When I was promoted to Head of Production, my first assignment was to merge the production and delivery teams, reduce headcount from eight to four, and cut costs by 65%. The task wasn’t purely operational. The two teams had been built in parallel, had little coordination between them, and didn’t yet trust each other. Or me.
The challenge
Production had mature systems and strong process ownership. Delivery relied on institutional knowledge and ad hoc communication. Both were working toward the same client outcomes, but the overlap created redundancy, delayed handoffs, and blurred accountability across every stage.
Morale was fragile. People didn’t know what the merger meant for their roles. I needed to run a process that was fair, transparent, and took the human side of a difficult decision seriously.
Designing a fair selection process
To make the process credible, I proposed including candidates from other departments to widen the evaluation pool and reduce perceived bias. I asked the People & Culture Manager to be involved from the start, both to validate the process and to serve as a point of support for anyone with concerns.
I built an interview framework with a structured questionnaire and a scoring rubric assessing performance, potential, and fit with the new team’s direction. Then I personally conducted ten one-on-one interviews, gathering not just performance data but each person’s perspective, strengths, and what they’d need to succeed.
The goal was to build the right team for what we needed next. Performance data was one input. Context and potential were the others.
Onboarding and offboarding with care
For departing team members, I developed individual offboarding plans, drafted communications, and coordinated closely with People & Culture so no one was left uncertain about what came next.
For the new merged team, especially former delivery team members whose processes had never been documented, I ran hands-on training sessions. We walked through updated workflows, built new SOPs together, and made sure everyone understood the reasoning behind the changes, not just the changes themselves.
I was aware of how I might be perceived: coming in, taking over, and replacing their former lead. So I didn’t assert authority. I asked what they were doing, what they thought could work better, and committed to adjusting my approach where their process was stronger. By the end of the transition, some of the same people who had initially felt sidelined were among the most engaged on the team. That shift from guarded skepticism to genuine ownership was the clearest measure I had that the approach had worked.
Unifying the workflows
Merging the teams required more than reorganizing roles. The two teams had operated from separate ClickUp folders with different standards. I redesigned both into a unified system with updated SOPs, reworked automations, and clearer handoffs at every stage.
I introduced a client journey tracker in ClickUp that gave cross-departmental visibility into where every piece of content stood and who owned each stage. It shifted the culture away from finger-pointing and toward identifying and fixing root causes.
I also co-developed a strike policy with other department leaders to create shared accountability standards across teams, not just within production.
Turnaround time dropped from 33 days to 21. Departmental costs fell by 65%. Productivity was back to 100% within the first month.
Looking back
This merger taught me something I’d suspected but hadn’t tested at this scale: the way you handle change matters more than the speed of it.
The team I inherited was uncertain and skeptical. The team I handed off was focused and collaborative. That difference came from how consistently I told people the truth about what was happening, made space for their questions, and followed through on what I said I’d do. Structure helps. It doesn’t build trust on its own.
Clarity, in the end, is a form of care.
Alex Gita 