How the program keeps every stakeholder group correctly informed across fifteen months — from a kickoff most staff will barely notice to a cutover that changes how several hundred people do their jobs. Owned by L. Bergström, Change Manager (OCM Lead), working with the Training Lead, Customer Experience Manager and the Change Champion Network.
11
Stakeholder groups
4
Communication phases
24 Aug 27
Cutover — peak comms
4
Escalation tiers
OCM
Owned, not PMO-owned
The premise. This is a mandatory replacement of a system people use every day to enroll members and pay claims. Nobody asked for it, most staff will experience it as disruption, and the benefit to any individual user is largely invisible — the system simply keeps working. Communication on this program is therefore not about selling a vision. It is about making sure that when the platform changes underneath people, they already know what is happening, when, and what they need to do.
01 Objectives & Principles
Objectives
| Objective | Success measure |
|---|---|
| No stakeholder group is surprised by a change that affects them | Zero "we weren't told" escalations at cutover |
| Staff know what to do differently, and when | Training completion and readiness assessment ahead of cutover |
| Leadership has an accurate, current view of program health | Steering Committee decisions made on the reported position, not corrected later |
| Members and providers experience no unexplained change | No spike in enquiry volume attributable to poor notice |
| Bad news travels as fast as good news | Issues surface at the working level before they appear in a status report |
Principles
- Say it before it happens, not after. Notice is the difference between change management and damage control.
- One version of the truth. All formal reporting draws on the same figures as the Dashboard and Status Report. Where a document has been superseded, the superseded figure is not quietly reused.
- Match the channel to the consequence. A cutover instruction that a claims examiner must act on does not belong in a newsletter.
- Frontline voices carry further than program voices. A change champion in the room is worth more than a program email, which is why the network exists.
- Report the position, not the preferred position. The CBA shows a negative NPV and says so; the same candour applies to schedule and risk reporting.
02 Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders are assessed on influence over the program's success and impact felt from the change — the two dimensions that determine how much communication each group warrants and of what kind.
| Stakeholder group | Influence | Impact felt | Primary concern | Engagement approach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee | High | Low | Business case, schedule, cost, risk exposure | Manage closely — formal, decision-oriented |
| Enrollment Operations staff | Med | High | "Will I be able to do my job on day one?" | Keep highly informed; hands-on training |
| Claims Operations staff | Med | High | Adjudication behaviour; payment continuity | Keep highly informed; hands-on training |
| Customer Service | Low | High | Answering enquiries during and after cutover | Early briefing; scripted responses; hypercare support |
| Underwriting | Med | Med | Rating data and policy issuance | SME involvement; UAT participation |
| Finance & Billing | High | Med | Reconciliation and financial integrity | Manage closely; control-total validation |
| Internal Audit / SOX | High | Low | Control evidence and independence | Formal, evidence-based; no informal assurances |
| IT Operations / Support | Med | High | Supportability, runbooks, escalation | Technical briefings; handover readiness |
| Platform vendor | High | Low | Scope clarity, dependency turnaround | Managed through the Vendor Management Plan |
| Downstream system owners (×6) | Med | Med | Interface change and testing demand on their teams | Named contact per system; scheduled test windows |
| Members & providers | Low | Med | Any externally visible change | Advance notice only where experience changes |
The group most often under-served. Customer Service has low influence and high impact — the classic profile of a group that gets communicated to last and absorbs the consequences first. They field the calls when anything goes wrong at cutover, usually without having been trained on what changed. On this program they are briefed early and given scripted responses before Go-Live, not after the first enquiry spike.
03 Message Architecture
Four core messages, adapted by audience but never contradicted between them.
Why this is happening
The vendor has announced end-of-support. This is not an upgrade we chose for its features — it is a replacement we cannot avoid, and doing nothing means running unsupported software that holds regulated health data.
