Supermarket giant Tesco operates in 14 countries across the world and is dedicated to developing the business skills within its staff, including those around project management and managing change. In 2008, Tesco’s Change Management Team reviewed their training courses on Project Management and Change Management. The team decided that the existing courses would be most effective to Tesco staff if they were consolidated into one two-day course. As a result, Tesco retained the services of First Friday to help build the content for the new course and to deliver the training to Tesco managers around the world every month.
 
Why First Friday?
“First Friday is a very credible company in retail. To run the course successfully, the managers we are training at Tesco need to believe that their trainers have retail expertise that adds value to their own knowledge. This course is about equipping our managers with the best skills for their jobs. First Friday has a proven track record with our business and they bring something fresh and new to the training that we run with them. Our people work well with their people, essentially they are just like us - First Friday consists of deep-down retailers,” said David Lummas, UK Operations Development, Tesco.
 
The Project
Tesco had a bespoke requirement to build a workshop to provide training and support on best practices in project management - they are committed to training their people to run successful projects on time and in budget. This was part of Tesco’s Step-Change program, which was helping Tesco make continuous improvements to its operating model to make things better for customers, simpler for staff and cheaper for the company. To this end, Tesco worked with First Friday to develop the content for a two-day training course on project management, the Tesco way. Topics covered in the course are:
• What makes a project successful
• The process
• Emotional cycle of change
• Stakeholder analysis
• Managing communication – building elevator pitches
• Ensuring successful delivery
• Using common skills to manage change

The Results
This two-day course began in November 2008 and now runs monthly. Hundreds of staff in the UK, Ireland, Turkey, China, Korea and the United States have not only attended the course, but in some instances have attended ‘Train the Trainer’ sessions and are now spreading this methodology far and wide.
 
“We have run the course repeatedly and tried different permutations of trainers but the most successful method is having one trainer from Tesco and a facilitator from First Friday. This means we have a balance of experience from both Tesco and the retail industry at large. First Friday’s experiences in retail mean we have great story-telling and anecdotal evidence from the field of what works best in project management. Our goal is to give delegates the practical tools to do their job effectively and consistently. There is continuous innovation and change in our business; it’s how we stay competitive. Now we have built out a recognised methodology which is filtering through the business,” concluded Lummas.
 
Summary
“Tesco had a clear requirement for building a valuable, repeatable and practical training course in the area of project management. Our consulting team has a wealth of project management experience highly relevant to the retail industry. So we are able to build bespoke skills training programmes like this with Tesco very effectively. First Friday has a broad relationship with Tesco that has spanned many years and business areas. We are committed to developing best in class commercial skills, whether that’s learning to work with a new system or developing future retail leaders. Training must start with the people and how they need to work. Our aim is to help them do their jobs more skilfully and efficiently.” Robin Turner, Managing Director, First Friday.   

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