A major operational shift in how Allstate manages knowledge for its internal stakeholders and agents affected tens of thousands of documents, over a dozen departments, and set the stage for a new center of excellence in the organization.

Project Objective
Develop a new operating model to bring together the decentralized knowledge in the organization.

Strategy
Implement a hybrid operating model that lets decentralized experts create their own content to a common set of standards, monitored by a center of excellence, and housed in a centralized content management system.

The Work
A thorough exploratory was performed, interviewing stakeholders and reviewing examples of knowledge documents over the course of several weeks. Given Allstate’s unique culture, constraints, and objectives, we aligned to a hybrid model that leveraged key aspects of decentralization and centralization.

We developed a detailed plan for migrating knowledge from several legacy systems into a standardized, single source of truth. A new taxonomy was created for this system which would house tens of thousands of documents at any given moment.  A repeatable migration method would guide decisions about how to migrate, update, and archive in compliance with stringent insurance requirements.

Once the content was migrated, a governance system to manage the knowledge was needed. In-depth workflows were created for each type of content, showing each step of the process for multiple types of content. Decision trees and approvals were mapped out from the initial request for content updates to the moment it was published in the system.

To manage the massive migration and management effort, Allstate’s current org chart and staffing was evaluated. We identified the necessary roles and responsibilities, the effort required, and mapped that to actual personnel within Allstate. A proposal to reorganize staff, shift responsibilities, and tap into temporary resources for the surge needed during migration was outlined.

A two year roadmap and change management plan was created in collaboration with Allstate in order to set this massive project and cultural shift up for success. An initial communication plan and key checkpoints were established in order to ensure new learnings and challenges were quickly incorporated or addressed as the plan progressed.

Deliverables

• Stakeholder Interviews
• Content Audit
• Governance Strategy
• Content Architecture
• Process Design
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Change Management Plan