What is changing for you
Specific and role-based. Enrollment staff hear about enrollment screens; claims examiners hear about adjudication. Nobody is asked to read a general description and work out which parts apply to them.
When it affects you
Tied to real dates from the milestone schedule — training windows, UAT participation, cutover weekend, hypercare period.
Where to get help
A named change champion in the function, the hypercare support path, and an escalation route that does not require knowing the program's org chart.
04 Communication Matrix
| Communication | Audience | Owner | Channel | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steering Committee pack | Sponsor, Steering Committee | C. Tyrrell | Formal deck + meeting | Monthly |
| Program status report | Steering, workstream leads, PMO | E. Kowalski | Written report | Weekly |
| Program dashboard | All program stakeholders | E. Kowalski | Live dashboard | Continuous |
| Workstream lead sync | Workstream leads | C. Tyrrell | Standing meeting | Weekly |
| Vendor governance review | Vendor, Procurement, Architecture | W. Donnelly | Formal review | Bi-weekly |
| Downstream system owner sync | Six system owners | M. Castillo | Working session | Bi-weekly in build/test |
| Change champion network call | Champions across affected functions | D. Abernathy | Call + toolkit | Bi-weekly, weekly near cutover |
| Frontline staff briefing | Enrollment, Claims, Customer Service | L. Bergström | Team meetings via champions | Monthly, then weekly from T-8 weeks |
| Training communications | All system users | H. Osei | Scheduling + curriculum | Per training wave |
| UAT participant briefing | Business SMEs | R. Whitfield | Briefing + scenario pack | Before each UAT cycle |
| Audit & compliance update | Internal Audit, SOX, Compliance | G. Fenwick | Formal evidence pack | At each control gate |
| Member / provider notice | External | V. Alaoui | Standard member channels | Only where experience changes |
| Cutover communications | All internal audiences | L. Bergström | Multi-channel (Section 06) | Per cutover runbook |
| Hypercare bulletin | Affected staff, IT Support | L. Bergström | Daily note | Daily during hypercare |
05 Phase-Based Approach
Communication intensity is not constant. It follows the program's own milestones, and it is deliberately quiet early — over-communicating to frontline staff fifteen months before anything changes for them produces fatigue, not readiness.
| Phase | Period | Communication emphasis | Primary audiences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation | Aug – Nov 2026 | Awareness that the program exists and why; requirements participation | Leadership, SMEs, system owners |
| Build & Convert | Nov 2026 – May 2027 | Progress reporting; targeted involvement of SMEs and downstream owners; no broad frontline traffic | Leadership, technical stakeholders, SMEs |
| Test & Prepare | May – Aug 2027 | Sharp escalation: UAT participation, training waves, "what changes for you", cutover logistics | All staff, Customer Service, IT Support |
| Cutover & Hypercare | Aug – Nov 2027 | Operational, instructional, daily; then tapering to closure | All internal, plus external where visible |
The deliberate quiet period. Between requirements sign-off and the start of test preparation, roughly six months, frontline staff receive very little. That is intentional. Awareness campaigns that peak a year before cutover leave people exhausted by a change that has not arrived, and by the time it does they have stopped listening. Attention is spent where it converts to readiness — from roughly T-12 weeks.
06 Cutover & Hypercare Communications
Cutover is the only point in the program where communication failure has immediate operational consequence. It runs to a defined sequence, rehearsed alongside the technical cutover.
