Using ADKAR® to assess the change
Prosci is the global industry standard for change management practitioners worldwide. Their ADKAR® model is a proven framework for individual change and can be used early and often to help you assess and reassess the impact of change, as well as guide individuals through change.
There are many organizational change management techniques rooted in ADKAR® methodology, including creating a change story to create awareness, and conducting a stakeholder analysis to build desire.
Smooth, successful change is not instantaneous – it takes time for individuals to work through the phases of change. Starting with early awareness to build general knowledge and spreading the Why message early and often will lead to higher levels of commitment.
What is ADKAR®?
Why the ADKAR® model works for evaluating software adoption
Personal and scalable: it’s easy to understand! The model evaluates adoption from a personal side, and can be applied at an individual, team, or organizational level. Proactive: the framework helps identify and address adoption barriers early in the process to develop appropriate responses. Proven: it’s an industry model widely-adopted by enterprise organizations to manage technology adoption, as demonstrated in the Microsoft ADKAR® case study. |
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Building awareness through a project change story
The first building block of ADKAR®is awareness. Building awareness early and having the message come from senior leadership is key to your implementation success. A simple change story is a great starting point for every change.
You must communicate clearly not just what is changing, but why the change is needed. You need to win the hearts and minds of those you’re asking to change.
Think about the why:
- Why should they take time awar from their day jobs to learn something new?
- Why should they learn about what is hapening in your next product release?
- Why should they care?
- Why? Why? Why?
Think about what metric inspires your audiences to say Wow, OK, I get it now! and puts the change into perspective. Compelling metrics track progress or costs and highlight what you have to win or lose if you resist change.
Actionable steps to create awareness:
- Start engaging: talk, share, and prepare with individuals at your organization
- Analyze your current state: use data to show inefficiencies in the current state
- Make the business case: outline the benefits, success criteria, and OKRs aligned with business strategies and outcomes. You likely developed a strong business case to purchase Planview; now is the time to engage leadership and dust off that business case. Share the story early on in the change of Why the organization bought Planview, and continue to reiterate on that messaging.
- Communicate your plan: raise awareness across stakeholders
- Elevate your awareness communications with our project change story template.
- Start by asking what, why, how, and who. This exercise will help you clearly articulate what is about to change and help create a quick script that your change champions can utilize.
- It’s important to remember that your change story is holistic and not just focused on the technical changes.
Being transparent and consistent in your messaging will increase the comfort of your audience and help you build that trust. Each team member needs to understand the reasons behind the change. Building desire and knowing the Why are crucial.
Recommended reading |
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Change roster
The next key change management tool is the change impact assessment or change roster – an inventory of key changes across the program and recommended interventions to address them. The intent is to identify the key messages and delivery methods to utilize for each stakeholder group.
A change impact assessment may be conducted alongside a stakeholder analysis or separately. It is highly recommended to start this exercise early during configuration and maintain on an on-going basis. The list of changes will continue to grow and change, as will your audiences’ desire to change.
Creating the Why message and building the What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) at a role-based level are key to the Desire building block of ADKAR®®.
If you ran into a stakeholder on the elevator, could you present an effective elevator pitch for Planview and the overall change, tailored to their role? Do you have a compelling Why message that you could communicate?
If you’re uncertain, it’s time to start looking at the changes from the lens of the individual. Start by capturing all of the changes on a change roster to identify which roles are impacted. Then, use that information to create your role-based change story to share the why and build desire at an individual level.
Here’s how to get started!
- Download our change roster template.
List all the changes that will occur before, during, and after your Planview implementation, including Planview releases or updates. It’s important to include net new processes, as well as changes to key process steps, such as approvals or governance stages, organization structures, reporting, and time reporting expectations. The change roster should be a holistic view of all changes associated with the adoption, not just technical changes.
- Identify who is affected by the changes to complete your column headers. We commonly see individuals grouped into roles or personas based on how and why they are interacting with the platform.
