The Military Institute of Engineering (IME) is a Brazilian Army higher education institution, located in Rio de Janeiro – Brazil. Every three years, the Brazilian government evaluates the engineering bachelor´s degree programs and IME is always among the best Brazilian engineering schools. Despite the excellent results, the CDIO framework was chosen, at the end of 2014, as a reference framework to improve the education process, reorganize the programs and promote the development of intra and interpersonal skills. The objective of this work is to show the initial steps of the CDIO  implementation. In the beginning of the process, the idea was to start only with the Mechanical Engineering program. However, after the initial promotion seminars presented for faculty, staff and students, a sense of commitment was created, and four of ten undergraduate programs also decided to participate. One of the first step was the formation of the team responsible to coordinate the implementation of this set of best practices. The Kotter framework has been used to drive this transformation process. The CDIO syllabus was translated into Portuguese, and it was compared with some of the Brazilian regulatory requirements for engineering education and has been used as a reference for future curriculum changes. This paper also highlights the process for change management, the remodeling of the first year and the introduction of an entrepreneurship course in partnership with an outstanding Brazilian business school.