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We believe bold ideas deserve practical tools, and real insight should be easy to access. Our content is made for leaders who are done with fluff and ready to lead with clarity, action, and impact.

Blogs

Creating A Compelling Business Case

Creating A Compelling Business Case
Aug 15, 2024 3 min read
Category:Blog / Highlight 1

In project management, a well-crafted business case is the cornerstone of successful project approval. Read how you can make your next business case stand...

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Portfolio & Project Planning

Portfolio & Project Planning
Aug 6, 2024 3 min read
Category:Blog / Highlight 2

The success of an organisation hinges on it's ability to align its projects with it's strategic goals. This alignment ensures that every project undertaken contributes to the organisation's long...

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Mastering Effecting Communication

Mastering Effecting Communication
Jun 14, 2024 3 min read
Category:Blog

Communication is the lifeblood of any successful project. It connects team members, stakeholders, and project sponsors, fostering collaboration and driving progress. However, it's crucial to remember...

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Strategic Solutions For Return on Investment - The Outlier Group - Project Management Brisbane

Mastering Project Planning

Apr 18, 2024

As businesses gear up for a new financial year, effective project planning becomes paramount for success. Whether you’re a seasoned project manager or stepping into this role for the first time, mastering the art of project planning can make all the difference.

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Digital Transformation Project Delivery Partner - Chaos to Workflow - The Outlier Group - Brisbane

Navigating Scope Creep

Feb 21, 2024

In the realm of project management, scope creep stands as a formidable challenge, threatening timelines, budgets, and team morale. Yet, within this challenge lies an opportunity for projects to demonstrate their adaptability and resilience.

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Project Management and Strategy - The Outlier Group - Brisbane

Compassion in Project Management

Jan 10, 2024

In the dynamic realm of project management, where timelines are tight, resources are scarce, and expectations run high, the often-overlooked key to success might just be compassion. While technical prowess, strategic thinking, and meticulous planning are undeniably crucial, weaving compassion into the fabric of project management can elevate teams to new heights.

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The Outlier Group Team

The Outlier Group

A specialist Change Management agency who design and deploys Change campaigns that are memorable and move the needle.

Recent Posts

Change Doesn't Have to Suck Podcast Episodes

Why Openness Is A KPI Organisations Should Start Measuring with Dr William Brendel

Recording waterside at Melbourne’s Docklands, fresh from his keynote at OD Australia’s 2026 conference, Jasmine and Alistair sit with Open Source OD founder Dr William Brendel to ask why openness might be the most important thing your organisation isn’t measuring.  

In an age of accelerated change and change fatigue, Bill explains why people faced with threat ‘close off’.  

He walks through his Open Assessment and its two core principles: psychological safety (are you able to change?) and growth mindset (are you willing?).  

He also shares a deceptively simple trick for staying open in any meeting, and – announced first on the show – his new home for democratising OD, organizationdevelopment.io.  

Tune in to discover how open your organisation really is and how to start opening it up tomorrow.

Transformation Starts With Storytelling: Why the Stories We Tell Ourselves Matter with Pirooz Jafari

Live from OD Australia’s 2026 conference, Jasmine and Alistair sit down with passionate storyteller and Track C Consulting founder Pirooz Jafari – who arrived in Australia three decades ago as an ambitious photographer, studied law, and spent years in the community sector before turning his lifelong love of storytelling into his work.

Together they explore the “theatre” of the workplace: the scripts we perform without noticing, who writes them and the shadow a leader casts when they chase a goal without ever questioning the story underneath.

Pirooz makes the case that open organisations aren’t built on slogans like “my door is always open,” but on genuine human connection – and that as AI takes the mundane off our plates, we have a rare chance to reclaim the time for it.

Tune in for a warm, human conversation that lands on a simple nod to Toni Morrison: how necessary it is to become, and remain, human.

Half Of Your Leadership Talent Are Leaving And You May Not Realise Why with Dr Krista Troiani

Jasmine and Alistair are joined by Dr Krista Troiani in the bustling and beautiful Melbourne Docklands. Live from OD Australia 2026, the conversation starts with her own “leaky bucket.”

