Prosci ADKAR Change Management Practitioner Training Course

Course overview

Change initiatives often fail after a well-designed solution has been selected: new systems are not used consistently, managers deliver uneven messages, affected teams do not understand why the change matters, and adoption risks are discovered too late. This five-day practitioner course equips professionals to manage the people side of organisational change using the Prosci ADKAR Model. Participants learn to diagnose where individuals and stakeholder groups are stuck, select targeted change actions, and give sponsors and project leaders evidence-based guidance on adoption readiness.

The course covers the five ADKAR building blocks—Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement—alongside the Prosci 3-Phase Process. Participants create stakeholder and impact assessments, identify sponsor responsibilities, build a change management strategy, develop communications and training plans, and use ADKAR assessments to address resistance. They practise translating project milestones into people-centred adoption activities, defining adoption measures, and preparing practical interventions for managers, supervisors and change networks.

Instruction combines facilitated teaching, worked examples, group analysis and hands-on workshops built around a realistic business change case or a participant's own initiative. Throughout the week, participants assemble a usable change management application pack: an ADKAR assessment, stakeholder analysis, sponsor plan, communications plan, resistance response plan, training and reinforcement actions, and adoption measures. This course is particularly valuable for project professionals, business leaders, HR practitioners and internal change leads responsible for implementing new processes, technology, operating models or ways of working.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply the Prosci ADKAR Model to diagnose individual and group adoption barriers
• Assess change impacts and stakeholder readiness using structured impact and stakeholder assessment tools
• Develop a change management strategy aligned to project scope, milestones and affected populations
• Create sponsor roadmaps that define visible leadership actions, communications and escalation responsibilities
• Design targeted communications and engagement plans for Awareness and Desire
• Build training and performance support actions that develop Knowledge and Ability
• Use ADKAR assessments and resistance-management techniques to plan corrective interventions
• Produce an adoption measurement and reinforcement plan with leading and lagging indicators

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Change Managers — who need a repeatable method for planning and measuring people-side adoption
• Project Managers — who must integrate change activities with delivery plans, risks and milestones
• Transformation Leads — who coordinate adoption across technology, process or operating-model programmes
• HR and People Partners — who support managers and employees through organisational change
• Operational Managers — who must lead local teams through new processes, systems or responsibilities
• Business Analysts — who translate process and stakeholder impacts into actionable change requirements

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require prior Prosci certification or formal change management training. Participants should have a basic understanding of how projects or business initiatives are delivered, including concepts such as scope, stakeholders, milestones and risks. Experience of a workplace change—such as a system rollout, restructuring, policy change or process redesign—will help participants apply the method to realistic situations. Participants should be comfortable reviewing simple spreadsheets and drafting business communications. No specialist software, statistics, psychology qualification or prior use of the ADKAR Model is required; complete beginners should expect a structured introduction before progressing to practical application.

Training methodology

An experienced instructor introduces each Prosci concept through short, focused teaching sessions before participants apply it to a continuing change case. Workshops use ADKAR assessments, stakeholder maps, sponsor roadmaps, communications matrices and resistance scenarios rather than abstract discussion. Participants work individually and in small groups to test interventions for employees, managers and sponsors, receiving instructor feedback on the quality of their evidence and plans. The final day is an application-planning session in which participants consolidate their work into a change management pack for use on a current or future initiative.

Course outline

Day 1: Foundations of change and the ADKAR Model

• The people side of change versus project delivery activities
• Prosci ADKAR Model principles and the five building blocks
• Individual change, organisational change and cumulative change
• Common adoption failure patterns in technology and process initiatives
• ADKAR barrier identification and root-cause questioning
• The Prosci 3-Phase Process and its relationship to ADKAR
• Defining change outcomes, affected groups and adoption objectives

Workshop: Participants analyse a business transformation case and produce an initial ADKAR diagnosis for three affected employee groups.

Day 2: Preparing a change management strategy

• Change characteristics assessment for scope, scale, speed and disruption
• Organisational and role-based change impact assessment
• Stakeholder identification, influence analysis and engagement segmentation
• Readiness assessment criteria and data collection methods
• Sponsor coalition roles and active visible sponsorship
• Change management strategy components and governance alignment
• Integrating change deliverables with project plans, RAID logs and decision points

Workshop: Participants create a stakeholder-impact assessment and a draft change management strategy for the case initiative.

Day 3: Building Awareness, Desire and sponsorship

• Awareness messages: business reasons, risks of inaction and case for change
• Desire drivers, personal motivators and local manager influence
• Sponsor roadmap design and visible leadership activities
• Manager enablement plans for team conversations and feedback loops
• Audience-specific communications matrices and channel selection
• Change agent network roles, selection criteria and operating cadence
• Resistance identification, listening methods and escalation routes

Workshop: Participants develop a sponsor roadmap, manager conversation guide and communications matrix for priority stakeholder groups.

Day 4: Developing Knowledge, Ability and resistance responses

• Knowledge gaps, role-based learning needs and competency requirements
• Training needs analysis for changed processes, systems and behaviours
• Performance support tools, job aids and manager coaching
• Ability assessment through observation, practice and operational metrics
• ADKAR-based resistance conversations and intervention selection
• Resistance management plans for predictable and emergent barriers
• Feedback mechanisms for refining training, support and deployment actions

Workshop: Participants design a role-based learning and performance support plan, then prepare ADKAR interventions for a resistance scenario.

Day 5: Reinforcement, measurement and practitioner application

• Reinforcement mechanisms: recognition, accountability and consequence management
• Adoption metrics, leading indicators and lagging performance measures
• Using ADKAR assessments to monitor progress after implementation
• Change scorecards and reporting for sponsors and governance forums
• Corrective action planning from readiness and adoption data
• Sustaining new behaviours through manager routines and continuous improvement
• Assembling the Prosci change management application pack

Workshop: Participants present a complete change management application pack and receive peer and instructor feedback on its adoption strategy and measures.

Tools & standards covered

Prosci ADKAR Model, Prosci 3-Phase Process, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions