tableau to every department, they established a monthly user-group that all employees were invited to attend to ask questions, get more examples of how they can use the tool, and learn more about what the platform offers. Similar to these user-groups, the team hosted “Thinking Thursday” sessions and quarterly meetups as a place for employees to share what they have learned and created to get feedback and see what else is possible through the tool.

In addition to classroom style training and discussion style user groups, Onebridge provided the client with on demand resources for employees who wanted to gain more knowledge in their own time or refer to examples and lessons they had seen previously. This also serves as a way for Onebridge to continue to support the client even after the project has ended.

Onebridge conducted these trainings with their focus on one department at a time.  They would analyze and train one department to the point of tool self-sufficiency before moving on to another.  This process loop took around 6 weeks per department.

Outcome

Onebridge successfully equipped the client with the knowledge and resources to integrate their new reporting process. Because an organizational change of this caliber will continue to impact their day-to-day process, the client’s need for the support of the Onebridge team will remain throughout this next cycle of change.

The client was pleased with the services provided by the Onebridge team and continues to engage our services in Enablement as they transition from using Tableau to Power BI.

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Client Raves About Onebridge Impact

"I wanted to say thanks for all your help during your time here. Not just on my own learning about Tableau and stumbling blocks within my workbooks! I'd also like to thank you for all you did to foster the Data Visualization community within IDEA and educating people on Tableau and ways to improve their visualization skills."

–Senior Engineer

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Even with a full understanding of what Enablement Services entail, because each organization has their own unique goals and needs, Enablement looks a little different between use cases. Onebridge has experience in Enablement Services across several industries, each one presenting its own challenge. With a tailored approach to each process, Onebridge can provide every client with an outcome that supports their specific goals, giving them the confidence to embrace and adapt to organizational changes.

To learn more about Onebridge can support your organization through our Enablement Services, Contact Us here.