How Lcubed Consulting leveraged Sugarwork to transform succession planning at a state government agency
When a state government agency realized nearly 100 senior leaders would become eligible for retirement within 18-24 months, they weren’t just facing a staffing issue. Rather, they were on the verge of losing decades of employee knowledge: documented and undocumented insights, institutional memory, and the context behind critical decisions.
To tackle the challenge, the agency brought in Lcubed, a consultancy igniting high-impact transformation by aligning strategy, processes, and future-ready leadership. Lcubed knew traditional note-taking and process mapping wouldn’t be enough. They needed a more efficient, scalable way to extract knowledge that often lives only in people’s heads.
That’s when they partnered with Sugarwork. “Our original scope was to interview 50 percent of the departing individuals,” said Lisa L. Levy, founder and CEO of Lcubed. “Instead, we were able to interview almost all of them, and at a much deeper level than traditional methods allow.”
Lcubed leveraged Sugarwork to:
Interview nearly 100 percent of at-risk staff (double the original goal)
Capture more than 250 detailed processes
Surface themes, frustrations, values, and organizational risks
Multiply the project’s impact by a factor of four
The Challenge
A retirement cliff and a knowledge gap
With experienced agency employees — many of whom were in senior roles — set to exit, the risk to operations, continuity, and modernization efforts was enormous. Two specific challenges included:
Preventing knowledge loss: As employees retire or resign, organizations risk losing critical institutional knowledge. Capturing tacit knowledge helps preserve this expertise and ensures continuity.
Supporting succession planning and growth: Without a structured approach to succession planning, knowledge gaps emerge, organizational stability is compromised, and opportunities for innovation are limited.
“This was a body of work that had to be done urgently,” said Levy. “The organization was flying blind when it came to knowing what knowledge was walking out the door and how to replace it.”
How Lcubed leveraged Sugarwork to collaborate with the agency
Lcubed deployed Sugarwork to quickly and systematically extract knowledge from employees who may be leaving in the subsequent 18-24 months. The platform enabled them to conduct and analyze several hours of interviews per participant, using AI to identify patterns, workflows, and insights that would otherwise be lost.
“With Sugarwork, we were able to capture not just what people did, but how they felt about their work, what motivated them, and what got in their way,” said Levy. “This wasn’t just documentation. It was storytelling and strategy.”
The data wasn’t limited to job descriptions. Sugarwork’s AI uncovered:
Cross-functional process flows
Unspoken frustrations
Opportunities for improvement
Core values and motivators
Themes that spanned departments
This richness enabled Lcubed to go beyond process mapping and help the agency build a new succession planning framework, so the agency could institutionalize knowledge capture and ensure it would never be in the same position again.
The Results
For the government agency
By capturing institutional memory and surfacing data-driven themes, Lcubed helped the agency’s leadership:
Quantify operational risk more precisely
Validate suspicions about bottlenecks and gaps
Set the foundation for bolder, better-informed leadership decisions
Improved succession planning
Further, these outcomes enable a structured succession planning framework. The department can ensure leadership continuity, retain critical knowledge, and build a resilient workforce prepared for future challenges. This strategic approach secures institutional legacy while supporting growth and innovation.
Informing its career development portal
The knowledge captured through Sugarwork now supports a broader modernization effort. The agency is developing a career development portal, powered in part by the detailed flows and processes Lcubed documented.
“This is probably some of the highest-priority work they’re doing,” Levy added. “And it’s going to influence how they grow talent and structure their teams going forward.”
The Results
For Lcubed Consulting
For Lcubed, working with Sugarwork delivered both operational efficiency and strategic impact. By using a purpose-built platform instead of relying on manual methods, Lcubed dramatically accelerated project delivery and improved the depth and quality of analysis. They were able to serve the client at a level that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
The results strengthened Lcubed’s position as a transformation partner capable of tackling high-stakes projects, while showcasing how technology like Sugarwork can make consulting engagements more scalable, data-driven, and impactful.
"Sugarwork increased the value of our engagement with the agency by a factor of four. We were able to capture leadership knowledge from twice as many people, and in twice the depth than originally planned, all within the initial scope. That level of efficiency meant we didn’t need a second phase to complete the leadership roles and processes. It was a game-changer for both us and the department."
Lisa L. Levy, Founder and CEO, Lcubed Consulting
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