A high-performing pharmaceutical rep, Krista was quietly told part-time job-shares “never work,” and was then restructured out after her maternity leave.  That poignant moment became her research.  

Now a Professor of Management and mother of five, she unpacks why accommodating working mothers isn’t charity but retention strategy: the loyalty, psychological safety and retained talent organisations gain, and the leadership they haemorrhage when they don’t.  She and the team dig into the glass ceiling and glass floor, why some stated ‘policies’ can be unavailable and the question most organisations never ask – what’s in it for them.  

Tune in to discover why your best leaders may be slipping out of a bucket you didn’t know was leaking.

What Do We Lose When We Kill The Template?

In this episode of Change Doesn’t Have to Suck, Jasmine and Alistair reflect on their key takeaways from Orlando and tackle a fundamental question: what do we lose when we kill the template?

They examine whether rigid frameworks still serve organisations facing continuous transformation, exploring flexible, diagnostic approaches like P4E that safeguard workforce bandwidth.

Finally, they offer a preview of their upcoming trip to Melbourne to connect with the Organisational Development Australia community.

The OCM Reckoning with Kelly Kluge

Jasmine and Alistair are finishing their live tour at ACMP Global Change with Wisconsin-based transformation expert Kelly Kluge. Their topic – dissecting the impending “OCM Reckoning”.

Holding no punches, Kelly challenges the industry to abandon outdated, rigid frameworks like ADKAR and start operating as genuine strategic advisers. She unpacks the critical shift towards “always-on” change, explains why transformation leaders must act more like a “Chief of Transformation”, and reveals why driving human adoption 12 weeks before go-live is the ultimate game-changer.

Tune in to discover how to move past templated deliverables and start architecting true human-centred readiness in the age of AI.

Design Thinking as a Pre-process for Change with Erja Klemola

Continuing live from the ACMP Global Conference in Orlando, Jasmine and Alistair talk with Finnish transformation pioneer Erja Klemola about why design thinking is the essential first step in any change effort.

Erja explains how to move past rigid, tech-first planning and get real alignment from frontline teams. She breaks down the critical “Day 47” window and how it can reshape high-stakes situations like cross-border mergers. Her core argument: stop rolling out cold “Minimum Viable Products.” Instead, build a “Minimum Lovable Process” – one that uses genuine human curiosity to overcome the resistance that top-down strategy usually creates.

Listen in to get a creative perspective on how we should be framing transformation from day one.

How Environments Create Better Change with John Greco

Fresh off delivering one of the most engaging presentations at the ACMP Global Conference in Orlando, OD consultant and Better Change author, John Greco, sits down with Jasmine and Alistair to explore why real transformation requires reshaping the environment before you can ever change a team’s mindset.

Drawing on classic behavioural psychology, John unpacks how structural policies, physical workplace layouts and the long shadow of leadership dictate how people operate on the ground.

Dive in to a rivetting epsiode to discover how to move past top-down mandates and leverage environmental levers to drive human adoption at scale successfully.

Binge-Watching Change & Unlocking True Adoption Data with Patrick McCreesh

Continuing live from the ACMP Global Conference in Orlando, Jasmine and Alistair sit down with data strategist and Stuck co-author Patrick McCreesh to explore how data drives real workforce transformation.

Patrick unpacks how to look beyond vanity change metrics to measure actual operational adoption, sharing how the MEL framework (Memory, Emotion, and Learning) can reshape high-stakes environments like mergers and acquisitions.

Listen in to discover why leaders must stop “force-feeding” continuous change initiatives and how creating a dedicated potential space allows employee curiosity to override the fear of organisational disruption.

Stuck by Design - Why Culture Should Be Your Top Change Strategy with Dr Victoria Grady

Continuing live from ACMP Global Conference in Orlando, Jasmine and Alistair sit down with George Mason University professor, Dr Victoria Grady, to unpack why generic, off-the-shelf frameworks fail without deep cultural alignment.

