Lifetime

Established in 1995 Lifetime Training has grown to become the largest UK apprenticeship provider. Working with companies such as Tesco, Iceland, DWP, Greene King and more, they operate across key industry sectors with some of the largest UK employers.

Early in the 2020 pandemic Lifetime embarked on a significant transformation programme designed to drive business growth. With a focus on enhancing the Learner experience, Lifetime outlined a programme to deliver next-level operational systems and streamline processes to enable delivery of strategic goals.

 

Programme assurance review, setup and programme leadership

Nine Feet Tall were engaged initially to provide Lifetime with an assurance review of the Transformation programme, subsequently implementing recommendations to ensure that the programme was setup for success. Through this process Nine Feet Tall re-shaped Lifetime’s Transformation programme to enable clear focus on core projects and the management of key dependencies.  Nine Feet Tall also defined and implemented a ‘just enough’ governance approach to set the programme up for success and facilitate a ‘no surprises’ and transparent delivery. Nine Feet Tall worked with Lifetime to establish the foundations for an in house PMO ensuring the right processes and tools were in place to effectively support delivery.  Following the initial assurance review and programme set up, Nine Feet Tall continued to provide programme Leadership, with a parallel focus on building capability of the team and embedding a continuous improvement approach. From the outset, a critical success factor was to ensure that the programme maintained momentum, through a period of re-shaping the programme and establishing an improved foundation, and continued to deliver within a challenging business environment; this was driven not only by the pandemic, but also the need to be increasingly responsive to emerging market needs and legislative changes.

Programme change delivery

Nine Feet Tall were further engaged oversee the Change Management of the programme and to build Lifetime’s Change capability and framework. Nine Feet Tall supported Lifetime to successfully navigate an organisational shift in ways of working, job role structures, technology change and fundamental behaviours. Simultaneously, Nine Feet Tall uplifted Lifetime’s organisational change capability, established a change network and change management framework and tool kit that will service Lifetime’s ongoing needs as a business.

Change for good

Throughout delivery, Nine Feet Tall consultants delivered coaching and capability build across the team at Lifetime - specifically: Onboarding, upskilling and supporting the ‘in-role’ development of the PMO Lead; Training Change Leads, whilst supporting delivery and providing oversight to ensuring best practice was delivered across the change portfolio; Coaching and development for future project and programme leaders, leaving the foundation for ongoing managed portfolio delivery

Outcomes

Nine Feet Tall successfully established effective programme governance, enabled Lifetime to deliver projects, programmes and change through capability build of the in-house team, and supported delivery of a complex programme of work, benefitting 10,000+ end users, through a very challenging period in history.

Lifetime now have a team fully equipped to deliver ongoing change. Their work with Nine Feet Tall has resulted in increased internal appreciation of organisation-wide change and has built resilience for future change and continuous improvement. This was evidenced by Lifetimes award in 2022 for Business Change and Transformation at the CX Awards.