Lab 1 — Draft a Transformation Charter for a 5,000-Person Organisation

COMPEL Specialization — AITE-WCT: AI Workforce Transformation Expert Lab 1 of 5

Lab objective

Produce a transformation charter for a described 5,000-person organisation. The charter is the artefact that launches an AI workforce transformation and anchors the work against drift through the rest of the programme. A complete charter names sponsor coalition composition, programme scope, decision rights, stage gates, and initial success criteria. It is the object of the guiding-coalition’s opening endorsement (per Kotter Step 2, Article 20) and the first structural artefact the works council (Article 27) will engage.

Prerequisites

• Completion of Articles 1 (composite programme), 18 (methodology choice), 20 (Kotter 8-step), and 27 (works-council engagement) of this credential.
• Familiarity with the companion Template 1 (Transformation Charter) of this credential.

The organisation — Northstar Banking

Northstar Banking is a mid-tier European retail and commercial bank, headquartered in Amsterdam with substantial operations in Germany, France, and Belgium. Workforce: 5,200 employees, distributed roughly as: 2,800 in retail banking (branch network + contact centre), 900 in commercial banking (relationship managers + underwriters + portfolio analysts), 600 in operations and back office, 400 in technology, 200 in risk and compliance, 150 in finance, 80 in HR, 50 in strategy and marketing, 20 in executive and governance functions.

Regulatory: EU AI Act applicable from August 2025; ECB supervision; national financial regulators in each jurisdiction. Works councils: German Betriebsrat, French CSE, Dutch ondernemingsraad, Belgian conseil d’entreprise, and an EU-level European Works Council. The last comprehensive workforce-restructuring exercise was 2018, well-executed but now memory.

Current AI state: several pilots running in commercial underwriting (draft-generation), retail (chatbot triage), operations (document classification), and finance (reconciliation assistance). No enterprise-wide literacy programme; no role redesign; no structured change programme. Limited manager enablement. The CEO has named AI as a strategic priority in the latest strategic plan; the CHRO has been asked to propose a workforce-transformation programme in response.

The Head of AI Governance role exists but is thinly resourced (one person plus two analysts reporting into risk). There is no AI Programme Office.

Step-by-step method

Work through each step in order. Each produces a section of the charter.

Step 1 — Sponsor coalition composition (15 minutes)

Using the guidance in Article 20, compose the sponsor coalition for Northstar’s transformation. Name specifically:

• The primary sponsor (who owns the outcome).
• The co-sponsor pair (the day-to-day leadership pair).
• The guiding coalition members (typically 7–10 people).
• The at-least-one dissenting voice whose role is to challenge assumptions.
• The cadence of coalition meetings.
• The relationship to the board.

Record your coalition in Section 1 of the charter template (sponsor names by role, not individual — you do not know the individuals).

Step 2 — Programme scope (15 minutes)

Using the eight workstreams framework from Article 1, specify which workstreams Northstar’s programme will include at Year 1 launch and which will join at Year 2 or later. Justify each decision with reference to the organisation’s current state and the saturation argument from Article 22.

The common Year 1 workstreams for a programme of Northstar’s profile: literacy, talent pipeline, change methodology, manager enablement. The common Year 2 additions: role redesign at scale, performance-system redesign, culture investment. The common Year 3: sustainment infrastructure. Your choice may differ; justify it.

Record your scope in Section 2 of the charter.

Step 3 — Decision rights (20 minutes)

For each of the following decision classes, name who decides:

• Scope and budget of workstreams (Year 1 and multi-year).
• Role-redesign decisions at role-family level.
• Individual role-redesign decisions affecting named employees.
• Selection criteria for any redundancy programme.
• Performance-system changes affecting all employees.
• Curriculum approval for the literacy programme.
• Works-council consultation material approval.
• Board reporting content.

Use the standard RACI approach (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for each. The R and A may differ; the A should usually not differ within a decision class.

Record decision rights in Section 3 of the charter.

Step 4 — Stage gates (15 minutes)

Name the programme’s stage gates and the criteria for passing each. Minimum gates: Year 1 Q2 launch gate (the programme is formally underway); Year 1 year-end review (does the programme continue on the current trajectory); Year 2 mid-programme review (same question at the mid-point); Year 3 recommit gate (the explicit extension into year 4+).

For each gate, name: the decision body; the required evidence (readiness score, KPI tree metrics, retrospective findings); the possible decisions (continue, adjust, pause, stop).

Record stage gates in Section 4 of the charter.

Step 5 — Success criteria (15 minutes)

Specify the success criteria the charter commits to. Using the KPI tree structure from Article 33, name the Level-1 outcome targets for year 3 and the year-1 driver targets. Be specific. A success criterion such as “improve productivity” is too vague to anchor the programme; a criterion such as “commercial underwriting turnaround reduces by 25% with quality score maintained at or above baseline” is specific enough to be tested.

The success-criterion set is typically 4–6 statements, balanced across the outcome categories (productivity, retention, engagement, capability). Not every criterion needs to move in the first year; some are year-2 or year-3 targets.

Record success criteria in Section 5 of the charter.

Step 6 — Methodology selection (10 minutes)

Using the framework from Article 18, name the primary methodology, the supporting methodologies, and the combination pattern. For a programme of Northstar’s scope and complexity, Pattern A (Kotter for the programme, ADKAR within workstreams, Bridges overlaid on role-change) is typical; justify your choice or your alternative.

Record methodology selection in Section 6 of the charter.

Deliverable

A completed transformation charter, 3–5 pages, with all six sections populated. The deliverable is self-scoring against the rubric below.

Scoring rubric

Passing standard: 75 points. Below 75 indicates structural gaps in the charter; review the relevant article and rework the weak section.

Worked example — partial reference solution

A complete reference solution is provided in the instructor materials. The partial reference below illustrates the level of specificity expected in Section 1.

Section 1 — Coalition composition (partial example):

• Primary sponsor: CEO. Owns the outcome, makes the final call on major decisions, visible to the board and workforce.
• Co-sponsor pair: CHRO and Head of AI Governance. Run the day-to-day programme; share accountability for integration.
• Guiding coalition: the two co-sponsors plus CFO (resource commitments), COO (operational integration), Chief Risk Officer (regulatory interface), Chief Transformation Officer or equivalent (delivery authority), two business-unit heads (Retail Banking and Commercial Banking), Chief Legal Officer (works-council and regulatory interface), and one external voice (a board member with change-experience attending as adviser to the coalition on a non-voting basis).
• Dissenting voice: the Chief Risk Officer is positioned as the standing sceptic, with explicit coalition responsibility to test programme assumptions and surface risks the other members may be disposed to minimise.
• Cadence: monthly 90-minute meetings with standing agenda; additional escalation meetings as needed; annual 2-day offsite for strategic review.
• Board relationship: formal quarterly reports; informal CEO updates at each board meeting.

Expected depth: each of the sections above populated at similar specificity.

Lab discussion questions

After completing the charter, discuss in pairs or small groups:

• Where did your coalition composition differ from the reference, and why?
• Which scope decisions did you make differently? Are they defensible against saturation?
• Which decision rights were hardest to assign? Why?
• Do your success criteria carry the programme’s weight for three years?

Connection to later labs

This charter is the input to Lab 5 (role-redesign and works-council engagement), where the charter’s decision rights, scope, and methodology choice are tested under the pressure of a specific role-change decision. Labs 2, 3, and 4 develop specific workstreams within the scope this charter has defined.

Quality rubric — self-assessment of lab