Skip to main content
Search Icon
Quick Links
  • Adobe Completes Workfront Acquisition
  • Workfront + Adobe
  • Why Workfront is different
  • Leap Virtual Conference
  • Interactive Product Tour
  • Work Management Guide
Language Select Icon
US (English) UK (English) Dutch German Swedish
Login
Workfront ProofHQ
Contact Sales
Language Select Icon
US (English) UK (English) Dutch German Swedish
Workfront - An Adobe Company logo
Search Icon
Quick Links
  • Adobe Completes Workfront Acquisition
  • Workfront + Adobe
  • Why Workfront is different
  • Leap Virtual Conference
  • Interactive Product Tour
  • Work Management Guide
  • Why Workfront
  • Solutions
  • Platform
  • Plans
  • Resources
Why Workfront
Overview

Why We Are Different

Customers

Partners

Services

Solutions
By Department

Marketing

IT

Product Development

Professional Services

Agency

By Use Case

Project Management

Resource Management

Digital Collaboration

Portfolio Planning

Strategic Planning

Platform
By Product

Workfront

  • Goals

  • Scenario Planner

  • Fusion

Adobe Experience Cloud

Tours & Demos

Interactive Product Tour

Scenario Planner Demo

Workfront Goals

Plans
Resources
Learn

Resource Center

Work Management Guide

Blog

Events

Customers

Workfront One

Training

Innovation Lab

Workfront System Status

Login
Workfront ProofHQ
Contact Sales

Overview

Why We Are Different

See what makes us stand out from the competition and why top brands trust us.

Customers

Learn how Workfront customers benefit from our work management solution.

Partners

Consult our extensive global partner network of digital transformation experts.

Services

Get comprehensive support, training, and a tailored implementation of Workfront.

Recommended Content

Workfront Overview

With Workfront, enterprise work management can help your company, departments plan, predict, collaborate, evolve, and deliver their best work.

Learn more
Why workfront product screen.
Learn more

By Department

Marketing

Align marketing strategy to execution and launch campaigns faster.

IT

Transform the enterprise and deliver impact with data-driven decisions.

Product Development

Manage processes and automate work to launch winning products.

Professional Services

Manage client needs and deliver services faster.

Agency

Streamline workflows, manage resources, and deliver results.

Explore all solutions

By Use Case

Project Management

Plan projects, track progress, and deliver work that achieves results.

Resource Management

View capacity, make assignments, and prove your impact.

Digital Collaboration

Centralize communication, project planning, and work execution.

Portfolio Planning

Decide which projects to prioritize or pause, and identify those at risk.

Strategic Planning

Define business direction and outline a path for achieving your goals.

Explore all use cases

Recommended Content

Mighty Guide: 7 Experts on Flawless Campaign Execution

Read this Mighty Guide for advice from seven marketing experts on how to execute flawless campaigns under pressure.

Learn more
grey background with mighty guide logo
Learn more

By Product

Workfront

Manage the entire lifecycle of work in a single, centralized solution.

  • Goals

    Align strategic goals to work, monitor progress, and drive amazing results.

  • Scenario Planner

    Plan continuously, compare scenarios, and determine the best path forward.

  • Fusion

    Integrate your favorite applications and automate work in one platform.

Adobe Experience Cloud

Digital experience solutions

Explore the platform

Tours & Demos

Interactive Product Tour

Get a hands-on look at managing all your work in Workfront.

Scenario Planner Demo

Experience how Scenario Planner simplifies the continuous planning process.

Workfront Goals

Align strategic goals to work, monitor progress, and drive amazing results.

Explore all tours & demos

Recommended Content

Forrester Total Economic Impact of Workfront Study

Forrester interviewed Workfront customers in marketing, IT program management, product development, and the strategic programs office, concluding that Workfront can provide companies with a 285% ROI over three years with a payback period of less than three months.

Learn more
Forrester report
Learn more

Learn

Resource Center

View webinars, reports, and studies to learn about the Workfront solution.

Work Management Guide

Learn everything you need to know about enterprise work management.

