Design premise
One four-hour session. No guaranteed Session 2. A cohort spanning from core implementation team to someone who has not yet started. Every block builds on the last. Every deliverable is immediately useful regardless of where someone is starting from. Nobody waits to catch up. Nobody is bored. The doing is the equalizer.
Cohort profile
Eleven participants. Five distinct situations.
The design accounts for all of them simultaneously.
Core team — deep in, from the start
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Mike — Fund Balance SME, 3 departments, likely incoming ACFO. Highest-stakes person in the room. Needs to walk away thinking about change leadership as part of his new identity, not just his analyst role. Stakeholder mapping and teach-back lean into that future.
core team
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Misty — Net County Cost and Measure K SME, already doing change management without the title. Session 1 validates and names what she is doing, then gives her sharper tools.
core team
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John Allan — Sherpa Administrator, parental leave July through August. Gone for the entire go-live window. Whatever he takes must be transferable before he leaves. Field Log onboarding is his anchor.
core teamleave risk
Eager builders
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Jojo — New senior role, main POC for September revisions, supporting Karina on Health Department (biggest in the County). Needs early wins. 30-day plan is her most valuable takeaway.
eager builder
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Jei — OFAS validation SME, Anaplan Level 1 certified. Capable but needs activation, not instruction. Pair with Ian. Give her a clear on-ramp she can follow without waiting to be pointed.
eager builder
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Karina — Reporting/dashboards SME, Anaplan Level 1 certified, proactively asked to get more involved. Ready and signaling it. Give her something to run with independently. Pair with Misty.
eager builder
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Ian — Workday data validation SME, innovative, fully engaged. Low-maintenance in the room, high-value as peer resource. Serves as activator for Jei in pairing design.
eager builder
Complex situations
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Helen — Just back from leave, new departments, still learning Anaplan. Likely overwhelmed. Session design makes space for her without drawing attention to it. Field Log onboarding feels like a lifeline, not another obligation. 30-day plan scoped to one thing she can do this week. Pair with Jojo.
complex
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Vanessa — Burned out. Actively looking for another position. Risk: Session 1 feels like one more thing done to her. Best case: she finds something immediately useful, not October-oriented. Commitment scoped to today or tomorrow. Pair with John Allan.
complex
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Andrew — Has accepted a new position, starting in about a month. Has not announced it. Cannot design for his departure explicitly. Every deliverable he touches becomes a transferable handoff artifact. Pair with remaining analyst to ensure completeness.
complex
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Yanixta — Starts May 26. Less than two weeks in before Session 1. Her newness is framed as an asset: fresh perspective explicitly named as valuable. 30-day plan is a listening plan, not an action plan. Pair with Mike.
complex
Deliberate pairing design
Every pair chosen to activate the person most at risk of hanging back, without making that visible to the room.
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Mike + Yanixta — senior perspective meets fresh lens; Mike benefits from articulating what he knows.
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Jojo + Helen — Jojo's eagerness is contagious; Helen needs a safe, energizing partner.
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Jei + Ian — Ian's initiative activates Jei without requiring a facilitator to prompt her.
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Karina + Misty — both certified, high capacity, push each other further.
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John Allan + Vanessa — his groundedness; she benefits from someone steady she trusts.
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Andrew + remaining analyst — ensures his deliverables are complete and transferable.
Session arc
Four blocks. Each builds on the last. No lectures. Everything produces something immediately usable.
0:00 — 0:30
Open: land and level
Everyone starts from the same place, regardless of where they have been.
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Best/worst debrief from pre-work. Kord surfaces patterns live without attributing to individuals. Establishes the day's frame: we are running a real working session and noticing how it works as we go. Yanixta and Helen participate from their own experience — no Anaplan context required.
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Explicit frame: leading while learning. How do you lead authoritatively on a system you are still learning? Practical language for the "I don't know yet, but here's how we'll find out" conversation. Names the room's shared truth and creates psychological safety for the whole day.
all
Design note: Vanessa and Andrew need to feel seen without being called out. The best/worst prompt is emotionally broad enough to meet people where they are.
0:30 — 1:30
Block 1: see the landscape
Map your real stakeholders. Build real empathy. Name what you are actually dealing with.
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Stakeholder mapping — real departments, real people. Each analyst maps one pre-identified contact. Not a hypothetical. Core Team goes deeper on resistance patterns. Helen and Yanixta map from what they know so far. Andrew's map is a transferable artifact.
alldeliverable: stakeholder map
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Empathy mapping — pairs, real contacts. One insight shared with the full group. Pairing is deliberate per design above.
alldeliverable: empathy map
1:30 — 3:00
Block 2: build your approach
Design something real. Practice it. Get a rep in before the day ends.
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Internal champions — framework then immediate application. Each analyst identifies one champion in their department. Core Team activates someone they have not yet reached. Jojo uses this for Health Department. Vanessa identifies someone she genuinely trusts. Andrew's champion identification becomes a handoff artifact.
alldeliverable: named champion
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Tiny Projects: 30-day crawl plan. Structure: one relationship to deepen, one friction to address, one small win to engineer. Core Team drafts at higher specificity. Helen's plan scoped to one thing she can do this week. Yanixta drafts a listening plan — observe and orient, not act.
alldeliverable: 30-day plan
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Teach-back round: two reps, not one. Rep 1: small groups of 3, brief one insight and how you would use it with a department user (5 min each). Rep 2: pairs swap, each person responds to a real objection the other has actually heard. Core Team plays the skeptical department user in Rep 2. Karina and Jei facilitate, not just present.
allcore teameager builders
Design note: The objection round in Rep 2 is where the real learning happens. It is the closest simulation of an actual department conversation the session can produce. Two reps means everyone leaves having practiced at least twice.
3:00 — 4:00
Close: anchor and launch
Leave with something real. The Field Log is live from today, not a preview.
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Field Log onboarding: real launch, not preview. Each person logs their first entry before leaving. Prompt: what did I notice today, what am I going to try first, what am I uncertain about? Kord demonstrates the facilitator view. John Allan's entry is explicitly framed as his anchor before parental leave.
alldeliverable: first Field Log entry
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Individual commitments. Each person names one thing they will do before Round 1 coaching. Specific and observable. Vanessa's commitment scoped to today or tomorrow. Yanixta's: one conversation she will have in her first two weeks.
all
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Plus/delta structured close. Kord captures in real time and feeds into Field Log synthesis. Andrew's delta treated as seriously as anyone else's.
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Design note: Optional 1:1s same day by request. Priority: Helen (reassurance), Jei (activation), Yanixta (orientation). Vanessa if she signals openness.
Session deliverables
Every participant walks away with all four, scoped to their situation.
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Stakeholder map and empathy map: at least one real department contact mapped and understood.
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30-day crawl plan: one relationship, one friction, one small win, scoped to their situation.
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Named internal champion: one person to activate before the first coaching round.
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First Field Log entry: live before leaving. The thread that carries everyone through October.