The conversation dives into the hidden power of organisational subcultures, the grounding nature of safety threads and how childhood attachment theory directly impacts an individual’s psychological readiness to absorb transformation.

Tune in to discover how Dr Grady’s upcoming “super framework” and innovative culture curves help leaders look beneath behavioural surfaces to stop their teams from getting stuck by design.

Why Resilience Must Be Your Top Priority for Change in 2026 with Michelle Yanahan

Live from the ACMP Global Conference in Orlando, Jasmine and Alistair are joined by ChangeFit360 founder Michelle Yanahan to discuss why building resilience must be a top priority for change management in 2026.

Michelle highlights how overcomplicating transformation with rigid templates and siloed projects creates severe fatigue, particularly for squeezed middle managers who must anchor their teams through disruption.

Tune in to discover simple, practical hacks like the ‘Circle of Control’ or establishing micro-behaviours to shift focus back to genuine human outcomes.

Building Certainty in an Uncertain World with Brit Watson

In this episode, Jasmine and Alistair are joined live at the ACMP Global Conference in Orlando by Brit Watson, founder of The Anchor & Ascend Institute, to discuss how leaders can effectively guide teams through organisational anxiety.

Brit breaks down the critical distinction between cognitive and emotional uncertainty, exposing why dumping more data on spiralling teams fails to build genuine trust.

Together, they explore practical strategies like shortening time horizons to restore employee agency and using the “authentic chameleon” model to navigate tough corporate transitions without losing your core values.

Is Standalone Project Change Dead? Let's Find Out - ACMP Global Conference

Jasmine and Alistair are back for Season 2 with a major shift, recording live from the ACMP Global Conference in Orlando.

In this premiere, they lay out their biggest thesis yet that traditional, standalone project change is dead and enterprise-level strategy must take over.

Tune in to get a sneak peek of the upcoming season and learn why it is finally time to let go of templates!

Maintaining Momentum During a Leadership Transition

Jasmine and Alistair explore how to maintain organisational momentum during leadership transitions, moving past vague corporate comms to focus on transparency and the “warm handshake” between leaders.
 
By reframing executive transitions as an evolution of your North Star, you can prevent strategic stalls and ensure teams remain empowered throughout the change.

Stop "Consulting" and Start Co-Designing

In this episode, Jasmine and Alistair sit down with Dr. John Lambert – a “unicorn” who is both a veteran clinician and a technologist. They are myth-busting the idea that Human-Centred Design (HCD) is a scary “nice-to-have” and proving why it’s actually a vital risk-management strategy.

In this episode, we unpack:

  • The Engagement Spectrum: Moving from “tick-box” consultation to true collaboration.

  • Evidence vs. Opinion: Using data to diffuse resistance and “toxic” opinions.

  • The ROI of Design: Why skipping usability testing upfront costs millions later.

  • The Empathy Gap: Identifying the “hidden” humans in your workflow.

Change doesn’t always have to suck, it can be awesome!

When the Band's Out of Tune, Getting Senior Leaders Back in Sync

If your middle managers aren’t aligned, your change initiative is already dead in the water.
 

In this episode, Jasmine and Alistair reveal how to spot when your leadership tier is out of sync, why a generic comms plan won’t fix it and the 3 power moves you need to make to get your strategy execution back on track.

400% Tax on Boring Change

Strategy is just a theory until your frontline actually adopts it.

In this bonus episode, Jasmine reveals a hard truth from top healthcare executives: skipping human-centred co-design at the start of your project will cost you a 400% “tax” on the back end.

Tune in to discover why you can’t mandate adoption after go-live, and how to engineer real ROI from day one instead.

The Leadership Peach & Why Comman-and-Control is Dead

The workplace has completely changed, but our management operating systems haven’t caught up.

In this special episode, Jasmine sits down with Stefan from PlaygroundedCo to ditch the command-and-control playbook and talk about the messy, human reality of group dynamics.

They unpack workplace trauma, why psychological safety is widely misunderstood, and introduce the “Peach Metaphor” a brilliant framework for understanding boundaries, risk, and the true power of play at work.

