Building “processed trust” in the IT department with the Quarter Plan

How Chantal Guilmain led Mr.Bricolage's IT department to objectify its capacity, make its commitments reliable and hold better conversations with the exec committee and the business — in under 3 months.

When Chantal Guilmain took over digital development and information systems at Mr.Bricolage, the challenge wasn't simply to track projects.

It ran deeper: restoring legibility to an IT department in high demand, committed to many structural projects, while continuing to absorb business requests, run activities, regulatory changes and shifting priorities.

With around 70 people, the department already ran regular management rituals. Every month, the teams shared priority stakes, major projects and committed dates.

But gradually, Chantal observed a pattern that's classic in IT departments under pressure: some commitments started to slip. A date announced for September became October. Then November. Without the drift always being visible enough, discussed or arbitrated. Looked at one project at a time, the slippage is always justified.

That managerial closeness makes buy-in easier. Managers understand the approach isn't there to control them, but to help them get out of a situation where priorities pile up without always being arbitrated.

The moment of truth: making visible what doesn't fit

The “aha moment” comes with the capacity reveal.

Once capacities are filled in, the planned load appears. And some teams find themselves shown at levels incompatible with their real capacity.

The load that felt too heavy is factually too heavy.

That moment is decisive.

It reveals two things at once:

• some teams really are over-solicited and put delivery at risk;
• the managers who played along least end up empty-handed, with no managerial capacity available to help them

That's exactly where the Quarter Plan plays its part.

It doesn't just give a number. It forces the conversation.

How do you support a team showing up at 200, 300%?

How do you help them?

The data becomes a starting point for clarifying the situation, not a frozen truth.

And above all, it makes visible what had stayed implicit until then.

The results: more visible commitments, simpler arbitrations

After the first Quarter Plans, Chantal Guilmain started using AirSaas in her relationship with the exec committee.

In the first quarter, the teams put the approach in place.
By the second Quarter Plan, the department already had a more usable base for sharing progress, remaining capacity and completed projects.

AirSaas then became a flash-report medium for the executive committee.

The department can simply show:

• where it stands;
• what has been completed;
• what capacity remains available;
• which topics are under pressure;
• which arbitrations need to be made.

That visibility changes the nature of the conversations.

The department no longer merely explains that it's loaded. It can show what is committed, what is drifting, what interferes with other projects and what risks not making it.

Commitments become more explicit.
Delays become more visible.
Arbitrations become more factual.

That's where the notion of “processed trust” takes on its full meaning.

The approach doesn't replace trust. It structures it.

It lets you keep managing through trust, but with a shared framework, shared data and visible commitments.

Chantal Guilmain's advice for a successful Quarter Plan initiative

1. Know your teams and their pain points well

For Chantal, it's easier to roll out this kind of approach when you know the organisation's history, its existing practices and the managers' real difficulties.

Her success rested on her ability to press where the need is already felt and voiced.

When a pain point is named together, the shared solution comes naturally.

2. Don't pick a tool and then leave the teams alone with it

Setting up a Quarter Plan demands strong commitment from management.

It isn't enough to say: “here's the tool, now use it.”

You have to take part, explain, frame, arbitrate, support the teams and accept going through a structuring phase.

That involvement is what gives the approach its weight.

3. Get challenged

Chantal Guilmain also expected AirSaas to provide support capable of challenging the teams. Roland Bouchut, a peer, is the one who supported them.

Not just tool onboarding.
Not just functional training.
But a genuine methodological counterweight.

AirSaas's support made it possible to structure the steps, challenge some assumptions and bring in practices observed in other organisations.

For Chantal, that's a differentiator: an approach that is both tooled and humanly supported changes the game.

The key takeaways

Setting up the Quarter Plan at Mr.Bricolage illustrates a strong conviction: an IT department can't become a partner to the business if it can't objectify its capacity.

As long as load remains a feeling, arbitrations stay difficult.
As long as commitments stay barely visible, drifts are accepted too easily.
As long as requests arrive with no overall view, the department stays reactive.

With AirSaas, Chantal Guilmain set out to install something else: simple, visible, pragmatic governance capable of turning managerial trust into steerable commitments.

A trust that rests not only on the teams' goodwill, but on a shared framework.

Processed trust.

About Mr.Bricolage

Mr.Bricolage is a French retail chain specialising in DIY, home improvement and home equipment.

In a context of transformation and new strategic stakes, the IT department plays a key role in supporting the business, structuring digital priorities and securing project commitments.

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