Designing Impactful Thinking: A Change Management Success Story 

Tom Di Nardo is a Professional Engineer in the Region 1 Denver Metro area, specifically devoted to efforts ensuring the public’s awareness while on the roadway and making sure people are well-informed. Tom has always believed a well-informed driver will be less agitated and perhaps even a little more understanding. He sticks to the motto “I work for the citizens of Colorado”, and strives to produce the best product and best traveling experience for fellow Coloradoans. 

With the current status and future plans of the program, it will be important to continuously build the ADKAR elements of change management. The first step is building awareness around the training, which the team is achieving by disclosing available classes on the public announcements and through word of mouth. Their eventual goal is to make the class a requirement. There is a struggle involving building desire as training classes are often viewed as something one is required to do versus something one actively wishes to participate in, but the team is working through such a barrier by making the training as interactive and interesting for people as possible. They have ended up splitting the class into different groups where the employees work on a real-world project, so that the situation is not just hypothetical. Participants are encouraged to contribute their own “out of the box” ideas, which makes the class intriguing and allows the participants to basically build the transportation plan themselves and strengthen their own knowledge. The project team plans to build ability for the training by eventually making it a requirement because it is important for people to have this information as a designer or a construction individual. Insofar as building reinforcement, the training program is continuing from here on out. There is sponsorship from executive management, and the team will be able to reinforce the training more as it blossoms by becoming more available. The project has experienced great success and has high potential for success moving forward.

As with every project, success is not easy – there are accompanying challenges that Tom and his team have had to overcome. Time and overall resources were barriers to implementation of the change, as people already have numerous responsibilities and commitment can be hard. Through navigating these challenges, Tom has experienced benefits from this project; this was his first introduction to becoming a presenter and a trainer, so he gained from all of the classes that were needed in order to become a better presenter. Tom is an engineer, so he is very focused on the engineering, design, and construction processes. The training project has been an avenue for Tom to create more knowledge and experience for himself. Tom’s next step is to continue to update and upkeep the training with the hope of making it a regular program and eventually a requirement, even though he is not in the Traffic Program anymore. This training program has allowed Tom to grow his own skills and abilities, and he hopes that the training will give others the sense that they have gained extra knowledge in their everyday lives as well.