One of the most common themes for failure of a project is the resistance to change. The resistance can come from management, the project team, or the frontline employees that are going to be the most affected by the change.

Having managed projects for over 25 years, I have personally experienced the challenges of change management on a project. And to be honest, change management has not always been a priority on projects that I have managed. As a project manager, you become so focused on working towards the specific tasks of completing a launch, you sometimes lose site of the impact of the change to the people that will be affected by the initiative. You eventually realize that most project problems are due to people and not things. As a quote from the book ADKAR – A Model for Change in Business, Government and Our Community, jokingly states – “All our change initiatives would have gone great if it weren’t for all the people involved.”

I knew if I focused on better managing change management on projects, I would have leg up on other project managers. So I started to look for a solution that was easy to apply, adaptable in a number of different settings, and was results oriented. What I discovered is the ADKAR change management model. This change management model is the brainchild of Jeffrey M. Hiatt and the Change Management Learning Center. The model came out of studying different change management models and asking the question “Why?” for each tactic or approach used in those models. The outcome of those studies is the ADKAR change management model is now the most used and sought after change management model.

The ADKAR change management model is based on five elements:

  • A – Awareness of the need to change
  • D – Desire to support and participate in the change
  • K – Knowledge of how to change
  • A – Ability to implement the required skills and behaviors
  • R– Reinforcement to sustain the change

The ADKAR model provides a framework and sequence for managing the people side of change. The elements fall into the natural order of how a person experiences change. Desire can’t come before Awareness because you can’t desire to change until they become aware of it. Knowledge cannot come before Desire because we will not seek to know how to do something until we desire to do it. Ability cannot come before Knowledge because we can’t execute on something we don’t know. And finally Reinforcement cannot come before Ability because we can only recognize and appreciate what we have attained.

I’ll go more in-depth on each of these elements in later articles. In the meantime, if you have a change initiative that needs some help, contact us and let’s set-up some time to talk to see how I may be able to help you out.