Why ADKAR Works for Change and How PRINCE2 Practitioner Supports Delivery
Successful change is rarely just about delivering a new system, process, structure or way of working.
It is about whether people understand the change, choose to engage with it, know what to do differently, are able to do it in practice, and continue doing it after the initial launch has passed.
That is why I find the Prosci ADKAR Model so useful.
ADKAR focuses on the individual journey through change. PRINCE2 supports the structured delivery of the project or initiative that creates the change. Used together, they help connect two things that are often treated separately: the delivery of a solution and the adoption of that solution by people.
Prosci defines ADKAR as the five outcomes an individual needs to achieve for change to be successful: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. PRINCE2 7, meanwhile, places people at the core of the method and highlights the importance of understanding the people involved, the relationships and the project context when tailoring delivery.
In simple terms, PRINCE2 helps answer: “How do we manage and control the project?”
ADKAR helps answer: “How do we help people move through the change?”
Both matter.
PRINCE2 7 already supports modern delivery
One of the biggest misconceptions about PRINCE2 is that it is purely waterfall, documentation-heavy or slow. In reality, PRINCE2 is a project management method that can be tailored to the project, organisation, risk level and delivery approach.
For a modern project manager, that means PRINCE2 7 already gives you a framework for:
clear business justification
defined roles and responsibilities
controlled stages
risk and issue management
quality expectations
progress tracking
change control
benefits focus
stakeholder communication
tailoring to the project environment
Those things are still needed whether a team is using agile, waterfall, hybrid delivery or something in between.
In fact, agile teams can still fail when they lack governance, ownership, decision-making, prioritisation, stakeholder alignment or benefits control. Agile ways of working may help teams deliver iteratively, but they do not remove the need for strong project management.
Why ADKAR works
ADKAR works because it makes change personal.
Organisations do not change in the abstract. People change. Teams change. Leaders change. Managers change. Customers, users and stakeholders change the way they behave, decide, adopt, use, support or reject something.
A new process only delivers value if people follow it.
A new system only delivers value if people use it properly.
A new structure only delivers value if people understand their roles and work differently.
This is the strength of ADKAR. It breaks change down into the individual outcomes needed for adoption to happen.
Awareness: understanding why the change is needed
The first part of ADKAR is Awareness.
This is not just about telling people that a change is happening. It is about helping them understand why the change is needed.
Without awareness, people may see the change as unnecessary, badly timed, imposed or disconnected from reality. They may comply on the surface, but privately resist, ignore or wait for it to pass.
Good awareness answers questions such as:
Why is this happening?
Why now?
What problem are we trying to solve?
What happens if we do not change?
How does this connect to the wider organisation?
For me, this is where strategic change communication becomes critical. Communication should not simply announce the change. It should build understanding.
That means using clear messages, honest context, visible leadership, repetition and opportunities for people to ask questions.
Desire: choosing to participate and support the change
Desire is often the most difficult part of change because it cannot simply be instructed.
People may understand why something is changing and still not want to support it.
This might be because they are worried about job security, workload, confidence, status, customer impact, team relationships, or whether leaders really mean what they say.
Prosci describes Desire as the personal decision to support and participate in the change. That distinction matters. You can influence desire, but you cannot force it.
This is where change management has to move beyond broadcast communication.
Leaders and managers need to listen. Sponsors need to be visible. Concerns need to be acknowledged. The benefits need to feel relevant. People need to understand what the change means for them, not just what it means for the organisation.
Desire grows when people feel the change is credible, necessary and worth engaging with.
Knowledge: knowing how to change
Knowledge is about helping people understand what they need to do differently.
This might include training, guidance, process maps, role briefings, manager toolkits, FAQs, demonstrations, coaching or user support.
A common mistake is to jump to training too early.
If people do not yet understand why the change is happening, or have no desire to engage with it, training may not land. They may attend the session but fail to absorb or apply the content.
ADKAR is helpful because it reminds us that knowledge is not the starting point. Prosci describes Knowledge as the third milestone in the model, after Awareness and Desire.
That sequencing is important.
Before asking people to learn a new way of working, we need to help them understand why it matters and why they should engage.
Ability: being able to perform in the new way
Knowledge and ability are not the same thing.
Someone can attend training, understand the theory and still struggle to perform the new behaviour in real life.
Ability is about practical application.
Can people use the new system?
Can managers have the right conversations?
Can teams follow the new process under pressure?
Can people make decisions in the new structure?
Can they do it when the trainer, change manager or project team is no longer in the room?
This is where change needs practice, coaching, reinforcement, feedback and support.
Prosci describes Ability as the stage where people can act on the knowledge they have gained. This is a useful reminder that training completion is not the same as adoption.
