A selection of past collaborations
thinknext is the consultancy of Christoph Schmaltz: a sparring partner for those responsible for digital workplace, project and change in large corporations and mid-sized companies. Strategy and delivery come from a single source, together with delivery partners and other consultants where needed.
What counts is not the elegant theory behind a project, but whether something works at the end that didn't work before. This conviction runs through everything thinknext takes on.
Whether it's a new introduction or further development: thinknext advises on intranet, knowledge management, digital collaboration and AI tools such as Copilot. Mostly based on M365 or Confluence, always with the change management that makes sure it actually gets used.
Intranet & Knowledge Management · Digital Collaboration · AI & Copilot Adoption · Consulting & Requirements Analysis · Change Management & Adoption
Change doesn't succeed through announcements, but through a clear approach: analysing the starting point, a strategy, a communication plan, and enabling the people who have to make it happen.
Change Analysis & Change Impact Assessment · Change Strategy & Communication Plan · Enablement · Digital Leadership
Digital projects need one thing above all: someone who actually sees them through. thinknext takes over project steering, from planning through risk and stakeholder management to go-live, and makes sure the right thing gets built in the end.
Project Management & Steering · Stakeholder & Risk Management · Product Ownership · Design Thinking & Design Sprints · Agile Development
An overview of the services: typical packages from the three fields, each with a clear outcome. Scope and process are agreed together to fit your organization.
Analysis of usage data, short interviews with key users and an assessment of the current tool landscape. The result is a prioritized list of concrete measures.
A fixed-term format with workshops, prioritization and a clear roadmap for the digital workplace at the end.
Review of the existing intranet structure, analysis of usage and development of concrete improvements for navigation, content and maintenance processes.
Design of the information architecture, selection or adaptation of the platform and support through the rollout, from the first user survey to go-live.
Review of existing knowledge management structures, analysis of information flows and development of concrete improvements for storage, findability and maintenance.
Requirements analysis, market scan and structured comparison of several KM platforms against defined criteria, with a well-founded recommendation at the end.
Workshops and interviews to identify realistic use cases, analysis of the data foundation and assessment of organizational readiness, ahead of a licensing decision.
Analysis of existing permissions and sharing in M365, a concept for data classification and access rules, and alignment with IT security, data protection and the works council, so that Copilot only surfaces content users are allowed to see.
Development of audience-specific training formats per team and role, manager sessions and follow-up check-ins after the rollout, focused on concrete use cases rather than generic features.
Development of a communication concept, training for employees and managers, and support of the introduction over several weeks.
Analysis of existing storage structures, development of a permission and organization concept and alignment with the business units before technical implementation in SharePoint.
Development of a reusable communication process for IT releases, including templates, responsibilities and timeline.
Interviews and a structured survey on the organization's current readiness for change, with an assessment of potential resistance.
Stakeholder mapping, structured interviews and an assessment of who is affected by a planned change, and how strongly.
Development of concrete messages, formats and timing along the project phases, tailored to the respective target groups.
Audience analysis, development of a message architecture and alignment of communication channels for the respective change project.
Impact analysis, development of a communication plan and setup of a network of local change contacts, alongside an ongoing tech rollout.
Building a library of formats, templates and a repeatable process that enables future change projects to be run independently.
Several coaching sessions with the team, including concrete agreements on collaboration and follow-up on implementation.
Training formats on Scrum, roles and agile leadership, with practical exercises based on the team's real projects.
A facilitated workshop, kick-off, retro or review, ending with concrete agreements on future collaboration.
Fixed workshop formats on agility, team coaching and digital leadership, with concrete exercises instead of pure theory.
Development of multi-week learning formats with several modules, peer learning elements and accompanying check-ins instead of a one-off training.
Taking over project leadership embedded in the client team, including steering, reporting and alignment with all stakeholders.
Introduction of tools, processes and a fixed reporting rhythm, adapted to the structure and size of the respective project.
Project steering for the introduction of Workday, including module selection, workshops with business units and risk and stakeholder management across all project phases.
Project steering for the introduction of P&I LOGA, from requirements gathering through configuration to handover into ongoing operations.
Workshops for stocktaking and ideation, followed by a prioritization that ends in a digital strategy with a clear sequence.
Structured requirements gathering with business units and IT, documented in a requirements specification as the basis for developers or service providers.
Preparation of the tender documents, development of evaluation criteria and moderation of the vendor selection through to the decision.
Taking over backlog management, prioritization and stakeholder alignment for the duration of the project or until the role is filled internally.
