Change Management: Applying ADKAR to Drive Success 

Chamonix was engaged to deliver Change Management service across a significant business improvement program for a customer in the utilities sector.

The program was experiencing issues with adoption and utilisation among its core stakeholders despite best efforts to engage stakeholders.

Chamonix were engaged to conduct ADKAR Assessments to determine the root cause of this issue and to develop action plans that would resolve the issue and help embed the change.

Landscape

The program was established on the back of an external report which identified a number of business improvement initiatives to drive efficiencies across the business – particularly in regard to the creation and management of its capital assets.

These changes however, while delivering clear benefits, were being delivered to stakeholders suffering from change fatigue and lacking the capacity to take on new changes while balancing the workload of their day-to-day role.

The result was low percentages of attendance at information and training sessions and a lack of, or slow, uptake of the changes after implementation.

Solution

Chamonix delivered ADKAR sessions across the various deliverables within the program to identify stakeholder adoption barrier points and to determine corrective actions.

ADKAR Assessments are facilitated workshops with stakeholders to determine the effectiveness of change management delivery.

1. Awareness (What is the change? Why is the change happening?)
2. Desire (What’s in it for me? Why should I care?)
3. Knowledge (What do I need to know in order to change?)
4. Ability (How do I apply the change?)
5. Reinforcement (How do we celebrate success and drive continuous improvement?)

The ADKAR Assessments were tailored to the various deliverables of the program, identifying key challenges and opportunities for improvement in our engagement approach. Additionally, the sessions gathered broader feedback identifying organisation barriers to change adoption including:

• Change fatigue leading to lack of engagement
• Resource availability constraints
• A lack of a business roadmap – how does it all tie together
• A lack of leadership presence to drive the change

An action plan was developed to mitigate or resolve the deliverable-specific feedback with the intention of an improved ADKAR result and a shift in the adoption barrier point at follow-up workshop.

The broader issues raised were addressed with Senior Leaders to explore solutions at an organisational level.

Business Benefits

The ADKAR Assessment provided a number of business benefits including:

• A proof of concept of the value of ADKAR Assessments with buy-in of the process achieved with senior leaders.
• Positive feedback from attendees as the opportunity to provide feedback and the appreciation of follow-up actions.
• Roadmaps / action plans to drive adoption across all deliverables of the program.
• Tailored awareness / education / training programs that bridged gaps identified in the ADKAR Assessment.
• An improvement in ADKAR outcomes, providing tangible reporting on the impact of successful change management delivery on success / outcomes.
• Lessons learned shared with stakeholders across the business to drive continuous improvement.