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ADKAR Assessment Tool
Score each group on Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement, find where each is stuck, and track it month by month.
This tool also runs as a stage in a playbook, which takes you through several tools in order:
- Manage organizational change Stage 3 of 5: where is each group stuck? Start at stage 1
Not following the playbook?
Already have a plan, and people just aren't adopting it? The playbook can start here. Name the groups who have to work the new way.
The groups to check
The groups whose daily work changes. Score each separately: an average across the organization hides groups stuck in different places.
This check
Plan the check: five questions, ready to copy
Ask a few people from each group, or send it as a short survey. Answers run from 1 (not at all) to 5 (fully). A group's score is its typical answer.
- Ask in this order, and stop at the first weak answer if you are short of time.
- People rarely say "I don't want to". If someone can explain the change and still isn't doing it, read a technical complaint as a Desire answer.
Your notes never leave your browser
Group names and actions stay on your computer and in your progress file. To write the diagnosis, only the scores are sent to our server. How it works
Score each group
1 (low) to 5 (high) on each element, in order. The first element at 3 or less is the group's barrier point: where it is stuck.
- The order is a gate: Knowledge can't move until Desire does. You can stop at the first score of 3 or less.
- Use the group's typical answer, not its best one.
Where each group is stuck
The outlined cell is each group's barrier point: the first element at 3 or less. Later elements can't move until it does.
Since the last check
What to do about each barrier point
Next month: score again
Add a new check to this same file. It starts from today's scores, so you only change what moved, and the results show the trend.
Save your progress
Download your progress file to continue from this point any time, on any computer: choose it under "Coming back?" at the start of the tool. Each new file includes everything so far, including the earlier stages when they are connected, so keep the latest one. Your work stays in this browser only until you close it.
Not saved yet.
Take your results with you
A PDF of the barrier points, the trend since the last check, the actions and the diagnosis.
About the tool
Why it exists
Find where each group is stuck
ADKAR follows a change person by person, or group by group, through five elements that come in a fixed order: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. The first one a group falls short on is its barrier point, and that is the only one worth working on.
This tool works on its own, and as stage 3 of our playbook for managing organizational change, where it picks up the groups from stage 1 and the announcement date from stage 2. The playbook can also start here, when a plan exists and people just aren't adopting it. For the method, see our guide to the ADKAR model.
The method
How the tool works
Scores. Each group gets 1 to 5 on each element. The barrier point is the first element at 3 or less. A group above 3 on all five is through.
Decision point. A group stuck at Awareness or Desire, before Knowledge, is not trained yet: training people who don't want the change is wasted. In the playbook, groups stuck at Desire go on to stage 4.
Monthly checks. "Add this month's check" keeps a new check in the same file, starting from the last scores. The results show each group's barrier point then and now, and which scores moved.
Suggestions. "Suggest an action for each barrier point" writes the standard fix for each stuck group's barrier element, only where the box is empty. A suggestion you haven't edited follows the scores: change them and it changes too. "Clear the suggestions" removes the ones you haven't edited.
What leaves your computer. Group names and actions stay in your browser and your progress file. To write the diagnosis, the page sends our server only the scores, by place in your list, and the server keeps nothing.