Spinning Plates Problem Surviving Perpetual Reprioritisation

Are your teams actually resistant to change, or are they just exhausted by constantly moving goalposts?

In this episode, Jasmine and Alistair tackle the “spinning plates” problem of perpetual reprioritisation and reveal how to cure change fatigue with a clear, enterprise-wide anthem.

Balancing AI Efficiency with the Human Touch

In the rush to ‘AI-enable’ everything, we are forgetting that algorithms can’t lead people. How do you decide which parts of your change journey belong to the machine and which parts require the human touch?

In this episode, Alistair and Jasmine discuss how the introduction of AI into an organisation isn’t just a tech rollout, it’s a redesign of human effort.  We explore the high-value work that remains strictly human-like, leadership, empathy and context versus the operational and data areas where AI is an undisputed game-changer.  

If you are currently implementing AI, we share practical tips on maintaining your ‘Human Premium’ while utilising technology to clear the path for better work.

Who's Who in the Change Zoo?

Stop treating your team like a monolithic block and start looking at the ‘Change Zoo’. 

In this episode, Alistair and Jasmine identify the four key archetypes found in every transition, from the sprinting Cheetahs to the sceptical Elephants.  

We discuss how to manage the friction between these personalities and why great Zookeepers are the most successful leaders.

The Right to Disconnect: Finding Your Rhythm in a 24/7 World

Eighteen months after the “Right to Disconnect” hit the airwaves, the line between high performance and sustainable rhythm remains blurry for the 62% of workers still pressured to stay “on” just to look committed.

Jasmine and Alistair discuss why leaders must move beyond policy guardrails to take real responsibility for their team’s energy, safety, and rightsizing capacity.

Learn how to use practical tools like “scheduled send” so after-hours work becomes a rare B-side rather than the lead anthem.

The Messy Middle: Keeping Change Alive When the Novelty Wears Off

The start of a change is exciting. The end is a relief. But the middle? The middle is messy.

In this episode, Alistair and Jasmine discuss why change projects often stall halfway through and how to use your ‘Outlier’ toolkit – from Psychological Safety to Small Wins – to bridge the gap between a great idea and a finished result.

Are Younger Generations Improving Workplaces?

Are Gen Z and Millennials ruining the workforce, or are they the best thing that ever happened to it?

Jasmine and Alistair unpack the friction between generations and explain why the shift from task-mastering to purpose-driven leadership is improving engagement across the board. From the importance of vulnerability to the ROI of psychological safety, we look at how the needs of younger workers are reshaping business for the better.

Listen in to find out how adapting to the “new school” mentality can actually boost performance and retention for your whole team.

 

New Year New Energy - Is the 'January Slump' Real?

In this episode, Alistair and Jasmine strip away the ‘New Year, New Me’ corporate veneer.

We’re talking about the January slump – it is real? Why might it happen? Is it actually okay?

Learn how to manage your team’s re-entry without burning them out by February 1st.

Bonus Episode - Year-End 2025

The stats are in, and they are surprising!

With Alistair living his best life in Tasmania, Jasmine O’Reilly takes the mic solo for this special end-of-year bonus episode. She unpacks a recent (and controversial) LinkedIn poll that asked one simple question: Does the Christmas party actually deliver a return on investment?

In this short and sharp episode, Jasmine explores:

  • Why burnout and low engagement are driving employees to choose “time off” over “celebration.”

  • The paradox of connection: Why we need social rituals more than ever, even if we dread them.

  • How leaders can reimagine the Christmas party to be less “mandatory fun” and more about genuine human connection.

  • The surprising 7% who voted for more training over a party (who are you?).

If you are a leader wondering where to spend your budget next year, or just someone who has ever felt the “Christmas Party Dread,” this episode is the sanity check you need before you sign off for the break.

The stats are in, and they are surprising!

With Alistair living his best life in Tasmania, Jasmine O’Reilly takes the mic solo for this special end-of-year bonus episode. She unpacks a recent (and controversial) LinkedIn poll that asked one simple question: Does the Christmas party actually deliver a return on investment?

