No One is Immune to Change: Virtually Formatting Change Management Training

By Kelly Hanson, Process Improvement & Change Management Intern

October 19, 2020

We live in an environment that seems to change by the month, week, or day. We may ask, “Is there a way we can manage and ease this constant change?” Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) believes you can, and works to build change competencies within all roles in the organization. CDOT provides change management training, now offered virtually, for employees, managers and supervisors, business improvement project and change managers, and sponsors (executives).

As mentioned, CDOT provides a 3-day Change Management for Internal Business Project Managers course to teach participants the knowledge, skills, and tools to successfully manage the people-side of change on its business improvement projects. Participants learn how to apply Prosci's methodology and the five elements for change: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement (ADKAR), to a current project, which they are delivering. These projects, or changes, ultimately will impact how people work. Thus, it is vital to manage the people-side of change. Why? Because if people don’t adjust and adopt the changes, then the project will not be successful.

If you are wondering “Does incorporating change management into my project make a difference?” The answer is yes! According to Prosci, organizations that implement change management have employees that feel prepared, equipped, and supported for change. As a result, change efforts are:

• Six times more likely to meet their objective

• Five times more likely to stay on schedule

• Two times more likely to stay on budget

This is compared to when projects don’t incorporate change management, which results in employees feeling surprised and besieged by change, resulting in a high level of resistance and oftentimes the projects don’t stay on schedule, on budget or meet their objectives.

What is the class format? Even the 3-day Change Management for Internal Business Project Management course is not immune to change. To continue to provide training in today's work environment, the course was changed from in-person to virtual. Course instructor Michelle Malloy said, "It took hours and hours of work to create the virtual facilitator's guide with there being 300 plus Powerpoint slides.” With the course design, Malloy wanted to ensure participants were receiving the same quality of training and could be engaged with the material, instructor, and other participants. Thus, the class uses a variety of Google products, such as Jamboard, Google Meet, as well as Zoom features, including breakouts, whiteboard, and the chat panel.

The past two courses, Cohort 22 (July 21-23) and Cohort 23 (September 1-3), were offered virtually and were well received. All of CDOT’s Changement Management courses are now offered virtually. Gary Vansuch, CDOT’s Director of the Office of Process Improvement, stated, “This has been a significant and rapid change, which took immense agility to respond to and our team did amazing work so that we can continue providing the best products and services to all of our customers."

David Swenka, a Safety and Traffic Engineer with CDOT, who was a participant of Cohort 23 says, "The virtual training worked really well. I enjoyed the breakout groups where I could work in smaller groups on my project,” David's project focused on improving safety recommendations across the state. According to Swenka, the course helped him identify his project strengths and weaknesses, and he learned how to break down his project to effectively implement change. Swenka highly recommends this training for business improvement project and change managers.

Lastly, here are a few final remarks from instructor Michelle Malloy about Cohorts #22 and #23, “Cohorts #22 and#23 were amazing! Each of the participants brought interesting and engaging projects to the workshop and seeing their presentations at the end of the class was so rewarding. I enjoy having cross-agency class members because it creates such a rich learning experience for everyone. I can't wait to see how far they have come in six months when we have a reunion!”

We live in a constantly changing world, and unfortunately, there's no way to remove change from our lives. However, we can learn how to manage it, and as a result, relieve some of the stress and headaches from it. We, at CDOT, work to ensure that everyone impacted by change is successful with that change.

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