Photo by Suzanne D. Williams from Unsplash

I have previously considered change management and its general application to software projects.  Following the principles of pragmatic project management set forth at the beginning of this blog, I have found that the use of change management can be adapted and applies in a wide variety of situations.  I have two examples to illustrate the use of those principles as they applied to a project we completed to redesign our public web site and replace our content management system (CMS).

The first example is a situation in which my group was working to charter a project to upgrade our CMS to a new version of the platform.  This turned into a discussion with the probable project sponsor to change scope of a CMS project from upgrade to replacement. In this setting I used Prosci ADKAR as a mental model for the conversation:

  • Awareness – First I made the sponsor aware of the need for the change.  I informed them that the developer and content strategist who had been preparing for the project had cataloged a significant number of issues with the existing CMS as well as declining online reviews of the platform compared to competing products.
  • Desire – Next, I needed to move them to want the specific change recommended by our technology team.  I shared articles about the CMS company being acquired and the possible deprecation of the platform, I translated the technical issues into business risks and costs, and I forecast cost for upgrade, which was very high. 
  • Knowledge – Having convinced the sponsor of the problem, I needed to bring them to know that a solution was available.  I discussed the availability of better alternatives and I argued that the upgrade cost was comparable to the cost of replacement with a better reviewed platform.
  • Ability – With the knowledge that a solution to the problem was available, I needed to enable the sponsor to act on that information within known constraints, in this case a budget cap on projects that could be undertaken without a competitive bidding process.  I proposed a short study with local agency to evaluate alternatives keeping the budget below the required threshold and enabling the sponsor to pursue the solution with minimum investment.
  • Reinforce – Finally with the study in motion I needed to reinforce the decision and keep the sponsor engaged.  I regularly checked-in with them on progress, shared interim study results, and provided them ongoing updated news on the CMS company acquisition and their lack of roadmap for the platform.

That conversation was successful, the sponsor agreed to the study which eventually led to chartering the project to replace the CMS system with a newer, more capable platform.  That led in turn to a concurrent major web site redesign.

The second example of applying pragmatic project management principles is a situation in the resulting project where a new integration was implemented between our student information system (SIS – think of it as an ERP system for an educational enterprise) and the CMS to enable more efficient, automated updates to our offering catalog on the web site. The changes drove difficult conversations about the definitions of catalog data and whether they met both operational and marketing needs. Within that subproject, we again leveraged ADKAR to support changes to data definitions, business processes and systems supporting the product offering lifecycle. 

  • Awareness + Desire – We used communications from our executive sponsor and key business leaders in the form of group emails, blog posts, team meetings, and project communications like status/progress reports from the project manager to continue building awareness of the need for changes to data definitions and systems and to build enthusiasm for the impact that changes would have on business processes.
  • Knowledge – The project team hosted a series of cross-group meetings between major stakeholder groups to understand implications of the integration and elaborate details of process and policy changes.  Through these meetings the impacted teams were able to build a common understanding of data needs and design solutions that worked for all of those teams.
  • Ability – As data definitions were agreed and process changes defined,  training was delivered to staff responsible for operational creation and use of the data to enable them to continue business using the new definitions and processes.
  • Reinforce – New data definitions and business processes were reinforced through audits of the data passing through the systems to the public web site, investigation and resolution of identified issues, feedback from enrollment coaches engaging directly with students, and periodic reminders and retraining as needed.

These examples illustrate use of pragmatic project management principles: (1) knowing the purpose of the ADKAR steps and how to apply them for different purposes, and (2) scaling of a methodology or technique from small to large as needed to meet the project needs, in these cases from a single conversation up to a months-long subproject within a larger change management plan.

For additional information about ADKAR see ADKAR: A model for change in business, government and our community by Jeffrey M. Hiatt.

This post is based on a presentation given at UPCEA National Conference · Mar 24, 2017 with Clark Westmoreland: Ensuring IT Software Project Failure – Why Organizations Don’t Do the Right Things BEFORE the Project Begins


Chris Powell

Pragmatic PM is written by Chris Powell, a PMI certified Project Management Professional and Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master with over 20 years of project management experience. Currently an Associate Director of PMO at the University of Washington, his career spans a wide variety of industries including financial, manufacturing, aerospace, government, higher education and software products and supporting R & D, sales, marketing, operations, and customer support business functions. He has presented on project management topics at local communities of practice and at national conferences focusing on his pragmatic approach to the project management discipline.