Getting to Yes: Intensive Change Management Training for State Government Leaders

By Geneva Hooten, Innovation and Improvement Lead

December 11, 2017 

In November, a three-day Prosci Change Management training provided these 17 CDOT staff members the skills to engage and energize others to be successful with every change that impacts them. 

Seventeen graduates of the three-day Prosci Change Management class in November 2017

Seventeen graduates of the three-day Prosci Change Management class in November 2017 

Why does that matter?

A project is six times more likely to be successful with excellent change management than with poor change management (Prosci 2017). Getting change management right helps ensure new initiatives are successful the first time, supporting efficient government while saving time and money along the way.

CDOT's Darius Pakbaz shows that change is a process.

CDOT's Darius Pakbaz shows that change is a process. 

Gary Vansuch, Director of CDOT's Office of Process Improvement, led the class, which included participants from the state departments of Transportation, Health Care Policy and Financing, Public Health and the Environment, and Personnel and Administration. Participants workshopped real-life change initiatives, which ranged from a multi-department effort to better collect and distribute highway data to a new payroll timetable for more than 30,000 state employees.

Each participant learned how to apply research-based tools to assess readiness, identify impacted groups, and build a holistic strategy for influencing individual transitions. Participants learned how to apply Prosci's Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement (ADKAR) model—a proven, systematic method to facilitate individual change.

Justin Freel, an equipment mechanic supervisor from CDOT's Denver Metro region, said that the change management class "allows you to...encompass the people side of change just as the technical side of it, and gives you the tools to be able to do so."

Freel, like other newly trained change managers, will use this class "when initiating change in a larger capacity when involvement will be greater than just a couple of folks." That collaborative involvement is exactly how this new group of change leaders can usher in a more dynamic and effective government for all of Colorado.

ADKAR Blocks

Want to learn more about Change Management at CDOT? Check out our improvement efforts at the Office of Process Improvement’s website!