In this short and sharp episode, Jasmine explores:

  • Why burnout and low engagement are driving employees to choose “time off” over “celebration.”

  • The paradox of connection: Why we need social rituals more than ever, even if we dread them.

  • How leaders can reimagine the Christmas party to be less “mandatory fun” and more about genuine human connection.

  • The surprising 7% who voted for more training over a party (who are you?).

If you are a leader wondering where to spend your budget next year, or just someone who has ever felt the “Christmas Party Dread,” this episode is the sanity check you need before you sign off for the break.

 

Things Leaders Say that Hurts

“We are all in this together.” It sounds supportive, right? But say it to a burnt-out team at 8 pm on a Friday, and the impact is very different from the intent.

In this episode of Change Doesn’t Have To Suck, Jasmine O’Reilly and Alistair Staines tackle the uncomfortable topic of “Things Leaders Say That Hurt.”

We move beyond the fluff to discuss the real-world impact of leadership language. We explore the fine line between vulnerability and oversharing, why “good intentions” aren’t enough, and how to audit the “shadow” you cast on your team.

We discuss:

  • The “People Leader” Shift: Why technical skills no longer define leadership.

  • The Vulnerability Debate: When to show your scars, and when to be the “captain of the ship.”

  • The Shadow You Cast: Practical tips to ensure your presence lifts the room, rather than flattening it.

  • Micro-Moves for Culture: Why culture isn’t a strategy – it’s a series of small, consistent actions.

If you are ready to be a leader who empowers rather than unintentionally hurts, this episode is your audit.

Change doesn’t have to hurt. Let’s talk about leading with empathy.

In-Groups, Out-Groups, and Why Your Team Needs a Rival

Is your team united by a shared purpose, or just shared proximity?

Following on from the previous episode, Jasmine and Alistair dive into the psychology of “In-Groups” and “Out-Groups.” We explore why humans naturally crave a tribe, why every great team needs a “common enemy” and how leaders can harness this instinct to build belonging without toxicity.

Ready to build a team that fights for something, not just against each other? Tune in.

Why Employee Engagement Has Hit Rock Bottom And How to Fix It

61% of people feel burnt out. Only 23% feel engaged.

The numbers are in, and they paint a pretty bleak picture of the Australian workforce right now. But at The Outlier Group, we don’t believe in admiring the problem, we believe in fixing it.

In the very first episode of Change Doesn’t Have To Suck, Jasmine O’Reilly and Alistair Staines sit down to unpack why engagement has hit an all-time low and, more importantly, what leaders can actually do about it.

We move beyond the corporate buzzwords of “quiet quitting” and “the great detachment” to look at the human reality: trust, communication, and the surprisingly powerful role of fun.

We explore:

  • The Cost of Disengagement: Why billions are being wasted on absenteeism.

  • The “In-Group” vs. The “Out-Group”: Why Belonging Matters More Than You Think.

  • The Power of Play: How a simple Friday ritual or a team lunch can do more for productivity than a complex strategy.

If you are a leader wondering why your team is checking out, this conversation is for you.

Change doesn’t have to suck. Let’s talk about how to make work human again.

Featured Interviews & Media

CurtinFM - The Afternoon Show: Jasmine O'Reilly

Overnights with Mike Jeffreys: Gen Z & Millennials push for the 4-day working week

Has the Australian Government met young people? - Youth Jam

Case Studies

Digital 12-Week Challenge: Change that doesn’t suck

FLG Team for 12-Week Challenge

Change-Ready Learning: A people-led platform go-live

MBQ LMS Implementation

Productivity Through Change: The right answer isn’t fastest

Productivity Enhancement Technology for a Mining Company

Outlier In Action

NIGEL SCHMALKUCHE
Managing Director and Lead Consultant,
Strategic Architects Pty. Ltd.

DAVID LOCKIE and JARED BAGNALL
CEO and Practice Manager,
Mojo Soup

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Project Management Tip of the Week

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