Transforming to Agile: The ADKAR Advantage
2 min readJul 4, 2024
Prosci has a befitting definition of change management-
“Change management is an enabling framework for managing the people side of change.”
ADKAR is a highly effective tool for Change Management. When used correctly, it provides leadership with right information, strategies and motivation to successfully implement the change.
Upon learning about ADKAR, I realized its potential as a powerful tool to consider during Agile transformation. Lets unwrap this -
- [A]- Awareness — Empathy is a core concept of Agile leadership, and it becomes especially crucial during transformation. Agile leaders and enablers must emphasize empathy, not only to initiate the change but also to ensure people understand and successfully adopt the transformation throughout the process. According to Simon Sinek, it is important to start with “Why”: so people can understand the reasoning, value and roadmap of the change. And ADKAR definitely starts with bringing our awareness to the “Why.”
- [D]- Desire — Desire is a key element in ADKAR to understand the WiiFM (What’s in it for me) and willingness to change. Agile makes it easy to change. It is designed for short cycles of PDCA which gives you enough room to change. Hence, anyone adopting change needs to be comfortable with the idea of changing often. Agile has tools and processes to help you change as needed
- [K] — Knowledge — Knowledge equips us on how to change, which fits perfectly in both agile transformation and agile ways of working. Agile has structured processes guiding us in ceremonies and cadence. Combined with proper training and knowledge of processes, change is easier to adopt.
- [A] — Ability — Agile transformation should account for training and coaching. Agile has special roles like Team Coaches/Scrum Masters that help teams learn and adopt new ways of working. Agile also focuses on the mindset of Self-organizing teams, which empower the team to test and learn, and to find the best ways of working with the help of coaches.
- [R]- Reinforcement- ADKAR’s fifth element refers to an individual’s ability to sustain change. Agile helps by encouraging a culture of celebration and feedback loops. The feedback loops help with improving on an ongoing basis, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the change.
