Client need
In 2025, the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs concluded a prison leasing agreement between Estonia and Sweden, allowing up to 600 Swedish prisoners to be housed at Tartu Prison. The agreement aims to keep the prison operational, generate additional revenue for Estonia and make effective use of existing infrastructure.
Our project supported a carefully planned approach to this substantial change, involving stakeholders, anticipating risks and maintaining organisational stability.
Our solution
We delivered a
year-long change support programme, establishing a clear, phased approach to implementation and connecting project management with support for people’s readiness for change.
- Through five practical workshops, we helped the project leadership team develop a shared understanding of the change objectives, success measures, roles and implementation strategy.
- We assessed Tartu Prison employees’ readiness for change using an ADKAR survey. This identified key enablers, barriers and specific leadership priorities to guide communication, engagement and resistance prevention activities.
- We supported leaders at different levels through change management skills training and coaching, helping them address implementation challenges as they arose and maintain the project’s focus.
Results
- Greater readiness to respond to change through a shared, structured approach.
- Reduced risks in the prison leasing project and consistently high commitment, with an employee change readiness score of 4.6 out of 5.
- Integration of the change management plan into the project plan, supporting successful, phased implementation.
Client feedback
“Leadership is about purposeful, organised action and decision-making, rather than gut feeling. Working with Change Partners gave us the methodological foundation we needed to make a complex change succeed and enabled us to focus on resolving the most critical issues.”
—
Rait Kuuse, Deputy Secretary General for Prisons, Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs
