01
You have been asked to set up a Security Champions programme and you have never run one. There is no budget line yet, no sponsor beyond the person who asked, and you are doing this alongside everything else. You need something credible standing within a quarter that will still be there in a year.
How Heroes supports this
1
Setup
Make the case before you recruit anyone
Use the business case template to set out the coverage model, the volunteer or assigned Champion decision, and what the first year will cost in time rather than money. Heroes gives you a steer on which model suits your organisation rather than leaving the choice to you.
2
Setup
Follow the first ninety days as written
The starter playbook lays out recruitment, onboarding and the first Champion meeting in order. Nothing to configure, nothing to design. You can adapt it later; for now the job is to get people in.
3
Launch
Capture a baseline without thinking about it
The first pulse survey goes out as part of onboarding. You are not measuring anything yet. You are creating the point on the graph that every later conversation about impact will refer back to.
4
Launch
Grow into the coordination tools
Once the first cohort is in, tasks, events and the Champion status view appear naturally, because you now have people to coordinate. The platform moves you from Setup to Launch without a migration.
Features used in this scenario
Business Case Template
Starter Playbook
Champion Portal
Pulse Surveys
Training Academy
Programme Journey
The key insight: The most common way a new programme fails is by trying to be mature on day one. Heroes shows you only what Setup and Launch need, and the baseline you captured without effort becomes the evidence you rely on later.
What this achieves
A programme standing in one quarter Sponsor, business case, first cohort and first meeting, in that order.
No decisions you are not ready for Measurement, network analysis and multi-entity structure stay out of sight until they matter.
A baseline from the first week The line you will draw in twelve months starts at the point you captured without noticing.
Ideal for: Security managers or awareness leads asked to build a programme with no prior experience and limited time.
02
You run a working network, or have just inherited one, from Outlook, a SharePoint list and a Teams channel. You are not being asked about behaviour change and do not need to be. What you need is to know who is active, who is drifting, which teams have nobody, and to stop losing track of who did what.
How Heroes supports this
1
Launch
Bring the network in as it is
Import your Champions, their teams and sites. If you have inherited a list of three hundred names and forty active people, that is fine. The first thing Heroes does is show you the difference.
2
Launch
Assign tasks and run events from one place
Give Champions something to do, see who has done it, chase the rest. Schedule the monthly meeting and the quarterly briefing and track who turned up. This replaces the spreadsheet, not adds to it.
3
Embed
Close the feedback loop
Champions tell you what is landing and what is not, and you can respond. Over time this becomes the best intelligence source your security team has, but for now it is simply how you stay in touch with sixty people.
4
Embed
Read the Champion status view
Leaders, laggers, decliners and coverage, by team or site. When decliners cluster in one directorate you will want to know why, and when someone asks whether the network is having any effect, the data to answer them has already been collecting.
Features used in this scenario
Champion Portal
Tasks
Events
Feedback Loop
Champion Status
Coverage Map
Programme Team Dashboard
The key insight: A coordinator should be able to live in Heroes for two years and never see a network graph. Every operational feature is also a quiet data source for the stages above, but that is invisible until you go looking for it.
What this achieves
One place instead of four Tasks, events, feedback and status replace the inbox, the list, the channel and the document.
Drift caught early Decliners and coverage gaps are visible before they become a dead network.
Measurement waiting when you want it Nothing to switch on. The Embed and Mature modules read the data you were already collecting.
Ideal for: Awareness coordinators and programme managers running a live network who want to run it well, not measure it yet.
03
Your network works. Champions share content, support phishing simulations and staff the stand in October. Completion is high. Click rates have plateaued. Your CISO has started asking what has actually changed, and you do not have an answer you believe in. You want to move to something evidence-based without dismantling what you have built.
How Heroes supports this
1
Embed
Start with what you do today
Bring your existing Champions and history into Heroes. Their familiar role continues unchanged. The platform gives them a structured home: a personal portal, XP, progress tracking and access to training.
2
Embed
Build behavioural confidence through the Training Academy
Champions and the Programme Team work through the Foundation modules: COM-B, dual-process theory, communication psychology. They learn the language of behaviour change before they are asked to apply it.
3
Mature
Pilot interventions with one or two teams
Enable the Communications Builder and Intervention Designer for Champions in a single department. Run the first intervention. Measure the outcome against the Behaviour Index, which is built from peer pulse and independent of your training platform.