Common roles include:
- Project manager: responsible for the planning, procurement, and execution of work and projects for an organization or business unit.
- Resource manager: responsible for scheduling and allocating individual or team resources for an organization or business unit.
- Time reporter: someone who will use the software to view their assignments and for time reporting purposes only.
- Portfolio manager: responsible for long-range planning and investment decisions for an organization or business unit.
- Program manager: responsible for overseeing and managing programs for an organization.
- Product manager: responsible for long-range product planning on behalf of their organization or business unit.
- Administrator: responsible for maintaining the application and data and the creation and maintenance of the business processes.
3. Note the degree of change for each user group, and start by using a simple high, medium, or low scoring model. If you’re faced with a long list of changes, consider assigning a numerical score. We recommend using a version of Fibonacci scoring for this exercise. The higher the score, the more attention (OCM, training) they will most likely need.
High / medium / low scoring example:
5 points = High degree of change
This change will significantly impact the way I currently work and I need to know why this is happening.
3 points = Medium degree of change
This change might affect the way I work now, but it won't result in significant disruption.
1 point = Low degree of change
I need to be aware of the change, but it has little to no direct impact on the way I work or my expectations.
Once you complete this exercise you’ll be able to visualize where you need to lean in first with change management, and identify focus areas for training.
Creating a detailed change roster is time well spent. We suggest starting this list early in the project and keeping it on hand, especially during configuration. It’s much easier to track changes incrementally, rather than trying to recall all of when it’s time to deliver training. Use your change roster to inform your communications, job aids, internal process training, and to identify potential risks to adoption.
Stakeholder analysis and alignment
A critical aspect of every change story is the characters, and understanding the important role each character plays – particularly in communications and training. These individuals are often referred to as project stakeholders. A stakeholder is any individual who has a vested stake or interest in the success or failure of a change initiative. Stakeholders can:
- Encourage and embrace the change, or
- Inhibit change through not committing or communication
To successfully interact with key project stakeholders, it’s critical to understand and manage their expectations as well as the associated project impacts. This can be facilitated with the help of two key change management tools:
- Stakeholder analysis: a comprehensive list of each stakeholder and how they’ll be impacted by the project and the methods used to communicate.
- Change roster: inventory of key changes across the program and recommended interventions to address them.
Conducting a stakeholder analysis integrated with Prosci’s ADKAR® model can provide valuable insights into the dynamics of change within an organization. This analysis will help you understand where to lean in first with your change management and training, as well as frame your future communications.
How to conduct a stakeholder analysis
Looking for a template to help? Check out the stakeholder analysis template in the Planview OCM resource library.
Step 1: Define the purpose of the analysis
- Set objectives: clarify why you’re conducting the stakeholder analysis. Are you planning a project, implementing a change, or assessing organizational readiness?
- Discovery: understand the role of leadership in project success
Step 2: Identify stakeholders
- List stakeholders: identify all potential stakeholders involved in or affected by the change. This can include employees, management, customers, suppliers, and other relevant parties.
- Degree of change: understand the level of change of each stakeholder – what aspects of their job are changing?
- Systems and tools
- Processes
- Methodologies
- Team structure
- Other
Step 3: Assess stakeholder influence and impact
- Influence: how much power does this individual have over the outcome of this project/change?
- Interest: do they care about the project's success? At what level do they want to stay informed?
Step 4: Categorize stakeholders
Stakeholder groups may be used for streamlining communications, building awareness in the most impactful areas, and determining training needs.
Common categorizations:
| Change status | Influence vs. interest | ADKAR® |
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Assess and group individuals based on their influence and interest in the project.
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What is keeping this stakeholder from changing? By utilizing ADKAR®, you can assess the barriers to the stakeholders' readiness for change. |
A few example questions you can ask as you walk through this exercise:
- Awareness: are they aware of the change? Do they understand why they need to change?
- Desire: do they want to support the change? Are they excited for the change?
- Knowledge: do they understand the processes being executed in the tool? Do they have foundational product knowledge?