A project may be technically live, but people may still not be confident or capable in the new way of working.
That gap is where many changes lose value.
Reinforcement: making the change stick
The final part of ADKAR is Reinforcement.
This is about making sure the change continues after launch.
Without reinforcement, people can drift back to old behaviours. This is especially likely if the old way is easier, faster, more familiar or still informally rewarded.
Reinforcement might include:
Leadership follow-up
Manager check-ins
Recognition of new behaviours
Performance measures
Refresher training
User support
Pulse checks
Lessons learned
Celebrating progress
Removing old processes or workarounds
This is where change becomes embedded.
It is also where benefits realisation becomes more realistic. A project does not create value simply because it has delivered outputs. Value comes when people adopt the change and keep using it in the intended way.
Why PRINCE2 Practitioner supports change
PRINCE2 Practitioner supports change because it provides a structured way to manage the project environment around the change.
Where ADKAR focuses on individual adoption, PRINCE2 helps with governance, decision-making, roles, planning, risk, issues, quality, business justification and control.
That structure is important because change often fails when there is confusion around ownership, scope, decision rights, benefits, risks or what success actually looks like.
PRINCE2 is described by PeopleCert as a globally recognised structured project management method that provides clear guidance for managing projects effectively. PRINCE2 7 also emphasises applying and tailoring the method to projects, leading teams effectively and supporting project success.
For change work, that tailoring is particularly important.
Not every change needs heavy governance. Not every project needs the same level of control. But every meaningful change does need clarity.
PRINCE2 helps define why the change matters
One of the most useful aspects of PRINCE2 is the focus on continued business justification.
From a change perspective, this matters because people are more likely to support a change when there is a clear reason for it.
If the business case is weak, vague or disconnected from real organisational need, the change story becomes harder to communicate.
PRINCE2 encourages the project to remain connected to value, benefits and justification. ADKAR then helps translate that rationale into awareness for the people affected.
In practical terms, the business case should inform the change narrative.
The change story should not be invented separately. It should be grounded in why the project exists in the first place.
PRINCE2 helps clarify roles and accountability
Change can become messy when people are unclear about who owns what.
Who is sponsoring the change?
Who makes decisions?
Who manages delivery?
Who owns the benefits?
Who supports impacted teams?
Who communicates with stakeholders?
Who manages resistance?
Who signs off readiness?
PRINCE2 provides a clear structure for roles and responsibilities within the project. This can support change management by making ownership more visible.
For example, senior sponsorship is critical in ADKAR because leaders play a major role in building awareness and desire. PRINCE2 helps ensure the right senior people are engaged in governance, direction and decision-making.
The change manager should not be left trying to create commitment in isolation.
PRINCE2 helps manage risk and issues
People-related risks are still project risks.
If users are not ready, if managers are not engaged, if training is too late, if stakeholders are resistant, if communications are unclear, if adoption is low, then the project’s outcomes are at risk.
PRINCE2 provides a disciplined approach to risk and issue management. This matters for change because adoption risks need to be visible, not treated as soft side concerns.
Examples of change-related risks include:
Low leadership alignment
Poor manager engagement
Insufficient training time
Stakeholder resistance
Lack of user readiness
Competing initiatives
Unclear benefits
Poor post-launch support
Operational teams reverting to old ways of working
When these are managed through the project’s governance and reporting routes, they are more likely to be acted on.
ADKAR helps diagnose where the risk may be coming from. PRINCE2 helps ensure the risk is escalated, owned and managed.
PRINCE2 helps control change to the project
One useful distinction in PRINCE2 is that not every issue is a change. A change often relates to the project baseline and may affect what is being delivered, how it is being delivered, schedules or estimates.
This is important because organisational change can generate many requests, concerns and reactions.
Some are adoption issues.
Some are communications issues.
Some are training needs.
Some are genuine requests to change scope, timing, design or delivery.
PRINCE2 helps create a controlled way to assess these points rather than allowing the project to drift informally.
That is useful for change practitioners because it creates a route for separating feedback that can be managed through engagement from formal changes that need governance.
PRINCE2 helps connect outputs to outcomes
A project can deliver an output without achieving the desired outcome.
For example, a project may deliver:
A new intranet
A new CRM system
A new operating model
A new process
A new reporting structure
A new customer journey
A new policy
But the outcome depends on whether people understand it, use it and sustain it.
This is where ADKAR and PRINCE2 work well together.
PRINCE2 helps manage the delivery of the product. ADKAR helps manage the human adoption required to realise the benefit.
The project output might be “new system launched”.
The change outcome might be “teams use the system consistently and confidently as part of their daily work”.
Those are related, but they are not the same.
