BT | Making 15,000 developers care about DevSecOps

The Mission:

BT was rolling out a major DevSecOps transformation across one of the largest developer communities in the UK. Over 15,000 developers. Multiple teams, multiple locations, multiple ways of working. The technical vision was clear. The challenge was everything around it: how do you bring that many people on a journey they did not choose, around a topic that most either find dry or quietly threatening, without losing them before you have even started? The brief was not just to inform. It was to build genuine engagement, create curiosity, and make sure that by the time changes landed, nobody was blindsided.

The Work:

We designed a communications campaign that respected the audience. Developers are smart, time-poor, and quick to spot anything that feels like spin. So we did not spin. We built a layered approach that met people where they were.

• Targeted emails that spoke directly to different teams and their specific context, rather than blasting the same message to everyone and hoping it stuck.

• Workplace posts that opened up conversation rather than broadcasting decisions downwards.

• Engagement forms that gave people a genuine way to share their questions, concerns, and ideas before things were set in stone.

• A Series of show and tell sessions that brought the work to life, made the people behind it human, and gave the wider community a window into something they would usually only see the finished version of.

• And top it all off, an intranet page to capture all of the above (and more).

Each touchpoint was designed to build on the last, creating a rhythm of communication that felt like an ongoing conversation rather than a campaign.

The Result:

People wanted in. That is the simplest way to put it. The curiosity the sessions generated was real, not manufactured enthusiasm. Developers who had never engaged with comms before were asking questions, putting their names forward to get involved, and sharing the content with their teams. When the changes came, there were no nasty surprises. No "why didn't anyone tell us" moments. No resistance from people who felt like it had been done to them. The programme landed in an environment that was ready for it, because the people inside it had been part of shaping it. That is the difference between communication and actual engagement.