The employees of Deutsche Bahn are facing a highly complex challenge in the coming years: to shape the massive shift of traffic from air and road to rail in order to make an essential contribution to achieving the climate targets. "Strong Rail" is therefore the name of the strategic reorientation of the railways, with the digitalisation of rail operations being a decisive key.
In order for this multi-faceted task to succeed, however, Deutsche Bahn needs one thing above all: people who are keen to play an active role in shaping the change. That is why there are various projects, initiatives, places and areas within the organisation that deal with digital innovations, new work and cultural change in the organisation.
One important endeavour of the Deutsche Bahn is the Digital Base in Berlin. It serves as a central hub linking various initiatives in a company-wide network. Its digital transformation team has the task of publicising the Deutsche Bahn’s variety of projects, efforts and engaged actors, organising networking events and offering educational workshops.
The employees of Deutsche Bahn are always welcome to attend the workshops or co-working meet-ups of the Digital Base in Berlin. But the digital transformation team also wanted to create a medium beyond Berlin showcasing the new forms of work in the Deutsche Bahn cosmos.
To that end, we helped Deutsche Bahn develop a colourfully illustrated book that appealed to both management and employees and, most important, invited them to participate in the company’s transformation.
“We were overwhelmed by the response from our colleagues and still receive feedback from different parts of the organisation: the handbook generates motivation to try new things and creates a helpful overview of supportive DB-internal initiatives. ”
In a small team of about 2-5 people, we started an agile editorial process with a first kick-off workshop in which we collected ideas for topics. It quickly became clear that this core team would like to involve other colleagues and initiatives as additional co-creators. We then shared the editorial work with the core team in a co-creative sprint process, which was repeatedly accompanied by workshops and synch meetings. The digital transformation team and TheDive worked together to carry out research, conduct interviews and compose the texts.
On 120 lovingly designed pages, DB employees get a playful and tangible insight into initiatives, projects and efforts dedicated to the strategic goal of "strong rail".
120
lovingly designed pages
to animate readers
3.710
pre-ordered copies, though only
1,000 were initially planned
27
articles, reports and reviews of
initiatives and projects at the Deutsche Bahn