Blog

Prepare for the future of work with insights from work management leaders.

Events

Join Workfront at one of these events.

Customers

Workfront One

Get product updates, connect with other users, and request product support.

Training

Become a Workfront expert with our library of training resources.

Innovation Lab

Submit and vote on product ideas.

Workfront System Status

Check on Workfront status, scheduled maintenance, and incidents.

Recommended Content

Level Up: How to Plan, Measure & Execute Strategic Growth Initiatives

Ready to learn how to take advantage of new solutions to level up your strategic alignment in 2021? Join LeapPoint’s leadership, Workfront experts and special guests from Penn State University as they share best practices, tools and ideas to level-up your strategic alignment and execution for 2021.

Learn more
Work Boldly
Learn more
plantronics
August 13, 2019

Change Management After a Merger: 6 Key Takeaways

By Patrick Haywood, Senior Manager, Content Technology and Operations at Poly, and Marshall Comden, Senior Specialist Content Technology and Operations at Poly

***

Plantronics was formed in 1961 by two airline pilots who wanted to create better headset technology. The company provided the headset Neil Armstrong was wearing when he stepped onto the surface of the moon and uttered those famous words, “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

Within the last year, the 58-year-old company acquired Polycom, a brand providing secure video, voice, and content solutions. Together, we are now Poly, a global communications company that powers authentic human connection and collaboration.

As content technology and operations specialists we work with a 250+ person marketing team that’s still in the process of combining and reorganizing. For the first few months after the acquisition we operated as two separate brands. But before our rebranding in March, we had to come together and manage a unified endeavor that involved approximately 50 programs, 20 program managers, 338 projects, and over a thousand tasks. And we did it all in Workfront. 

The rebranding work will continue for years to come, as we relaunch all the things you do think about, like packaging and collateral, along with all of those little things that are easy to overlook, like the invoices accounts payable uses and the signs on the building. 

One of the biggest realizations we’ve had along the way is that change management initiatives are more about managing behavior, people, and processes than they are about managing technology. In fact, the mantra we have used as we have tackled this massive integration is “people, then process, then technology.” This is true even though technology was one of the big pieces we needed to integrate. 

Here are six key takeaways that help us as we continue to successfully integrate these two distinct brands, which were run by two entirely different teams, who were using two separate instances of Workfront.

1. Get Expert Help

As it turns out, both companies were already using the same work management solution, although not in exactly the same ways. So figuring out how to blend two different instances of the same software solution was among our early goals. We started by reaching out to a customer success manager at Workfront, because she had the background to understand the complexity of what we were dealing with, where and how we should start, and the expertise to help us think it through. 

To start, we had to determine the value and the quantity of work we had in each instance of Workfront. And it turned out that one instance was much better established and had been live for a year and a half, while the other one was still in development. It became obvious that the one that was live was the one we needed to keep. We brought elements of the other system over, and we decided to do that manually so we didn’t have to go through statements of work, purchase orders, and other administrative hoops to get our system off the ground. 

2. Get Executive Sponsorship

It may be a cliché to say it, but you really do need executive sponsorship and support. We knew it was important to help our new leadership team understand the value we were currently getting out of our operational system of record, so we could dedicate resources, time and effort toward it going forward. 

Within Workfront, we were able to demonstrate and describe our entire process, from planning to final publication, in concrete steps with assigned accountability across the board. The response from leadership was unequivocally positive; they wanted to help us continue in this vein—which is exactly what we wanted, too.

3. Assess Your People

If you have ten different teams you need to onboard onto your instance of Workfront, but you only have the bandwidth to deal with two of them at a time, you’re going to have to assess whom to bring on first. We do this informally, trying to gauge the answers to such questions as:

  • Do they have the resources and bandwidth to take this on? 
  • Do they have someone they’re willing to dedicate to this? 
  • Do they know who their decision makers are?
  • Do they know what their work is and how to describe it?
  • Do they know how things get done?