Coordination of several workstreams including dependencies, joint scheduling and consistent reporting to sponsor and steering committee.
A few past projects. Clients, industries, topics and scale vary, but the fundamentals don't: people hold the key to success.
Change management for the Atlassian migration to the cloud, from strategy to rollout.
Result: Change strategy and comprehensive communication for 20,000 users, so that the migration succeeds without disrupting day-to-day business.
Leading an intranet relaunch, from concept to rollout.
Result: Intranet designed together with 6 business units, 40% fewer navigation levels and launch on schedule.
Change and communication workstream for a Workday rollout to 60,000 employees.
Result: Network of 45 local change managers in 20 countries; communication reached employees and managers before go-live.
Migration of more than 120,000 customers to a new platform during live operation.
Result: Over 120,000 customers migrated during live operation, 0 critical outages throughout the migration.
Project management for the introduction of P&I LOGA.
Result: Project governance established in 4 weeks, so far 8 of 9 milestones on plan, clear goals and a better mood in the project team.
Migration of around 35 TB / 15 million documents to SharePoint Online.
Result: 35 TB and 15 million documents migrated, access concept without security incidents, 12 business departments supported.
Building a company-specific OCM framework to scale change across the entire company.
Result: Library with over 50 formats, 30 OCM champions in the learning journey, change planning in new projects 50% faster.
Design and delivery of Microsoft Copilot training for more than 2,000 employees.
Result: Over 2,000 employees trained, 85% use Copilot regularly after three months, satisfaction 4.5 out of 5.
Introduction and rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot for more than 5,000 employees.
Result: Over 5,000 employees enabled, 120 champions in the network, 70% active use after six months.
Evaluation and training program for the rollout of Microsoft Copilot. After a successful evaluation, the rollout followed for more than 1,300 employees.
Result: Over 1,300 employees in the rollout, solid basis for decision from 3 evaluation rounds, 80% would recommend Copilot.
The best platform is worthless if nobody uses it. That's why every project follows the same path, from understanding to real use:
Analysis and exploration: who are the key target groups, what are their pain points, how do they really work today? This comes before any platform decision.
The system is created with the users, not just for them. Design thinking and design sprints bring them on board from day one, not only for feedback.
People are informed, inspired and enabled, not just trained. Mindset and skillset grow in parallel with the toolset.
The result: a solution that is actually used, and the real ROI of the project.
Christoph Schmaltz is a Prosci Certified Change Practitioner; the change part follows the Prosci methodology and the ADKAR® model: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement. Every measure targets a specific stage, instead of letting communication and training run side by side without connection.
Metrics before, during and after the rollout: usage rates, skill levels and satisfaction of the target groups. This makes visible whether the change is landing, and where to adjust.
Digital workplace and change projects are often bought from large consultancies. Here is how it works at thinknext.
Concept, steering and quality are in the hands of someone with two decades of experience who also does the work himself: analysing, facilitating, training, steering. Partners add capacity where needed.
The work takes place embedded in your organization, or together with delivery partners and other consultants for technical implementation and additional capacity, never as a detached slide handover.
No account manager layer between you and the person who actually does the work.
Projects start at short notice, without the multi-week wait that large consultancies often bring.
Strategy and delivery from a single source: Christoph designs, steers and rolls up his sleeves himself. When a project needs more capacity or specialist knowledge, he works with delivery partners and other consultants.
Christoph started in 2006 as a social business consultant at Headshift in London, advising law firms, consultancies and banks, including Freshfields, PwC, Coca-Cola and the Bank of England, on social intranets and knowledge networking.
In 2012 he founded thinknext in London; from 2015 to 2018 he led digital transformation as Director at Zeppelin Group in Germany and built up its digital strategy, intranet and social collaboration platform. Since 2018 he has run thinknext as an independent consultant, change manager and product owner from Pamplona, Spain.
Current projects range from Workday rollouts for tens of thousands of employees and SharePoint migrations in the double-digit terabyte range to Copilot enablement programs for thousands of employees, always with the same starting point: understand the people first, then touch the platform.
The most common questions before a first conversation, answered briefly.
Collaboration runs remotely and on site. For workshops, kick-offs and go-lives, thinknext travels to you, within the EU.
Projects, workshops and trainings run in German and English, and in Spanish if needed.
As part of the team in a time-limited role (project lead, product owner), as a defined package or as regular sparring.
No generic sales pitch, but a conversation about where your organization stands and where things actually get stuck.