- Ability: can they implement the change? Did they receive training on how to perform their duties in the tool?
- Reinforcement: has leadership sustained the change with this individual using incentives and success metrics
Start by simply listing the ADKAR® barrier point on your stakeholder analysis worksheet or go one step further and try adding an ADKAR® score. Show how far an individual has progressed in achieving the ADKAR® elements on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest. Typically, scores less than 3 suggest that the individual needs additional work on that element.
The "barrier point to change" is defined as the first ADKAR® element with a score of 3 or less on this scale. The barrier point must be addressed first.
After you have identified the barrier points, it’s time to establish effective strategies for increasing the respective ADKAR® elements to drive adoption.
Step 5: Develop change strategies
Don’t worry, all that hard work assessing your stakeholders will not go to waste. It’s time to use that discovery to strategize your success!
Based on your analysis, tailor your engagement strategies for each stakeholder based on their group. For example, if you utilized the influence/interest rating:
- High influence, high interest: keep informed and involved in decision-making.
- High influence, low interest: provide periodic updates; highlight project importance.
- Low influence, high interest: engage through training and feedback sessions.
- Low influence, low interest: keep them informed but limit engagement efforts.
If you also identified the ADKAR® barrier point, there are specific strategies aligned with each barrier point that you can implement.
Strategies to address ADKAR® barrier points:
| Awareness | Desire | Knowledge | Ability | Reinforcement |
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Communications to include why Planview is vital for the success of the organization
Webinars and information sessions to share the value of the changes
Share demos and marketing videos Are you struggling to build desire around a particular capability? Try out the interactive capability map to learn more about each capability and how to get started implementing it in your organization.
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Connect tasks to high-level strategies so team members understand how they are contributing to the success of the organization Share testimonials and case studies
Host a roadshow with role-specific demos – for example, showcase the cool new reports that will make their lives easier, or the templates that will reduce their paperwork time. Implement recognition programs
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Deliver training to meet all learning styles – in person or live; on-demand training; custom videos; in-app tutorials
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Open office hours / support sessions / coaching – don’t forget to utilize change champions and ambassadors to host these sessions
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Build communities of practice that continue to grow your change champion group! Highlight champions with specialties such as financials, project management, or resource management. Depending on your scale, these groups may meet monthly or quarterly.
Track OKRs/KPIs/success metrics – how will you track success? Here’s a few common adoption metrics to get you started:
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Step 6: Monitoring and maintaining
A stakeholder analysis and coordinating change strategy are not set-it-and-forget-it lists but evolving, dynamic documents that must be maintained and reassessed as individuals move through the change.
After conducting your initial analysis, leaders must continuously seek feedback from stakeholders to monitor their sentiments and readiness. Surveys or meetings with key stakeholders can address concerns, assess impacts, ensure expectations are understood, and identify gaps. Change leaders must be flexible and prepared to modify their approach based on stakeholder replies and project dynamics.
Integrating a stakeholder analysis with an ADKAR® analysis allows for a structured approach to understanding and managing the people side of change. By following these steps, you can increase the likelihood of successful project implementation and minimize resistance.
Role-based change stories
Next, leverage your change roster to dive deeper into the impact of change on individuals and create role-based change stories. These are a great way to tailor your messaging to each unique stakeholder group and bring that long list of changes into a more concise, targeted message that gets people excited to change.
Now that you’ve built the overall Why message, it’s time to understand the change at an individual level. Here at Planview, we’ve succeeded with role-based communications to drive change with relatable, meaningful messaging.
Add some fun (and a little MadLib nostalgia) with our role-based change story template. Share what’s changing and Why with specific messaging that resonates with the individual, while setting expectations for what’s next.
One of the most critical aspects for the individual to understand in this role-based change story is, What are my expectations? Continue on to our Communicate the Change page to learn more best practices about how to effectively and clearly communicate to your stakeholders.
Who can I contact for Planview OCM services? Contact your account team to inquire about our organizational change management services, or reach out directly to Evolve Advisory Services.