These may sound like simple questions. But not all teams—especially if the teams are newly formed or newly merged—can easily answer them in the affirmative. Start with the teams that can answer YES to most or all of the above. Choose those teams that are the most mature, the teams that will give you the quick wins. Because if you can get them in and get them working, then they’ll be your leaders and your champions as you bring other teams on. Let them be an example that can lead the rest of the organization along the path of adoption.

4. Engage in Constant Communication

We can’t stress how important this is. Constant and open communication was important in our initial implementation of Workfront at Plantronics, before the merger, and it continues to be important to this day. When we start working with an individual team, we take them through the same, consistent framework that Workfront used with us, including:

  • Discovery
  • Design
  • Configuration
  • Implementation 

We also set up a regular cadence of status meetings with them—at least weekly at first. By creating a consistent place for a new team to communicate with you, it’s easy to stay in the loop about how things are going, what needs to be fixed, and what issues are popping up, so you can work through them together.

Likewise, we set up regular, recurring meetings with our Workfront customer success team, so whenever a problem arose that we couldn’t handle, we had a predictable place to take it. This has been a vital part of our success so far.

5. Listen and Learn

When we start to work with a team on their process, we sit down with them with an objective mindset and do a deep dive into what their process looks today. We ask questions like:

  • What is the work being done? 
  • What processes have they used in the past?
  • Where do they want to be?
  • How is their process not working today?
  • Where are the gaps and the pitfalls?

As we engage in this discovery process, we get familiar with the journey that they’re on, so we can understand how Workfront can help them achieve their desired improvement in process.

6. Demonstrate the Capabilities of the Tool

After we’ve listened to and learned from the team, we take the opportunity to sit down with them and show them the functionalities of our work management solution. During this initial demo of the tool, we will see them immediately start to identify some aspects of the tool that they’re excited to use—and some aspects they don’t want to use—based on what we previously discovered about how they work. This reaction is most common with established teams that already have a solid process.

It’s important to note that we never coerce anyone into using the tool in a capacity that they’re not excited about. We just demonstrate what has worked for others, and if it works for them as well, great. The main objective is solving problems and making sure work is getting done, all while acknowledging that there doesn’t have to be just one standard approach. We remain open to their ideas, so they truly feel like they’re part of designing and discovering the process that they’re going to use.

There are also those teams that don’t yet have their processes defined—especially shortly after a merger or reorganization. For these teams, we instead suggest some ways our work management solution can help them establish and define their new process. We show them how some of the teams within our instance have seen success, so they can organically decide if they’d like to follow in their footsteps.

Focus on Capability Over Commitment

When it comes right down to it, our job is not to increase people’s commitment to using our tool. We’re not here to convince or convert. We’re here to create greater capability—to help teams discover their processes, figure out how to organize their work and their people, and ultimately be more productive.

According to research from Gartner, for every 1% increase in a person’s commitment, you get a 5% increase in productivity. But for every 1% increase in capability, you get a 16% productivity increase. Commitment is all about understanding WHY we’re doing something, and it’s important—but it’s not exactly in our job description as content technology and operations specialists. Capability, on the other hand, is all about HOW a team accomplishes their goals, which does fall within our purview. We’ve found there’s nothing more rewarding than helping a team find the right solution for them, which makes them more empowered, more capable, and more productive. After all, it’s the seemingly small steps like these that lead to those giant leaps forward, like Neil Armstrong experienced—with our company’s help—50 years ago this year.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Get Workfront blog updates straight to your inbox.

Why Workfront
  • Why We Are Different
  • Customers
  • Partners
  • Services
Solutions
  • Departments
  • Use Cases
Platform
  • Products
  • Plans
  • Tours & Demos
Resources
  • News & Press
  • Resource Center
  • Blog
  • Workfront One
About Us
  • Careers
  • Leadership
  • Locations
Support
  • System Status
  • Help
Adobe logo
  • Careers
  • Privacy Notice
  • Security
  • Terms of Service
  • Cookie Policy
  • Resources Index
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
Instagram
Contact Us
Copyright © 2021 Workfront, Inc. All Rights Reserved.