4
Mature
Scale as the evidence builds
When the index moves in the teams where Champions are active and not in the teams where they are not, you have the answer for your CISO. Roll the tools out team by team, at the pace confidence allows.
Features used in this scenario
Champion Portal
Training Academy
Pulse Surveys
Behaviour Index
Communications Builder
Intervention Designer
Role-Based Permissions
The key insight: You do not need to abandon what works. Awareness is the foundation that behaviour change builds on. The transition is about adding capability, not replacing it, and Champions who feel confident in the new approach bring others along.
What this achieves
No disruption to the existing programme Champions keep doing what they do while the platform builds around them.
Confidence before capability Advanced tools unlock when Champions and the team are ready, not all at once.
An answer for the CISO The Behaviour Index shows change where Champions acted and not where they did not.
Ideal for: Teams with an established awareness-based programme who need to prove impact and want to professionalise the approach.
04
Your network is already behaviour-led. What you lack is instrumentation. You have run interventions and seen results, but you cannot separate the effect of the Champion from the effect of the team, the manager or the timing. Every tool you are offered was built for a compliance function and hides the model you want to see.
How Heroes supports this
1
Mature
Switch to research mode
The same data, with the measurement model exposed. How the Behaviour Index is constructed, how Network Strength is scored, and which survey instruments sit underneath. Nothing is hand-waved.
2
Mature
Map the network, not the list
Social Network Analysis shows which Champions are structurally central to their teams and which sit at the edge. Centrality measures can be related to behaviour outcomes rather than presented as a graph for its own sake.
3
Sustain
Design interventions around position
Recruit and assign with the network in mind. Champions in central positions produce a larger shift than peripheral ones; the platform lets you test that in your own organisation rather than take it on trust.
4
Evolve
Export and analyse on your own terms
Raw pulse and network data export for your own analysis. What you learn feeds back into the playbooks everyone else uses, so the simplest programmes benefit from the most sophisticated ones.
Features used in this scenario
Research Mode
Social Network Analysis
Network Strength
Behaviour Index
Champion Surveys
Data Export
Intervention Designer
The key insight: Restraint by default and depth on demand are not in tension. Aggregation and anonymity are built in for the works council; the full model is there for the specialist. Both read the same data.
What this achieves
A defensible measurement model The psychometric basis is exposed, so it can be defended to a sceptical colleague or a reviewer.
Influence, not just activity Centrality related to outcomes, so recruitment and assignment can be redesigned around it.
Your data, your analysis Export what you need and work in the tools you already use.
Ideal for: Behavioural scientists, human risk leads and researchers who want to interrogate the model rather than accept a summary of it.
05
Your central security team is one or two people. You cannot be everywhere. You have a network of Champions, but managing every intervention, communication and assessment yourself is a bottleneck. The answer is not more budget. It is selectively delegating capability to the Champions who are ready for it.
How Heroes supports this
1
Mature
Identify your senior Champions
Use Social Network Analysis and engagement data to find the Champions with the influence, the behavioural understanding and the maturity to take on more. This is evidence-based, not guesswork.
2
Mature
Grant Intervention Designer access selectively
Enable the Intervention Designer only for Champions who have completed the relevant training and shown readiness. Others do not see it, so it adds nothing to their workload and nothing poorly executed reaches employees.
3
Sustain
Champions design, central team approves
Senior Champions draft interventions locally, because they understand their team far better than a central function does. The Programme Team reviews and approves before deployment. Quality control stays central; execution is distributed.
4
Sustain
Monitor from the centre, act at the edge
The Programme Team watches the three scores and engagement data across all teams from a single dashboard. Pulse surveys surface emerging issues. The central team intervenes where it matters, not operationally for every team.
Features used in this scenario
Social Network Analysis
Intervention Designer
Role-Based Permissions
Approval Workflows
Pulse Surveys
Programme Team Dashboard
Behaviour Index
The key insight: Giving every Champion the same tools regardless of readiness creates overhead and risk. Targeted access means the right people get the capability to make a difference, without a review burden or poorly designed interventions reaching employees.
What this achieves
Central team bandwidth freed Assessment and intervention design move closer to the problem, to the people who know each team best.
Quality control maintained Approval workflows mean nothing reaches employees without central review.
Senior Champions grow into leaders Responsibility develops capability. Champions trusted with design become invested in outcomes.
Ideal for: Lean security teams who need to scale impact without scaling headcount.