NewLeading and Delivering Transformational Change: Understanding, Designing and Planning Change

Dates:

• 9 - 13 November 2026
• 8 -12 Novem,ber 2027

Workshop Outline

This workshop provides a practical introduction to leading and delivering strategic change. Across five workshop days, participants explore why organisations change, how leaders create the conditions for successful transformation, and how change initiatives are designed, planned and justified.

Learning is applied throughout to the fictional scenario over the course of the programme   enabling participants to respond to emerging challenges and progressively develop an initial change proposal, delivery approach and business case.

Scenario for attendees to progress

Using a complex, realistic public-sector transformation scenario throughout the two weeks, with new information and complications introduced each day. That way, participants progressively build a complete change programme rather than doing unrelated exercises.

Recommended scenario: "The One Public Service Transformation Programme"

The situation

A fictional public-sector organisation, provides a range of services to citizens and businesses.

The organisation is facing:

• Increasing demand for services
• Tightening budgets
• Outdated technology
• Duplication between teams and departments
• Inconsistent customer experiences
• Too many manual processes
• Data held in separate systems
• Increasing expectations for digital services
• Difficulty recruiting specialist staff
• Pressure from government to demonstrate better value for money

A recent internal review has identified that different parts of the organisation are delivering similar activities independently, creating duplication, inconsistent processes and unnecessary cost.

The Chief Executive has therefore asked for a:

"One Public Service Transformation Programme"

The aim is to redesign how services are delivered, reduce duplication, improve the citizen experience and create a more joined-up organisation.

Workshop Objectives

• Analyse the strategic, operational, technological and workforce drivers creating the need for change.
• Explain the role and behaviours of transformational leaders and effective change agents.
• Assess how organisational culture, structure, capability and stakeholder expectations affect change readiness.
• Apply problem analysis, creativity and decision-making techniques to define the change and evaluate options.
• Identify key delivery risks, dependencies, resources, benefits and measures of success.
• Select an appropriate programme or project delivery approach for the proposed transformation.
• Develop and present the core components of an initial business case, governance model and implementation plan.

Key Topics

• Understanding Change: internal and external drivers, strategic context, systems thinking, the case for change and transformational leadership.
• Creating the Conditions for Change: change-agent roles, organisational culture and structure, capability, stakeholder identification, influence and engagement.
• Designing the Change: problem definition, root-cause analysis, outcome setting, creative thinking, innovation, option appraisal and decision making.
• Planning and Delivering Change: organisational readiness, programme and project approaches, sequencing, resources, dependencies, risks, benefits and success measures.
• Building the Business Case: strategic, economic, financial, commercial and management considerations; governance; assurance; implementation planning; and presentation of recommendations.
• Applied Programme Scenario: progressive development of a practical operating-model transformation proposal for Northshire Public Services.

Workshop Director

Niran Mothada

Niran is an accomplished executive leader with unique corporate leadership experience in the civil service and local government. She has operated in multifaceted and sensitive political environments and led intense media, public, and regulatory scrutiny. Her expertise spans strategy, policy, operations, resilience, programme delivery, and leading large-scale change and transformation. She is accustomed to navigating complex organisational structures and building consensus across diverse partner ecosystems to deliver national and regional strategies and operations.

Previously Niran was Executive Director Strategy and Communications at the Greater London Authority, a member of the GLA Corporate Executive Team reporting to the Chief Office with responsibility for 300 people.  She has led Mayoral strategies and organizational development for the GLA and directed their Covid response establishing the London Recovery Board aligning cross sector strategies for post pandemic recovery.

As Head of Change and Capability, Risk and Intelligence Service at HMRC, she managed multiple change programmes and a budget of £102m for a directorate of 2500 people.  She restructured a failing change team, and implemented a lean strategy to release efficiencies and introduce KPIs to inform strategic decisions and continually improve and track performance.

This is week one of Leading and Delivering Transformational Change Toolkit.