How ADKAR and PRINCE2 can work together in practice
I see ADKAR and PRINCE2 as complementary rather than competing approaches.
PRINCE2 gives the delivery structure.
ADKAR gives the people lens.
A practical way to connect them is to map ADKAR activity across the project lifecycle.
Starting up and initiating the project
At the start of a project, the change practitioner should be asking:
Who is impacted?
How significant is the change?
What is the case for change?
Who needs to sponsor it?
What might people be concerned about?
What does successful adoption look like?
This is where early ADKAR thinking supports project initiation. Awareness and Desire should already be considered, not left until launch.
The project brief, business case, stakeholder analysis, communications approach and change strategy should all connect.
Planning delivery
During planning, the change practitioner should identify what people need in order to move through ADKAR.
For example:
Awareness: leadership messages, case for change, stakeholder briefings
Desire: sponsor engagement, manager conversations, listening sessions
Knowledge: training plan, guidance, process documentation
Ability: practice sessions, coaching, floorwalking, user support
Reinforcement: adoption measures, recognition, benefits tracking, refresher activity
This helps make change management practical.
Instead of saying “we need comms and training”, ADKAR helps define what each activity is intended to achieve.
Managing delivery
As the project progresses, ADKAR can be used as a diagnostic tool.
If people are resisting, where is the barrier?
Do they lack awareness?
Do they understand the change but not support it?
Do they support it but not know what to do?
Do they know what to do but lack confidence or ability?
Are they using the change but at risk of slipping back?
This is one of the reasons ADKAR works well. It helps avoid generic responses.
Not every problem is solved by more communication.
Not every problem is solved by more training.
If the issue is Desire, another process guide will not fix it. If the issue is Ability, an inspiring leadership message may not be enough.
ADKAR helps target the intervention.
Preparing for go-live
Before go-live, PRINCE2 thinking helps check whether the project is ready from a delivery perspective.
ADKAR helps check whether people are ready from an adoption perspective.
Both are needed.
Useful questions include:
Do people know why the change is happening?
Are managers ready to support their teams?
Have impacted users received the right training?
Can people perform the new behaviours in practice?
Is support available after launch?
Are adoption risks visible?
Are success measures clear?
Has reinforcement been planned?
A go-live decision should not only be based on technical readiness. It should also consider people readiness.
After go-live
After launch, the risk is that the project team moves on too quickly.
This is where Reinforcement becomes essential.
The change practitioner should look at whether the change is actually being adopted.
Are people using the new process?
Are they confident?
Are managers reinforcing the right behaviours?
Are workarounds appearing?
Are benefits starting to show?
What needs adjusting?
PRINCE2 supports this through continued focus on outcomes, lessons and benefits. ADKAR supports it by keeping attention on whether individual change has been sustained.
Why this matters for me as a change practitioner
For me, the value of combining ADKAR and PRINCE2 Practitioner is that it brings together two sides of successful change.
I have seen how easy it is for organisations to focus heavily on delivery while underestimating adoption.
A project can have a plan, governance structure, budget, timeline and launch date, but still struggle if people do not understand it, want it, know how to work with it, feel able to use it, or receive reinforcement after go-live.
ADKAR gives me a simple, practical way to think about the human journey.
PRINCE2 gives me a structured way to think about delivery, control and governance.
Together, they help me ask better questions:
What are we delivering?
Why does it matter?
Who is impacted?
What needs to change for them?
Where might resistance appear?
What support will people need?
How will we know adoption is happening?
How will we sustain the change after launch?
Those questions are central to effective change management.
Final thoughts
ADKAR works because it recognises that organisational change happens through individual change.
It gives structure to the people side of change by focusing on Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.
PRINCE2 Practitioner supports change by providing a disciplined project management approach that helps govern delivery, clarify roles, manage risk, control change and maintain focus on business justification and outcomes.
Neither approach is enough on its own.
A well-managed project can still fail if people do not adopt the change.
A well-designed change approach can struggle if the project lacks structure, governance or delivery discipline.
Together, ADKAR and PRINCE2 create a stronger foundation.
PRINCE2 helps manage the project.
ADKAR helps people move through the change.
For change practitioners, that combination is powerful because it connects delivery with adoption, and outputs with outcomes.
About Mark M Barton
I am a Change Management, Change Communications, Project Delivery and Operations professional with over 25 years' experience helping organisations deliver complex projects, improve operations and navigate organisational change.
Certified in both Prosci Change Management and PRINCE2, I work across change management, project delivery, operational improvement, internal communications and transformation initiatives, helping organisations achieve successful outcomes through both structured delivery and effective people engagement.
If I can help you, your team, or your organisation do reach out.
