Behind the Process with Ann Buice, Arch Capital Group
When you introduce new software to your team, you’re not just implementing a tool—you’re managing change across people, processes, and expectations. That’s the lesson Ann Buice, who leads process improvement and project management at Arch Capital Group, has learned over more than a decade of driving organizational transformation.
In a recent conversation, Ann shared how her team successfully rolled out RoboHead across multiple business units and why the secret to their success had nothing to do with the software itself.
The Problem: Outgrowing Your Shortcuts
Arch Capital’s journey began like many organizations. A team started using RoboHead as a simple project tracker—essentially a place to enter a project name and mark it complete or on hold. This worked fine when the team was small.
But as the organization grew, so did the limitations of this bare-bones approach.
“As the team started growing, it wasn’t just enough to use it that way,” Ann explained. “We had to start fully utilizing some of the features that made it accountable for people, made due dates real due dates.”
The challenge wasn’t technical. RoboHead could handle it. The challenge was getting people to embrace a more rigorous approach to work management when they’d grown comfortable with the old way.
The Real Work Begins: Change Management
Here’s where Ann’s approach diverged from what many organizations do. Rather than mandate the change, she invested in genuine change management:
Getting everyone to hear the same message. Ann brought the team together and made sure everyone understood what they were trying to accomplish and why. This wasn’t a memo. This was a conversation.
Creating buy-in. She helped the team see how more detailed tracking would actually benefit them—how accountability through real due dates and clear task ownership would reduce confusion and help the growing team stay aligned.
Agreeing on implementation. Perhaps most importantly, she didn’t just decide how the new system would work and impose it. She got agreement from the team on how they’d actually implement the changes.
“If you don’t get all that, you miss pieces,” Ann said. “And no matter how great your software is, it’s not going to work.”
The Resistance Is Real (And Valuable)
Not everyone was enthusiastic about the change. Some team members worried that the additional structure would slow them down rather than speed them up.
Rather than dismissing these concerns, Ann leaned into them.
She brought in an outside consultant to validate the team’s thinking—sometimes an external voice reinforces what you already know and gives hesitant team members permission to trust the change. But more importantly, she created space for people to be heard.
“It’s about letting people be heard,” Ann reflected. “We got the group together, and we made sure to let people speak up, talk about anything that they think why this isn’t going to work. That helped bring everybody to the same way of thinking.”
Flexibility Over Perfection
One of the most practical insights from Ann’s experience: not everyone uses the tool the same way, and that’s okay.
In one group, a web update specialist realized they needed a separate task for each of four web updates they did on every project—not just a single “do web updates” task. Another group worked better with generic task structures. A team of designers and copywriters doing high-volume work needed granular schedules, while solo video editors focused mainly on status tracking.
“You can’t just decide upfront what’s going to work for somebody,” Ann said. “You have to learn to be flexible and allow them to say what’s going to work for them. You can’t force it. If you do, they don’t embrace it as much.”
The detailed discovery process meant understanding every type of collateral the team produced, where hands touched the work, and what visibility each role actually needed. For Arch Capital’s high-pressure, high-volume group, this deep dive took about six months working behind the scenes before full implementation.
The Data Integrity Question
One often-overlooked aspect of system changes: what happens to your historical data and reporting?
As you change fields, add new data structure, and introduce new requirements, you need to think about what reports will look like year-over-year. “You might get more visibility in day-to-day reports,” Ann noted, “but you’ve got to make sure you’re not derailing the year-end report.”
The Bottom Line Advice
When asked what piece of advice she’d leave with other teams, Ann was clear:
“I’m a very strong believer in change management. It’s not just deciding how to do something. It’s not just getting project management software. It’s understanding how to put those pieces together with the people doing the work. If you don’t get all those pieces to fit, you’re going to have a much harder time being successful.”
The software matters. The processes matter. But the people—and how you bring them along—matter most.
Behind the Process is a RoboHead series where we talk with our clients about the challenges their teams have overcome, victories they’ve achieved, and what really goes into managing creative and marketing teams. If you’re rolling out a new tool or process change in your organization, Ann Buice’s insights offer a roadmap for success.