| Timing | Communication | Audience | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-8 weeks | Cutover date confirmed; what to expect; training schedule published | All affected staff | L. Bergström |
| T-4 weeks | Role-specific "what changes for you" briefings; Customer Service scripts issued | Frontline functions | Champions / H. Osei |
| T-2 weeks | Freeze notice: what stops, when, and what to do with in-flight work | All users, downstream owners | C. Tyrrell |
| T-1 week | Final readiness confirmation; support and escalation routes published | All internal | L. Bergström |
| Cutover weekend | Scheduled checkpoint updates at defined intervals, including "no change" updates | Steering, IT, function leads | C. Tyrrell |
| Go / No-Go decision | Decision and rationale communicated immediately, either way | All internal | Sponsor / C. Tyrrell |
| Day 1 | System live confirmation; where to get help; known issues stated openly | All users | L. Bergström |
| Hypercare (daily) | Issue status, resolutions, workarounds in plain language | Affected staff, IT Support | L. Bergström |
| Hypercare exit | Transition to business-as-usual support; closeout summary | All internal | C. Tyrrell |
Silence is read as failure. During a cutover weekend, no news is not interpreted as good news — it is interpreted as something having gone wrong. Checkpoint updates are issued on schedule whether or not there is anything to report, and an update that says "on plan, next checkpoint at 14:00" is a successful communication. Known issues are stated openly on Day 1, because staff discover them within hours regardless, and discovering an undisclosed problem destroys trust in every subsequent update.
07 Change Champion Network
Led by D. Abernathy, the network places a named, trained colleague inside each affected function rather than relying on program broadcasts reaching people who do not read program email.
| Element | Approach |
|---|---|
| Selection | Respected practitioners from within each function — chosen for credibility with peers, not availability |
| Preparation | Briefed ahead of each announcement so they are never hearing news at the same time as their teams |
| Toolkit | Talking points, FAQs, and honest answers to the hard questions, refreshed per phase |
| Feedback loop | Champions report sentiment and emerging concerns back into the program — the earliest available signal of adoption risk |
| Cadence | Bi-weekly, moving to weekly from T-8 weeks through hypercare |
The network is a two-way channel by design. Its downward function is message delivery; its upward function is early warning, and the second is the more valuable of the two.
08 Escalation Paths
| Tier | Trigger | Route | Response time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | Question or concern from a staff member | Change champion within the function | Same day |
| Tier 2 | Issue affecting a team's ability to prepare or operate | Function lead → L. Bergström (OCM) | 2 business days |
| Tier 3 | Issue affecting program schedule, scope or budget | C. Tyrrell → RAIDD Log | Next weekly cycle, or immediate if critical |
| Tier 4 | Go-Live at risk; regulatory or financial exposure | Executive Sponsor / Steering Committee | Immediate |
09 Measuring Effectiveness
Communication is measured on whether people are ready, not on how much was sent. Volume is an activity metric and is deliberately excluded.
| Measure | What it tells us | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| Training completion by function | Whether readiness is actually being built | Weekly from T-12 weeks |
| Readiness assessment results | Whether trained staff can perform the task, not just attend | Per training wave |
| Champion sentiment reporting | Earliest signal of resistance or confusion | Bi-weekly, weekly near cutover |
| Enquiry themes during hypercare | Which messages did not land — a direct test of this plan | Daily in hypercare |
| "We weren't told" escalations | The blunt failure measure | Continuous; target zero |
| Steering decision rework | Whether leadership is being briefed accurately | Per Steering cycle |
10 Risks to Communication Effectiveness
| Risk | Effect | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|
| Change fatigue from early over-communication | Staff disengage before the message that matters | Deliberate quiet period; intensity tied to milestones (Section 05) |
| SME availability (A-002) | UAT and training participation slips; readiness assessed on paper only | Named SMEs released formally; participation tracked as a readiness measure |
| Offshore/onshore coordination (R-002, I-003) | Status reported from partial information across time zones | Written handoffs; single reporting source of truth |
| Figures diverging between documents | Stakeholders lose confidence in all reporting | One version of the truth; superseded figures explained, not reused |
| Cutover date movement | Repeated date changes erode credibility of every subsequent notice | Dates communicated only once confirmed; changes explained with cause |
Governing relationship. This plan operates under the Project Management Plan and alongside the training curriculum owned by H. Osei. Stakeholder roles align to the RACI Matrix; escalations feed the RAIDD Log; formal reporting draws on the Dashboard and Status Report.