A truism in policing is that the only thing cops hate more than change is the way things are. Police officers from any country will agree that police officers are often resistant—sometimes in quite creative ways—to doing things differently, yet want things to be better. How are these two seemingly opposing perspectives reconciled? The answer is a well-planned change management strategy.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) in Vancouver, British Columbia, is an organization of over 1,800 sworn and civilian staff, serving a city of over 640,000 in a metropolitan area of approximately 2.4 million. Frontline uniformed police officers in the VPD number more than 800.