How a lean L&D team at one of New Zealand's leading retail group made the leap from Articulate Rise to Chameleon and never looked back.

Briscoe Group is a household name in New Zealand retail, operating stores nationwide. Like most retail businesses, they move fast and run lean meaning their L&D teams needs to keep up without the luxury of unlimited time or resources.

Leading the charge is Shaz Pearson, their Capability and Change Manager. Her team handles everything from training and development to change management, with people at various experience levels, including some who were brand new to L&D and instructional design.

The Challenge

When your tools are holding you back

Here's the thing about retail: it doesn't slow down. And when you're running L&D for a national chain, you need training that can keep pace. But Briscoe was stuck in what Shaz affectionately calls "Articulate hell".

The team was primarily using Articulate Storyline for their eLearning since stores across the country meant everything had to be digital. But the learning curve was brutal. New team members, especially those promoted from within who were fresh to L&D, would spend weeks, sometimes months, just getting comfortable with the software. And this wasn't a one-off problem. Shaz's team was intentionally promoting from within, bringing in coordinators and upskilling them into L&D. But Storyline's complexity was becoming a barrier to that progression.

Once people learned it, everything took forever. Creating a single module felt like a major project. The business needed training yesterday, but the team was still wrestling with Storyline's complexity. They'd started experimenting with Rise (Articulate's simpler tool) towards the end, but as Shaz puts it, Rise had that "90s PowerPoint vibe." Not exactly inspiring for modern learners

With 60+ modules to manage and a business that needed to move quickly, the slow, clunky process was becoming a serious bottleneck. Something had to give.

The Search

Finding a tool that actually works

Shaz knew they needed a change, but she wasn't going to jump ship without doing her homework. She went full spreadsheet mode comparing platforms, sitting through demos, and digging into what each tool could do.

There were other strong contenders, but ultimately, Chameleon Creator won out. It came down to three things: it was actually intuitive (new team members could figure it out without weeks of training), it was fast (drag and drop, templates, easy duplication) and it looked good, fresh, modern, and engaging. No more 90s vibes.

But Shaz didn't just take the vendor's word for it. She did something smart: a real-world test. The team took an existing Articulate module and rebuilt it in Chameleon (with help from the Chameleon team during the trial). Then they sent both versions to learners across the business and asked for honest feedback on usability, look and feel, and interactions.

The verdict? Learners overwhelmingly preferred the Chameleon version. That feedback became crucial ammunition for convincing both senior leadership and perhaps more importantly, her own team that this was the right move.

The Switch

Making it happen (Even with 6 months left on their old license)

Here's where it got interesting. Briscoe Group still had six months left on their Articulate license. So, Shaz needed to make a business case for spending money on something new when they were technically already paying for a tool.

Her approach? Data, timing, and a bit of strategic planning. She crunched the numbers; how long does it take to create a module in each platform? And how long to get a new team member up to speed?

The time savings were undeniable. Plus, she had learner feedback on her side. Real users, real preferences. Hard to argue with that.

But getting leadership buy-in was the easier part. The real challenge? Her own team.

Some team members had gotten comfortable with Articulate. The thought of learning yet another tool was... well, not exactly exciting. There were concerns: "But I can't do [specific thing] in Chameleon!"

Shaz's response? A mix of empathy and tough love. She acknowledged the concerns (because yes, there were some features Chameleon didn't have), but she kept bringing it back to the big picture: How often do you use that feature? And does it outweight the massive time savings and ease of use?

Plus, she gave the team something crucial: time to play. During the trial period, they could explore Chameleon without the pressure to deliver. No deadlines, no expectations just learning and experimenting. That made all the difference.

"We sat down as a team and worked through roughly how long it would take to create content [and] how long it took to get up to speed. The team got to play around with it and see the value."

Shaz Pearson

Capability and Change Manager

"It's so easy, we just do it. The time to create content in Chameleon feels like nothing in comparison. For us, it's really about having the tools we need to move forward as a function and support our business initiatives. Chameleon has given us that."

Shaz Pearson

Capability and Change Manager

The Results

"It's so easy, we just do it"

So, was it worth it? Let Shaz's own words answer that: "The time to create content in Chameleon feels like nothing in comparison."

Content creation is genuinely fast now at Briscoe Group. The team can keep up with the business, no more bottlenecks, no more "we'll get to that next quarter." They're systematically refreshing all 60+ modules, rebuilding them in Chameleon as they come up for review. And because it's so quick, it's not the massive project it would've been before. It's just... getting done.

Templates have been a game changer. The team creates a standardised template for topics like compliance training (broken into 7-10 minute micro-learning chunks), then just duplicates and updates it with new content. One team member creates something cool for customer service training? Another one "steals" it for performance management. It's efficiency at its finest, and it's fostered this culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Topic portals have made updates incredibly simple. New product line launching? Just add another topic to the portal. IT wants to squeeze in another phishing awareness update? Easy, no need to rebuild entire modules from scratch. It's the kind of agility that a fast moving retail business needs.

And remember that whole "new team members take forever to get productive" problem? Solved. It was the whole reason for switching in the first place, and mission accomplished.

But what really stands out: the partnership didn't end after the sale. The Chameleon team has been responsive to feedback, quick to help with questions, and genuinely invested in making sure Briscoe Group succeeds. In Shaz's words, some vendors "sell you a product and leave you to live with it." That hasn't been the case here.

Bottom line? The switch has given Briscoe Group what they needed most: the ability to move at the speed of their business, with a smaller team and way less stress.

Briscoes

How a lean L&D team at one of New Zealand's leading retail group made the leap from Articulate Rise to Chameleon and never looked back.

About Briscoe Group

Chameleon Creator

The Challenge

When your tools are holding you back

The Search

Finding a tool that actually works

The Switch

Making it happen (Even with 6 months left on their old license)

Shaz Pearson

Shaz Pearson

The Results

"It's so easy, we just do it"

Try Chameleon for yourself

Chameleon creator